Home educating my children from school for a while, please help!

[MayorMumbum]

It is a very long story that has led us to this point but after a bit of a horrible year and our DD not being offered an acceptable school place DH and I are looking at moving relatively soon (next two months at most) for a fresh start somewhere new.
Due to most schools being full I am prepared to home ed my two eldest for as long as it takes them to get a school place we are happy with (DD has quite severe anxiety issues). I know that for DS (8) all I will need to do is to hand in the letter to the head of his primary about deregistering him but what about my eldest as she is expected to start at a high school we have no intention of sending her to in September? (we aren't allowed to turn down school places this year in our area, apparently).
Do I write a deregistration letter for her for her primary and then send another on the first day of the term for secondary school, or will one letter to her primary school do?
Also as I do intend them to go back to school at some point (unless we all really love home ed) when things are more settled for our family do I let them know that is my intention?

Thanks for any advice!

we aren't allowed to turn down school places this year in our area, apparently

Of course you are. No-one can force you to accept the offered place.

You don't need to let them know that you intend to return them to school. However, you will need to apply if you want them on waiting lists for the schools you want.

We only home educated for a term and the local council visited us twice. Do make sure you’ve got clear idea of what your goals for learning are so you have something written down.

It was a very positive experience for DD but we were all glad it was only for one term and she was very ready to start school when she returned to mainstream education.

Good luck

I got severe anxiety from an awful school experience. You are an amazing mum for putting your daughters needs the priority as home education can really help a child learn and start to enjoy their life that a bad school can try and take away from them unfortunately. I believe each child is an individual with unique qualities which need to be recognised and nurtured in an environment that works for them.
The benefits of home education are that you can spend lots of time on an interest or topic that you can’t at school where theres only a certain time allotted to each thing. Children can really figure out what their passions are and who they are before sending them out into the dog-eat-dog world. Each child is free to pursue their own interests. Home educated children can copy out a great poem, visit a museum or write a story. If you treat everything as a learning experience that can be enjoyable they are more likely to see learning less as a chore. Not something to do to pass an exam. Children achieve things at different times. And home schooled kids are very encouraged to become lifelong learners as they often seek out answers and look for information themselves which will help them a lot if they go to university. With home educating you can also go at the child’s pace, rather than the child having to go at the class’s pace which can definitely help with anxiety. Children are far less afraid to ask a parent about anything they don’t understand, than putting a hand up in front of a whole classroom. If your child really struggles with certain subjects, if they have “uneven skills” but excel at others, you can structure their learning accordingly, which helps to boost their confidence.
Getting children away from the peer pressure and bullying that they could encounter a lot in schools and have them grow up in their own time and be able to create your own curriculum for them which has no bounds of national curriculum, non national curriculum. Whatever suits you. You can look for inspiration in education by looking at what they do in the school around the corner or at Eton college on their website about curriculum and can try and put what you want for their learning in their own curriculum. There isn't one way to home educate. You have schools where children learn through play like montessori/steiner and schools which are very academic focused or ones that are all rounders. Home educating means you can look at your childs interests and strengths in subjects which you can nurture. There is a lot of information out there and at the same time you can try and nurture their weakness in certain subjects and try to address it. There is certain sites out there that schools use for instance the language website linguascope which can be accessed to help them with learning languages and there are many more. Waterstones sells text books in different subjects for every age. With using your own initative you can come up with ideas like your daughter writing a fantasy story after reading Harry potter and watching the lion, the witch and the wardrobe for instance. I have found jacqueline wilsons writing sets really help encourage writing. Or for instance going to a science museum where they can learn about the solar system by visiting the planetarium. Something more exciting than just learning from a textbook. You could to boost her confidence get her to answer Religious and philosophy questions like is it ever right to tell a lie? and have her find out what she thinks which will help her feel more secure in herself with no one around telling her shes wrong. Times table challenges can be found online. After reading a book you could ask her who is the main character and what are they like, what are the good and bad bits etc. Doing real life problem solving can make maths more fun and real. Learning how to design a web page could make her feel less anxious as she will be confident in her achievements. Taking her to the zoo to learn about animal habitats and zoos often have a zoo keeper for a day opportunity for children and there she could learn about animal behaviour as well. Watching film adaptations of books she could do a comparison from reading and watching the same story and talk about the differences and what worked better. Learning about the second world war she could read anne frank and learn what it might be like to grow up in a different time period. Movies like goodnight mr tom and carries war deal with child war evacuation and the book thief and the boy in the striped pyjamas deal with growing up in this era from living in germany. In science you could teach psychology from an earlier age than in schools learning about memory and attachment which can be more interesting for kids than equations. Wellbeing learning where you learn about what being well means and how to build grit and resilience would be very beneficial. Questions in science can include How can a chimpanzee be taught to speak with sign language? what is colour? How does soap clean? why do perfumes smell? why does coffee wake you up? and whys the sky blue can make kids try and find out the answers. Questions in history such as Can one decision change history? For example the1066 Norman Conquest, Did society become fairer after the First World War? For example Votes for Women and in RE Is ‘good’ just a matter of social agreement? What can we know for certain? Does the beauty of the world point to God? Can you doubt that 2+2=4? do you need proof to believe, should anyone be blamed for jesus’ death, could I go on a pilgrimage to westfield, can you have a religion without god, can you be a perfect sikh in todays world, is it possible to live after we die - these questions can be asked and debated in home education. Movies and books can help for instance if they learn about Edwardian england they could watch the tv drama the lost prince, the movie titanic and read peter pan which all came out or was around in this time period. Anatomy can be learnt from the board game Operation and wave formation can be a topic while going to the beach. There is a Maths for life programme that a long of home educated kids that you can't learn at school do which is really important. to learn. You learn about tax, how to manage finances, about the stock market, how to budget, how to make companies profitable, learning about how to compare how a family runs its finances compared to how a company runs its finances which is the maths you really need. Life skills like lifesaving, gardening, cooking, how to defend yourself, the duke of edinburgh award and fundraising for charities and learning about living as a child in poverty to help build empathy in children. Studying politics and different ideologies that is not learnt a lot at school can help kids gain their own opinions. Your daughter could undertake a self directed project on a topic of her choosing.
The socialising doesn't have to stop as there are drama clubs which can be great and music, sports etc. You are more likely to make friends with people you have something in common with than to be just sat next to someone in a classroom who you have no idea about their hobbies.
If she prefers home education or school there are great opportunities in both but if she suffers from anxiety to learn for at least a while in her own home can be a place she can grow her confidence and learn more securely as you won't learn if you are struggling or have fun which is even more important for children.

Thanks so much for your reply. You make homeschool sound so lovely! To be honest I think DD would prefer it over going to high school full stop but we don't live in an area with a lot of home school families and I do think she'd get lonely after a while . I'm just so confused and anxious at the moment.

It all does depend on the schools around and the home educating opportunities around. However all the clubs kids do after school and Saturday morning clubs are around for everyone and there are online home ed groups but it is a massive change. If she is really anxious home school can be a temporary solution or a permanent one depending on what fits for her and the family. Going straight from a school if she is unhappy to another school the same anxiety issues could follow her around whereas if she takes some time out to figure out some stuff and let her confidence grow in her own secure home environment she might then want to go back to school and will be a lot better and secure in herself. If home schooling makes her happier full stop and works for the family than it can be great too. Whatever works.