Changed mind over year 7 school place

[LiaGee]

Just wondering if anyone else has Been in a similar position? Applied for secondary schools within the time frame and got first choice. Discussed home educating also. Son attended transition day and I’ve filled in enrolment form but after long deliberation we’ve decided (son included) that he’d be happier if home educated. I’ve emailed school just saying we no longer want the school place and asked that they remove him from the list but I wasn’t sure what would happen next. Although we’ve filled in enrolment forms, he’s not due to start until Sept so as he’s not going now I didn’t think we needed to deregister…. Or do we? What should I expect now? Will I hear from school and will they ask questions? I don’t have to go into detail as to why we no longer need the school place but not sure if they then contact LA about it?

Personally, I would give school a chance.

I would also see how school goes

They will contact the local authority to release the place to someone on the waiting list (if the school is oversubscribed, although if they're already over PAN there isn't a place to release). They should also inform the admissions team that you're planning to electively home educate. It's worth getting in touch with the elective home education team at your local authority to inform them of your decision.

It's not clear from the OP if your child is currently in school or being home educated. If at school then the current school should be told of your changed plans. There a lot of concern about children going missing from the education system, especially at natural end/start years. I would let the primary school know your plans and I agree with others above that giving secondary a try might be a better idea. A taster day doesn't tell the whole story.

Are you in a position to homeschool well OP? You don't need/want to work? And you have a good enough education yourself in enough different areas/subjects?

Why are you choosing home ed over school. School for teens can be so important as it is developmentally where they put distance between family and link with their peers.

Home ed will likely challenge parent teen relationship. I would really try school with plan B in place.

It's not clear is he currently home educated or in a primary school? I would agree with others that I would be encouraging him to try starting at the secondary school unless your circumstances have changed drastically which seems unlikely in the time since applying and accepting the place.

Secondary education is a whole other ball game to primary. Home schooling in primary was bad enough during covid but the work my teens did/are doing is so far removed from my own secondary education. Then there's what happens at GCSE time? Would you have to pay for those exams? My DD's school preps them for their GCSEs with regular tests, two lots of mock exams, or is it three? past papers, careers days, college taster days attended as a school group, not to mention the social and personal development side. My Dd hates school but she'd be at such a disadvantage if she didn't attend. Is there a big drip feed coming?

I’m quite surprised at the responses I’ve had so far. Rather than answering the question I had, people are advising I give secondary school a go? There are many reasons we’ve come to the decision to home educate, as I said in my first post “after long deliberation” but I’ve chosen not to go into those reasons because I was just posting to ask people who have been in a similar position to tell me what to expect next. Yes I work Yes my other half works yes I would say we are well educated and are in a position to home educate if we want to (although you don’t need a degree to home ed and a lot of people manage to do it working a full time job) My son is in year 6 and is finishing in a few wks so he did the whole of primary. We care very much about our sons education hence the journey we’ve been on with him and we also value and honour his wants and needs and have included him in this decision and at any point if he decided he wanted to go to school then we would make it happen. He plays the drums, he’s part of a football team and plays weekly, he has other stuff going on outside of school so there’s no concerns that he won’t be ‘socialising enough’ which is a common misconception about children who are home educated, If anyone is going through or has gone through similar to what I asked in my original post then I’d love to hear your experiences 😊

I'm not sure why you're surprised people have said give it a go as you'd clearly thought at some point that it would be a good option hence applying, accepting the place and sending him for a transition. I'm not sure why you wouldn't then see how he got on at secondary before making the decision to home school especially if he's never actually been homeschooled in the past.

Personally I'd be more worried about him having unrealistic expectations of what it will be like to be homeschooled rather than him being isolated.

However in terms of your question yes they will contact the LA and they will either write or phone you to find out what is happening and discuss your home ed plans.

In a similar situation for Primary school (we were moving abroad unexpectedly), we emailed the school that the place was no longer required... the council then rang us to confirm the situation and that was it.

As your child is currently in school I think you will need to deregister.

@Procrastinates My post wasn’t to ask anyone their advice if it was a good idea to home educate or not. We applied for a school place even though at the point of choosing schools, home educating was an option we’d discussed but knew that if we didn’t pick within time period then it would be more of a faff sorting out a place later on if our son wanted to go. We went through the process of picking a school so that if it was still what he wanted then everything would be in place and he’d go to secondary in sept like most children. He has talked about being home educated for a while now but we wanted to keep all options available because at the end of the day we want him to be happy and his happiness is paramount. After attending his transition day (which we agree isn’t a true reflection of the school overall but we advised him to go to get a little taster anyway) he stressed to us that he would much rather be home educated and after a serious chat we have decided to go for it. I spent 10 yrs in the police, I’ve worked on youth projects with young people, I have worked with families of kids who have committed suicide over peer pressure, bullying, and various other experiences kids have had in secondary school, I understand fully what decisions I make and they are informed ones. My son is smart and mature and we trust and value his thoughts and feelings which is why we are doing this. There are unfortunately children out there who don’t have parents like us (and I’ve met many of them) and we put our kids mental health first. You can’t learn and thrive without a healthy mindset and a strong supportive foundation on which to grow from. Just posted to see what other peoples experience was when emailing school to tell
them that you no longer needed the place. That was all 😊

A child is registered at a school "from the beginning of the first day on which the school has agreed, or has been notified, that the pupil will attend the school." https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2006/1751/regulation/5

Having told the school the place is not required, you've now done all you are required to do. Your child will not be registered at the secondary school and therefore you don't have to deregister him.

As for his primary school, he ceases to become a pupil there once he has completed his last year of education there, so you also won't need to deregister him from it.

What happens next: you don't need to have any further communication with the school. In due course, the LA will want to know what arrangements you've made for your son's education, and you'll need to tell them he's now being home educated. (If they don't happen to ask, you have no obligation to contact them and volunteer that information. There is rarely any benefit to doing so.)

The LA can and probably will ask you for some information about his home education. It's premature and pointless for them to ask about how you PLAN to home educate, as that has no legal bearing on the question of whether you ARE providing a suitable education, but most LA staff are unfamiliar with the law! So you can decline to answer any questions about the future, as those questions just waste everybody's time.

They ought to write to you, but some may phone up or even appear on your doorstep with no warning(!) and try to invite themselves to visit your home. You can simply tell them you want all correspondence in writing, and send them a report on what you're doing. You don't have to complete any forms they may send, which will almost certainly include questions which are intrusive or irrelevant, and won't ask about some of the things you might want to tell them about your child's education.

Technically you have no obligation to give the LA any information at all, but in the absence of any information, they may conclude that there is an appearance that your child isn't receiving a suitable education, and take legal action against you. It's easier to avoid that scenario by sending them something. However, it's up to you what format that information takes. They can't disregard it simply because you didn't fill in their forms or agree to let them visit or whatever they may request/demand. Some LA staff get a bit overenthused and think they can demand your compliance with whatever policies they may concoct, but they don't get to override the law.

By the way, you might prefer to post on the home ed board if you want input from people who know about home education.

If you're sure, contact council admissions and let them know so the place can be released from the waiting list.

Thank you @Saracen that was all really helpful information and yes you are right I probably should have posted on a home ed thread, I’m
new to mumsnet so that was my error and in future I’ll go down that route instead! Appreciate you taking the time to post all of that for me 😊

Hi OP. I suspect different LEAs have different practices, so this info may not be relevant to you. But when I was HE, I had to submit a form, which the primary school gave me, I took about 10 mins to fill and return to the school, it wasn't onerous at all, it was just giving an outline of what DS would be studying / learning/ doing. I actually found our home ed. Officer really helpful, she had pointers and ideas, and knew lots of different groups we could link into. Non of it was compulsory, but personally I found some of the info really helpful and disregarded other bits. She set challenges for the kids to do over the 'holidays', and ideas for 'term- time' as with HE you're not confined to term-times. In fact I think DS was quit happy going back into mainstream as he got 'holidays' whereas with HE, I expected him to study every day!
She asked us to submit a few bits of work as evidence that Ds was getting some form of education and came and chatted to ds about what he was learning, again we could have declined, but actually ds really enjoyed chatting to her, and it was surprisingly nice to get positive feedback back, at no point did she try and persuade DS to re-join mainstream, but it was useful to know there would be support for Ds at a future date, should we return to mainstream education.
Ds did return back into mainstream and it was a very easy transition.
So let primary know your plans, they should then give you the necessary form, and then the LEA should do everything else. For us HE was absolutely right, it built Ds' confidence, and gave him the strategies needed to re-join mainstream. I would say don't be afraid to ask your LEA HE officer for help if things go a bit bumpy (which at sometime it almost certainly will) the officer is there to support you both, and ensure both you and you 'dc' are doing okay.

@anunlikelyseahorse thank you so much for sharing your experience! I’m glad it was really positive for you and your son 😊 sometimes it isn’t positive but I hope that won’t be the case for us. I have emailed the school to inform them we no longer want the school place so for now I’ll wait until the LA get in touch and take it from there.