Can a home educated child return to school in a lower year?

[Repeatingschool]

Can a child ever return to school from being home educated in a lower year than they should be ?

DS is 16 and was home educated from year 5 as couldn’t cope at all. Initially it went well and we had tutors but at age 12 he started to refuse totally much as he had school refused prior to deregistering. What followed was years of him being in burnout. He’s now coming out of that but is devastated and wishes he had gone to school. Is there any way of managing this ? Would a school take a child and put them back a year or two ?

Unfortunately this is why parents have to try and intervene to prevent kids making choices (like not wanting to be in school) where they lack the maturity to understand that there are no do-overs, if you miss your years in school you only have alternative routes open to you. Ive come across several parents recently who home educated/allowed kids to school refuse, and have kids who have really regretted it later on as they've matured a bit.

You need to talk about realistic options for your DS like college, which will have lots of good academic routes for him. He can still do his GCSEs and be in an educational setting with other kids his age.

You can go back one year. Some Scottish pupils who have come to our school have gone back a year at a similar age, so they have the opportunity to pass GCSEs. Your son needs to be on board with the whole process as it’s going to be tough for him.

You need a 14-19 college as others have said. You also need to choose very carefully.

When people talk about SEND leading to additional support they mean with an EHCP. Which is very hard to get without any support from an ‘education’ side.

Unfortunately as he is leaving compulsory school age, the local authority obligations are also decreasing. Yes, technically all young people should be in some sort of education until 18. Realistically if they are not they simply become a NEET statistic. There will be college places he is entitled to but you will have to find them. There won’t be the support to get him there that you might have had if you were trying this when he was 13.

Sorry it’s not the news you wanted to hear. Unfortunately you’ve left it too late.

What a vile post! You cannot guarantee anything of the sort! Please educate yourself about ASD and ASD burnout before accusing the OP of failing her child!
Horrid post

I know a 6th form college isn’t technically school but practically, it’s still school. It’s a bunch of same/similar-age kids with timetables and classes and teachers. Since your son has never been to secondary school at all it’s not like he’s going to be super surprised by the differences between a secondary and a 6th form college anyway. His experience means he’ll be comparing it to either homeschool life or primary school.

wild "Did council not support? There should have been support available...."

If a child is mute, won't acknowledge outsiders, leave the house or log onto teams lessons then the council don't have much to go on. My DD took about a month to be able to log onto local authority Teams lessons. CAMHS are not interested, I tried for years and because she was waiting an autism assessment they won't do a thing. These are the kids who fall into a black hole despite parents asking for help for years and years. The only thing that made it different for us was that I refused to deregister her, they asked me to and she missed over a year of school, and I made sure she was still the local authorities "problem".

It isn't very nice, but unfortunately most people don't know much about autistic burnout either.

Loads of people will never even have heard of it, including a lot of autistic people themselves.

I don't think it is very fair to call this poster as vile and horrid. Insensitive and thoughtless, yes, but that's too far as well.

What an unpleasant and unnecessarily unkind response...
@WildDenimDuckdo you feel better now?

Sorry I don’t buy that! There is plenty of evidence of many posters on this forum enjoying giving a good kicking to anyone who mentions ASD or in their words “uses it as an excuse”. The ableism on these boards is staggering.

That is your opinion and you are entitled to it.

Mine is it isn't fair to call ignorance and insensitivity vile and horrid.

If you think NT people are ever going to have the same interest and understanding of ND people and issues, you will be very disappointed.
They are the main stream and we are the niche, not the other way around.

It sounds like it has been tough but realistically no - you need to be looking at FE colleges for September. He’s aged out of school now and I would say that ship has sailed and you need to be realistic with options moving forward. School is over but education isn’t - go and look at your local colleges and see if there are any courses of interest- most offer GCSE maths and English alongside the course of choice.

Some people on here seem to have a comprehension problem.

From what OP has said, her son sounds like he's very mature and self-motivated if he's been studying by himself all this time. Much more than your average kid who has been in school.

Assuming he is a 16 year old who should currently be in Y11 and is in England, he will get 3 years of funding at college. So he could spend 1 year doing a fast track GCSE course to sit maths, English and up to 3 other GCSEs and then 2 years doing A-levels or another level 2 or 3 course depending on how academic he is and where his skills lie.

OP just needs to do some research into local college options and give them a call, see if there are any open days coming up. There's still plenty of time for him to get something sorted to start in September.

My DS is currently in a mixed class of Y7,8 & 9, he is Y9. He has hardly been educated at his current school because they just give him the same materials year after year and don't give him the SALT and OT that is specified on his EHCP.
We are attempting to move him to a new school though it would probably have to be in Y8 as there are no Y9 in the school we want.
In order for this to happen, unless the school agrees exceptionally (which it probably won't because it has additional implications e.g. he won't take exams at 16 so it won't count in their figures), it has to be written into his EHCP. We have evidence that he's been in the year below but it isn't currently written in so we may have to appeal.

DD suffered from autistic burnout in year 8. She never went back to school. I fought tooth and nail to keep her on roll there. Engaged with them every step of the way. Nearly bit through my tongue when the EWO visited every 6 weeks or so with the "just bring her in in her nightie, she'll change her mind" attitude.

School would not support with any tutoring online or in person. EHCP was declined.

The only way forward was for me to pay for private tutoring from last July when she would have just been finishing year 10. She has managed to cover the curriculum to sit 6 GCSE's this year after 8 months of really intensive learning. She attended 2 sets of mocks at school and had been predicted grades 5/6 in all subjects. It has cost me about £15k and I'm a single parent. I'm "lucky" the school have arranged for her exam sittings so I don't have that expense as well.

Kids who are academically able, but not able to attend a traditional school environment are so badly let down in this country.

Would private school be a possibility for you? They can be flexible with year groups and some of them specialise in supporting SEN kids

A lot of schools cover GCSE from year 9. Just to say OP I have my 11 year old in burnout at the moment. I know it’s so hard.

Schools won’t put a child in a lower year because they have to include them in reporting exam results for their age group even if they are not sitting the exams that year.

I believe children are entitled to state funded education until age 19, so if he is year 11 age bow that woudl be 3 years funded at college. He would not be able to do A levels at a school without gcse’s.

by all means contact your local education authority and see if a school will accept, but more likely to visit colleges and see what they can offer fr September.

He doesn’t have an EHCP though - you’d be advised to start this process urgently as it will give him entitlement beyond the usual 3 years of sixth form age.

As others have said, a 14-18 programme at a College would be worth looking at, or a GCSE programme at an FE college.

There is absolutely no reason why he can't start a college course in September, along with many of his peers. He will be able to take GCSEs then, if he is ready to do so, if not he will be able to access the lesso s required to get his learning up to standard
Until then there may be short college courses available to him to get him back into the swing of things but it is highly unlikely that any mainstream school would be able to take him at this stage of the year.

State schools are unlikely to accept DS. Some independent schools might if that is an option.

As well as colleges, look at school sixth forms. Some sixth forms only offer A levels or other level 3 courses, but some offer level 2 courses. Without GCSEs, some wouldn’t admit onto a level 2 course but sometimes there is flexibility in this for EHE DC.

Or DS can continue to be EHE post 16. If you are looking for DS to take GCSE/IGCSEs privately, you should start looking for an exam centre now. Not all exam centres accept private candidates. You will need to check they offer the boards/subjects needed. Some book up quickly.

Request an EHCNA yourself now. On their website, IPSEA has a model letter you can use.

The consultant gave bad advice. Even if DS wasn’t able to attend school, the LA would have had a duty to provide provision. That wouldn’t have had to be academic provision if DS needed more therapeutic input. The offer has to be suitable. However, by electively home educating, you relieved the LA of this duty. Unfortunately, this duty only applies to CSA pupils.

Wow!

@Repeatingschool you say he's worked really hard and followed the curriculum. If that's the case he should be ready to take his GCSEs, so I don't understand why he's not been booked in for them.

As others have said, he now has no entitlement to a school place as he's over 16.

It seems as though you haven't had a plan for him and, to be honest, have let him down. I know that sounds harsh, and I'm sure you took him out of school with good intentions, but you should have reviewed this with him when he was 14 and looked at either putting him back into school for Y10 and Y11 OR developed a structured plan for him to stay home schooled but be enrolled somewhere to take his GCSEs. Waiting until the summer term of Y11 to start thinking about it is totally unfair on him.

I presume you gave up work to homeschool. Could you go back to work FT which, even in a low paid role, should be enough to pay for a private 6th form place? A private school is likely to be more flexible about year groups etc and he could perhaps do 4 or 5 GCSEs in his first year there then 2 years of A levels/Btec.

What does he want to do long term? College, University, work, apprenticeship?

What do you mean by wow?
It is the truth.

I tried my best to be diplomatic to you when I didn't like the language you used in your post towards others for srating their opinions, but your expectations are crazy, if you honestly think that most NT people know enough or even should know enough about autism, to label anyone questioning anything straight away as vile and horrid.

Anyway, I apologise to OP, as this thread is not about you or me, and I hope she does get some useful advice to get her DS back into education.

He only turned a corner in the last month after starting AD and it’s too late to book this years GCSEs