Help.. trying to decide if I should home educate

[jomoo]

I have two children ds who is 12 and dd who is 8. My son was diagnosed (after 6 years of asking for help) with ADHD/ODD last year. He has had an awful time at primary school, I feel incredibly guilty that I forced him to go to school for 4 years when he was obviously so miserable (although school were telling me he was fine in school so I found it difficult to make a decision and he refused to move schools even though he was miserable. Anyway, he has started secondary school last september and since then he has had numerous detentions, he's been on report 5 times and is very often described as disruptive in classes. I am having real problems with his school to get any level of support put in for him and I am becoming very frustrated with it all.. From comments made to me I get the impression that school feel he does not have these conditions and he is just 'choosing' to misbehave this way. Although they recently admitted they had no experience of a child with Oppositional Defiant Disorder!! So they have taken what I consider to be a heavy handed approach, which isn't working and is having the opposite effect!!
My ds frequently refused to go to school or makes up illnesses.. he does this atleast once a day every week. When I talk to him to get his opinion on school he says he is bored and doesn't like school, but then who does :-)
He is very clever and is underachieving and I feel that if I home educate him that he would learn more from just being at home and will improve his life skills but I am worried that this might not be the best thing for him.
I have been considering taking him out of school for months but cannot make the final decision which is frustrating me now.
As I am a single parent I worry if financially we will be ok.. how has every one else found this? I'm also worried that socially this might not be the best option because he also has social difficulties I don't know if I would be making it worse for him to learn social interactions if he isn't at school.

I would also take my dd out of school if I did it with my ds as she to is very clever and is always telling me she's bored.. she was gifted when she first started school (assessed in her first year) but this has gone down hill and she is just getting by now (shes in yr 3) which I find very frustrating.

Any help I would really really appreciate. I have mentioned this to my family but they say I can't do that! and all kids would stay off school if asked.. so really unsure what to do although deep down I want to take them out. Thanks

I HE younger children, and have a dc (older) in school. I find myself loosely agreeing with ElsieR in the sense that you should maybe think of exploring other school options before going down the HE route, if possible.

I know it's the view of a lot of home edders that HE kids have more positive experiences of social interaction than schooled children. But it must be pointed out, I think, that those views are expressed by group going, list posting, social HEers. Apart from these, I would bet my teeth that there are an awful lot of HEers who don't attend groups for a myriad of reasons- including that because their children's disruptive behaviour has meant they are not welcome in groups,don't "fit in", or find it difficult and stressful to attend. There are a lot of people out there ploughing pretty lonely furrows with HE, putting a lot of extra pressure on families.

In a nutshell- I would recommend exploring different avenues with school(s) before you HE. At least then you know you've exhausted the other options.