Can anyone tell me about on-line schools?

[AtYourCervix]

I think it might be crunch time for DD.

She is nearly 13, year 8, possible AS, and school is not working and never has. (see my many tales of woe and moaning).

So - we have to decide.

Ditch school and do something different or suck it up and carry on (the risk being miserable for the next 3 years and leaving with nothing).

I can't decide. Nor can she. But if we were to decide would On-line school be an option?

Opinions please?

Yes, there are online schools. I have no personal experience but wanted you to know there are people here.

I'd suggest ditching school and doing something different. Don't think about qualifications until she is 15 (unless she want to think about them sooner). Once she gets to 16, there are (paid for by government) options other than GCSEs.

There are lots of online tutorial programmes. For maths there are loads and I am sure someone could advise Literacy and Science sites.

One of many is Conquer Maths that goes through the whole curriculum. It is video based and then you input the answers online for marking. But there are others.

Have you tried searching tutorial KS4 Online Tutors? there are lots of links, and you could ask for comments/feedback in the Secondary education forum.

Your DD will have to be motivated to want to stick to a timetable to study

A lot of teachers say that you need additional input to these courses so you would have to help as well, or find someone that can help monitor her progress and check her written work.

Hi
Online schools are great if your child wants to feel part of a school still and likes the structure it brings!
It was a saviour for my daughter for 2 years. She is now in a sparkling new school for children with asd.
She did a year at briteschool for primary which was 3 afternoons a week and then a year at interhigh.
The classes are all live, you log in at the start and have time to chat with your friends. The lessons are via microphone, text and powerpoint. Home work is set and you submit that online and you can see when homework is marked, corrections and grades.
this is there website www.interhigh.co.uk you can phone for a demo of the classroom.
We went to the interhigh weekend last year so that the children get a change to meet each other in real life. My daughter did drama for the weekend and they had a brilliant time there!
any questions please ask away!

My DS was at Interhigh for Year 10 & 11 and it worked very well for us. There are pros and cons, same with every kind of education I guess!

Pros -
You get the "normal" range of academic subjects, taught by qualified teachers.

You get to interact with other children of the same age, and bounce ideas around.

The teacher can "exclude" pupils who are disrupting the class, either for a few minutes or longer, and can take them to another "room" to talk to them.

Cons -
You don't get non-academic subjects, as they can't really be done over the PC, so you'd have to think how things like exercise and creativity can be covered.

There is little room for differentiation within a subject, so if she is far ahead or behind you'd need to talk to them about how they will be able to cater for that.

You're still tied in to a timetable for the day/week/term so you don't have the flexibility of other types of HE

She still has to get on with the rest of the class - but it's a much more controlled environment than school, and she won't have the break and lunchtime issues.

I would agree with almost all points mentioned by AMumInScotland.
Just thought it would be worth listing all the British online schools here:
Academy 21
Academus (not sure if they function as could not get any answer from them)
Briteschool
First College
Interhigh
Periplus Education (they actually do offer all the subjects not only core ones as well as personal tuition which can be tailored to the needs of each particular child and is not that strictly timetabled)

someone i know used to work for one, they laid all the teachers off with just a weeks notice, don't know how much notice the children got, apparently they were not making money.

Very serendipitous for me - my asd teen has just been permantly excluded and online seam to be the way to go for us. Amuminscotland very interested in your experiences of interhigh as they are in our area.

raspberry - we were certainly very happy with them, though DS didn't have any "issues" with a school-like way of working, so he probably slotted into it easier than some. It makes interaction easier because the teacher can control it more than a normal classroom, and there aren't the breaktime and lunchtime interactions for your son to deal with if those are a source of problems for him.

AMIS - My Ds loves learning but has little tolerance for other kids (aspergers) half of his problems are when others disrupt and he feels the need to police them !

The more I look in to this the more it meets his needs -

Do you do PE or Art at home?

We only did online school for a couple of years, then DS went back to an ordinary school. And now he's at university!

But yes we tried to make sure he got something for PE, though it was all of us joining a gym (he was allowed to use the cardiovascular machines but not the weights at his age) rather than any team sports.

He got huge amounts of time for music - that's really why we wanted the flexibility. And that really covers the "teamwork" aspect, as he joined the local schools orchestra.

We also signed him up for an art course, but it didn't really work out as it was too prescriptive, so it faded out.

I think with HE in general, you need to think in terms of broad categories, to try to give a balanced education, rather than worrying too much about matching school subjects. So it's worth thinking how you are going to cover "exercise", "teamwork", "creativity", etc rather than get too stressed if you are not doing Art/Music/Drama/PE as a separate subject. Creativity could include decorating cakes or writing computer programs if drawing etc aren't his thing.

Teamwork is likely to be the trickiest, but then it would be in school too with aspergers, so you just have to do what you can - a team sport might work since they have rules? But its really up to you and him to think about how to develop his skills, both in areas which suit him and those he struggles with, and sometimes the focus will be on one rather than the other.

bebanjo yes, it was the biggest one called Accipio. Still don't know what has happened there but sth really dodgy. Some kids got into other schools immediately but some still have no clue on what to do next.