Can someone come talk to me about HE and SN?

[lisad123]

Dd1 is 9 years old. She has a dx of autism, auditory processing disorder and tendon problems. She has alway been at mainstream and things are rapidly going downhill.
Today had an awful day because her teacher wasn't there and they had supply, yesterday was because she didn't understand homework, day before that because someone else didn't follow the rules so whole class got punished.
I am seriously considering pulling her from sept. She a very bright child and has a great attitude to learning.
I don't think I could handle her all alone so would need to get a tutor for math and English I think.
How much planning do i do? How do I de reg her from school.
Who's best to talk to?
Any advice would be great. I'm worried that I'm not doing what's best by removing all her stress but she binge eats and self harms and I can't stand by anymore.

Hi

You've said she;s got a diagnosis. Does she have a statement?

Tens of thousands of children are home educated in England. Sometimes it's because that's what parents decide from the start, but in a great many cases it's in response to problems with school. As someone who has home educated from the start (my son is now 19) I do sometimes struggle to understand why it's seen as A Bad Thing to remove a child from a stressful miserable situation. Seems quite sensible to me!

You don't have to make lots of plans; you can just see how it goes. You don't need to give notice or ask permission. If your daughter has a statement, the LA will probably ask for more information about your home ed before it modifies Part 4 (the bit about the address of the school, ie taking off the name of the school)

I've got more info on my website about home ed and SEN and also wrote a blog post for Special Needs Jungle recently

specialneedsjungle.com/category/home-education/
edyourself.org/articles/helaw.php#specialneeds

Hi Lisad123 - lovely to see you over here (I see you sometimes on the SN board)

I am FIRMLY of the belief that removing the major stress from a person's life makes them much more able to develop in all the other areas. So - being able to control their auditory environment (in a way that a child in school simply can't) means that a child has time and freedom first of all to opt out of all auditorily stressful environments, and then to enter them on her own terms and with whatever crutches she needs (ear defenders etc), and then gradually to desensitise in her own time so that, for many of those auditorily unsettling environments, she does her own therapy and eventually isn't bothered. But full time school just doesn't give a child sufficient power to manage that process IMO.

I would predict that, out of school, you'll have a few months of stress while she deschools, and then she'll start building social confidence with her peers (which may well not be people of the same age - maybe older, or younger, or neighbours, or connected with a special interest) and she will start learning effectively, because she isn't stressed.

Read Alan Thomas and Harriet Pattison's wonderful "How Children Learn at Home" as a starting point for thinking about the academic side. I really don't do formal academic learning with my children at all, but they are like sponges - all I really have to do is answer their questions, read things out when they want them read, and provide at least one treasure hunt a day. That's job done educationally, to be honest.

Lisa, the Education Otherwise website have a page with the exact wording for a letter to de-register a child from school. It has the relevant legalese in it, and they explain exactly what you need to do, and what the school's obligations are too. It's an excellent site when you're just starting out and researching the legal side of it, and they have forums too. I found them really helpful when we were trying to sort out HE for DS

Thank you. No she has no statement. I have a copy of the letter to send to the school to de reg her.
We have agreed that if she doesn't get into the private school this term we will pull her out and home school. The private school we applied to is very small with ten to a class broken done further to about 3 in a group.

I found the most gloriously patient and friendly mobile hairdresser. Her real market was house-bound little old ladies, but she came to cut my hair and after an eternity one or two visits, the children consented to have their hair cut too. She still comes to cut our hair, even though she now has a full-time business as a wedding hairdresser - she's way out of my league really in style terms :o

Can't remember when I last had a smear test

where are you based? Do you have some HE contacts in the area?

We don't do HE groups all that much - but there is an active local forum where I am, and we make contact with individual families through that. Often with rather older or younger children who, for whatever reason, like coming to play with us :)

If your son has any school friends, you can easily keep up with them in holidays and at weekends - for some children who aren't particularly sociable, that's pretty much enough tbh.

I have Home Ed'ed now for two years having pulled my son out of Primary.He has a Statement - which still has to be maintained regardless of him being Home Educated.
The difference between the son we had whilst he was struggling at a school who simply didn't care and the son we have now is beyond belief. We are looking for him to return to school at some point - but to a place that actively understands and supports SEN. I cannot put him through the hell he had at school again. He was 6 when decided that was enough. It was the best thing I have ever done. Good Luck xx