Considering HE for dd (yr8) need advice please

[stripeytiger]

Hi. I Have done lots of research and I am currently waiting on a local lady who is an experienced home educator to ring me back.

A bit of background. DD is 12 and in year 8. She moved primary schools several times, mostly due to house moves, but the last move was due to her unhappiness at school and problems with friendships. This continued in Yr 5 & 6 despite moving her school and I thought things would level out when she moved to secondary school. Yr 7 was ok (ish). Towards the end of Yr 7 things began to go downhill. She loves her school work and is a bright, intelligent girl who is creative, loves reading and researching. Her grades are good. The problem is she seems totally overwhelmed by the school system, the size of the school and all the peer pressure that accompanies any large school. There have been problems with friendships and I have been to the school to talk through strategies to deal with these problems. She has had some counselling and spent time in a their student support centre (which she hates!). The counselling may have been of some benefit. She has a difficult relationship with her father (from whom I am divorced).

DD has said that there would be little point in her moving to a different school as the same problems would arise. Her biggest fear is that the school will not take her problems seriously and in her words "will get everyone in a meeting, then after a few days things will return back to normal". Her Christmas holiday was overshadowed by her fear of returning to school, to the point where she wrote me a four page letter which expressed suicidal thoughts.

We have been to the GP who was nice, but useless. The school have been understanding but after only 2 days off (as she is extremely depressed) they are already starting to push me in returning her to school. The GP has referred her for CAMHS ? counselling but I have no clue as to how long the appointment might take to come through.

DD and I have spoken at length about HE and she has touched on the subject to a couple of teachers at school. She knows that it is not the easy option and has already put together a daily plan for academic work, physical activity, outings to places of interest etc etc. We have also talked at length about maintaining friendships and having lots of social activities. She is currently a girl guide which she loves.

I have a few concerns that I'm sure could be answered - how easy is it to obtain the information & tools to follow the national curriculum at home? We both feel this would best suited to us rather than a child led programme.

I have read that it is advisable to inform any ex spouse and that he could fight this decision. Ex h will undoubtedly not approve but if he chose to try to get the decision overturned, would this incur any costs to me?

Sorry this is very long, I would just love to hear from anyone at all who has home educated secondary school children to help me and my dd make this huge decision.

Thanks in advance.

Hello
My ds struggled for years and came out of school at the end of yr 7. It is brilliant, he is a changed person!

Around here the wait for CAHMS is 3 months. The 3 people I know who has used CAHMS speak very highly of the results, but more importantly of being listened to and taken seriously. They wish it was a shorter wait but say it is really worth it.

To access the National Curriculum (NC) is very easy. You can either:
1 Look it up on the web and read through rather a lot of information which you will find is rather general on purpose, to enable you to tailor the teaching to the child. You have to do all the planning.
2 Buy a curriculum in a box. Literally it all comes to your door in the form of books and lesson plans to do each day. This is very costly.
3 Do some online learning which like the curriculum in a box does all the planning for you. Some you can access actual tutors. Most are at a cost. There are some free courses around but these tend to be on specific topics as opposed to the whole curriculum.
4 Use GCSE workbooks and textbooks and just get on and do the GCSE courses now rather than waiting.
5 Use Tutors. Obviuosly costly. Families can use tutors for languages or music or a subject the adults are weak at.
6 Decide to follow your child's interests and teach to those subjects (the NC is only there to give children a chance of finding something they enjoy amongst what is on offer and to give some general knowledge eg. maths).
7 Decide to let your child teach themselves(autonomous learning) where you only provide what they request.

Additionally you can decide on whether to work to school hours/terms or just to work when you are best suited such as evenings or during school holidays so you can have your holidays when prices are cheapest. Those details are entirely up to each family. If you ever had a visit from a welfare officer, you merely need to show that your child has progressed. Progress doesn't have to be anything to do with the NC. (Legally you can also refuse to have anything to do with the welfare officers if you please).

Read up on deschooling. This is where you don't do an awful lot for a few months (potentially 8 months since you're dealing with yr8). We only took 3 months off. During that time we explored how my ds would like to learn such as workbooks. We also looked at times to study, costs, courses (we bought in one electronics course),subjects, topics, what was available on line. We joined our local HE group. We went out to see what clubs/resources were available locally and further afield. We had fun trips. What we didn't do was make ds put a pen to paper. Then he was ready for his cahnge of life style and we began.

My ds actually changed charecter in the first week. We have never ever looked back. Even my sceptical family have to agree what a pleasant young man he has become (he was turning feral in yr7 due to the stress).

Hi Stripey, just because you don't want to do child-led doesn't mean you have to do NC. We are very structured but have used a variety of resources over the years, many of which are American. If you want more information about different options (inc NC) please feel free to join A Little Bit of Structure, a private forum for those of us who do structured learning. It's a very friendly group with experience of many different resources.

If your DD is academic, you might want to look at Galore Park books - they are designed for prep schools (so years 6-8) but are fine for KS3 and lead nicely into GCSE work. You can get free samples from their website.

We have used our local sixth form college evening classes for GCSE maths, science and English. DS1 did Maths last year and is doing English and Science this. As these courses are part of the govt's push to have everyone at GCSE standard as a minimum in these subjects, they are very cheap (£40-60 each and they get £20 back if they get a C or above!) So that might be worth looking at for the future.

Thanks for the replies. Really helpful. Interesting what you say about your ds Maggi. I know exactly what you mean about "turning feral". I think this describes my dd and it is hard to see it happening.

I know deep down it is the right decision. I am ready for disapproval from family and friends but they are not living our lives and have not had to go through the incredible stress of seeing my dd gradually lose her confidence and zest for life. I do fear a very negative reaction from my ex h but that is him all over and I just hope he has the foresight to realise that if he fights this decision it will have a devastating effect on dd.

Another question I have is once I have got to the point of writing to the headteacher to deregister dd, does she have to remain at school until they acknowledge/deregister her? For example, she is off sick at the moment with depression, if I decided to write and post the letter at the end of this week, would she have to return for a period of time or would that be it?

Would also be good to hear from anyone who has home educated one child whilst the other has attended school. I ask because ds who is currently in yr 6 is very happy at school and a completely different character. He has told me that he would not want to be home schooled.

Thanks again for the replies.

Once you have written the de-reg letter your DD can leave school immediately, there is no 'notice' time to be given. The school has to acknowledge your letter and confirm they have removed her from the school register, but there is no requirement for her to stay in school whilst this is done.

Here is a copy of the letter I sent, which is all that is required. You can if you wish give reasons why you are leaving, but that is really not necessary and may give the impression that you are open to discussion about it.

Dear [head]

RE: [child's name and dob]

We are writing to inform you that we have decided to withdraw our children from school in order to take personal responsibility for their education. Please delete their names from the register in accordance with Education (Pupil Registration) Regulation 8 (1) (d) 2006, as they are now receiving education otherwise than at school.

Please confirm receipt of this letter and inform us of the date that our children’s names were removed from the register.

Yours sincerely

Thank you for that Ilovemycaravan (great name by the way). Yes, i agree if you start explaining yourself it gives the impression that you are open to discussing it, which I'm not. I haven't taken this decision lightly and have spent many months discussing the possibility of doing it with dd and making plans for how it will evolve.

Hello again
I have 2 ds. One is now 14 other is 11. 11yr old is still in school and thriving. There was some jealousy to begin with. But we solved this by saying that ds2 could have the option of HE once he'd tried secondary school like his brother did. I didn't want to take both out as family would have been really scathing at me 'ruining' ds2 chances as well when he was clearly doing well at school (top in school at Maths). But also ds 1 and 2 were constantly fighting and would have made my life unbareable and my job untenable.

Now that ds2 has come to choosing secondary schools and has been around the local ones he has decided to stay at school to access all the science and technology facilities. This may change in the future.

Reading other threads over the last year on here, there are lots of families with similar questions to yours and lots of families suceeding at having a mix of schooled and HE.

Hi Maggi. Thanks for that. Interesting about your boys, I have a younger ds who is due to start college in September. He is quite chilled about it, at least he is at the moment. He loves schools and enjoys all aspects and is completely different in character to dd. Our situation is like yours in that they do bicker a lot as siblings and although it would be unfair of me to offer the home schooling option to one and not the other, I am really hoping that ds will remain at school as i really don't think i could manage with both of them at home.

I went to the school this morning and handed in the deregistration letter. We made our decision and i wanted to strike while the iron was hot. The relief and changes in my dd already are remarkable.

Thanks again for the info and advice, it's really appreciated.

I think online school bridges that gap between brick built school and too overwhelmed to perform well academically, especially if you enroll the child in face to face activities and clubs as well. Pick activities where she's likely to meet like minded types (eg an art club for an arty child etc iywkim). It means they can still do that modern foreign language, science etc with specialist teachers but without the stress of getting overwhelmed by the modern comprehensive environment.

It can also potentially remove some of the fears your ex may have about her not getting access to the right educational opportunities if you homeschool. It also means someone independent is judging her progress rather than "just Mum" if your are worried about winding up in court with the ex over it.

Have a look at:-

briteschool.co.uk
interhigh.co.uk
First College (not so strict about doing the range of subjects needed for entry to a good uni)

Thank you Bochead. I will check out the links. Sounds interesting.

I did speak with ex h on Thursday evening and he was concerned and rather skeptical, which I would expect, but when I had talked him through our reasons he was relatively accepting of our decision. I think he realises that he can't dip into the parts of the dcs lives he feels are important but slope shoulders on all the nitty gritty bits.

DD is chomping at the bit to get started. We have purchased the basics to get going so I am going to let her take the lead for now and gradually organise ourselves into a loosely structured routine.