Home Ed during primary, school for secondary... anyone done this?

[ImASecretTwigletNibbler]

DD miserable at primary (in Y6) and I'd be happy to HE her for the rest of Y6 but I don't want to HE during the secondary years. At the moment she is excited about secondary and wants to go and thinks it will be different. In reality however, I'm worried that she will find secondary just as bad and HE-ing now would make it even harder for her to go to secondary as she'll have been used to being at home for 6 months. DD says that as it will only be for 6 months then she doesn't think she'll get out of the idea at school and that it won't be that hard to switch back - a valid point which I hadn't really considered.

Anybody got any experience of HE primary kids going to secondary? Though most children would have been HE'd for a fair while, not just the 6 months I'm considering...

Another question is what happens re. transition to secondary for an HE child?

If she's miserable, I would take her out and apply for secondary as normal.

Treat it as a long summer holiday, where she can explore what she's interested in.

All I can say is, do what is right for your child now, and let the future take care of itself... Apply for secondary school and see what happens

Why is she miserable? Are the reasons irrelevant at secondary school age? Personally I'd have her out like a shot, but then my kids have never been to school, so I'm biased... :-)

Thanks, all. I think secondary may well be exactly the same but she is feeling very positive about secondary at the moment.

It depends whether she is miserable with the teaching or the fellow pupils. If it is the former, here is no problem, just take her out. If it is the pupils it won't change if they will all be going to the same secondary.

I took dd out of school mid way through year 5 and she will be returning to secondary in year 7 in September. She did not have problems with primary school, so I don't know how helpful this will be.

From what you have said I would be inclined to home educate for 6 months. Having the attention from home life may well build her confidence for making a new start at school.

If you do deregister, make it clear to the LEA that you do not want to cancel her secondary application. We are also intending to contact dd's school once she has been formally offered a place to see if she can join in a year 6 transfer day with one of the feeder schools.

I've had two start y7 from being HE'd and one starting this September. No problems here, all went very smoothly and they fell into the routine of it extremely quickly, so I'm sure your dd would be fine.

As for introductory days at secondary - ours have all happened independently of primary school, so being HE'd had no effect on the transition.

Depending on what the issue/s are you may find that HE for a while & taking her out of the school & taking the pressure away means that she can go into secondary from a happy, calm starting point rather than miserable/stressed & that she 'll be fine.
Or she might need another whole school year to 'recover' - only you will know when/if the time is right to send her back to school again.