Oh bloody hell I've done it, withdrawn dd15.

[user1486737884]

De-reg letter hand delivered to the school this morning. Now begins the task of reducing her anxiety and getting her through gcses.
I would imagine I will need my hand held at more than one point.
In the mean time, I think I may purchase wine for tonight.

I'd love to know how you are getting on user1486737884. Ledkhr it sounds as if you have done brilliantly already. In my (limited) experience it takes a long time to adjust to home educating and to find something that works for one's own child. I de registered my 14 year old DD at Xmas and I wouldn't say we've cracked it yet but it's so much better than before. There's loads of great advice above. Some of these things, such as having a break before getting into 'studying', I've found out by trial and error. I've also found that some friends and family can feel threatened and see what we're doing as a criticism of how they raise their children. Sometimes it's hard to stay on track but just knowing that your child is happier is often enough. Everyone stresses about GCSEs but as others have said, they don't have to be done in the typical school time frame or in the numbers that schools push for. My DD was being told she'd do ten GCSEs which, even in Y9 when she hadn't got started was stressing her. When I scratched the surface of this I felt this was almost more for the school's benefit (league tables) than DD's. At some point we plan for her to get the 'essentials' but for now she's reading widely, doing sports she loves instead of ones she can't do because she has coordination issues and feels rubbish, watching some great films and documentaries, takings some online courses that she has chosen and visiting places of interest when time allows. After a few weeks she said herself that she wanted a timetable so we have that now. I agree with the comments above that this isn't essential but, as with all things home-ed, it seems to me that it's best to go with what your child feels comfortable with. At secondary school age they are old enough to take some responsibility for their own learning and to be honest with you about what motivates them. Crucially, we don't schedule anything before 10am...DD does not stay up terribly late but still finds it really hard to function early in the morning so we go with her natural rhythm and she is often doing 'educational' stuff at 9pm. Sorry, didn't mean to ramble! In summary, I've found it's not easy but it's a million times better than the school rat race and I hope you find that, with time, it proves to be just what your child needed.

Hamster that all seems like great advice thank you!

How is everyone doing?
It's not been an easy week here as I was ill so Dh has been in charge of literally everything.
Dd is still in her bubble of getting up late under duress, spending the day as she pleases, showering, doing hair and makeup, watching some tv, eating and getting really quite nasty when asked to do any thing else, be it school work or clearing up her own mess.
When challenged she will remind us of what she has been through or say she's depressed or anxious.
We feel a bit stuck and shattered by it all.
The rare occasions she goes out she gets nasty remarks from ex friends/pupils at the school and will then become ingrained in some big dramatic social media row with people.
shes been sad at seeing the year 11s having their prom and realising she will never have that herself, I do feel for her but I feel by opting out of life the way she is at the moment, she is only going to make her metal wellbeing a lot worse.
Hope someone sees this and can offer me some advice or gin.

I don't have any wise advice, and definitely not in amongst mental health challenges. But I can ask some friendly questions for you

Hi and thanks for response.
To be honest, all that type of thing is taken care of. She dances 4 times a week and has many friends through that and a few others.
We see family a lot and go to festivals, nice holidays and day trips etc.
She has a place to start performing arts at college in September but we just want her to stay up to date on her English and maths just so she isn't rusty and to give her some structure to her day.
She wants to stay up really late on her devices, then won't get up in the morning without a fight (very time consuming for us) then will reluctantly do a bit of work before swanning about making lunch, putting on some make up, watching to etc.
It's so frustrating.

Hi everyone, I've just deregistered my 2 ASD dcs, I'm not planning to do anything formal until September but they are willingly doing some research in a topic they are passionate about, visiting museums and local library to read for fun. Anxieties greatly reduced, they are much happier and smiling again

We have tried schooling at home since deregistering at Easter. But DD was not getting any better and finding academic work stressful, even when at a really easy pace and subject.
She is stressed about making decisions about how we home ed, interhigh, at home, return to school, 14-18 college.???
Last week she had massive panic attack when I pushed her to do some work, left the house, ended up at A and E due to self harm ( I got a call from paramedics who had been called to her by passing dog walker who found her crying and scratching her arms. ) Very traumatic for everyone.
She is OK now, but I have said no more school work, talk about schoolwork, thinking about what's going to happen with school etc. Nothing. I've got to take the pressure off her.
I've always been sceptical about deschooling, but not anymore. We're doing nothing but nice things (and housework!) until at least September ...

As someone who had a horrific time at school, all I can say is well done. Your DD will never forget you did that for her.

I'm slowly making progress.
Dd will be attending early college in sept doing a Btec performing arts and maths and English gcse.
She is looking forward to it.
I have some books and am doing about an hour a day maths or English but also watching the plats she needs to study for English.
She was and still is quite hard to motivate but slowly getting more used to it.
The rest of the time I use daily life to teach skills.
Bus time tables, planning and shopping for a recipe etc.
She has a few friends left and her lovely dance team too.
She still seems to be the local kids "hobby" she gets stared at or abuse shouted st her if they see her and there have been a few nasty social media comments.
All in all I'd say that we are on the right path and dd is slowly healing and growing in confidence.
She has a lot of hurt and rage left about her so called friends eventually joining the bullying but she's slowly realising that they weren't in fact her friends st all.
keehar I absolutely agree with giving her time to heal and taking the pressure off you all. We got into a real state trying to push it and break awa from "convention" but I definitely now feel more comfortable with my decision.

It's me the OP with a very late update as it's been quite a nightmare.
(Hello Ledkr, glad things are starting to look more positive)
DD was quite upset at the response of the school when we sent our de-reg letter, we included quite a lengthy accompanying letter detailing the lack of help re bullying etc.
School's reply was to ignore all that and send a two line response saying thanks for your letter good luck with the future.
Anyway.. she was determined she wanted to carry on with her GCSEs which she is due to take next June. However of the 10 she was taking we found we could only sit 2 as an external candidate, so we have signed up with Oxford schooling and putting together our own package. Which has been quite stressful as well as costly.
She spent several weeks not going out of the house and has slept an awful lot.
Not a single person from school has contacted her and she has no friends. It has been heartbreaking.
On the bright side, she is now eating, has stopped biting her nails and her hair has stopped falling out.
In the past couple of weeks she has gone for walks with her dad and is generally much happier, she has even gone to work with him this morning.
We definitely did the right thing and I am a bit more hopeful than I was initially. I think I am still perhaps overly worried about the academic side of things, she is a bright girl who was at a Grammar and she's definitely lost some focus. That being said, I think had she not left when she did we'd be dealing with a hell of a lot more problems than we are now.
It's just got to be upwards and onwards I guess.

Ah hello OP! Thanks for updating. I think that your DD will be a lot happier. She will find her way.

carrier. That's the standard response we got too. No offers of further help or to ask us to reconsider. I didn't expect anything else.
Dd has a few friends from dance but is mostly on her own. It's very hard work having them around all the time especially when they are so low and needy I find.
She still gets called names and abused if she is spotted and a few times via social media.
These kids are fifteen plus and I wonder if they've ever heard of people committing suicide.
Have you looked at the 14-16 provision at college because ours seems pretty good and have been very helpful in getting her into the right course for her, I'm just hoping she settles in and meets some friends there in September.
I'm sure she'd love to chat to your dd via text or snap chat if she feels able to.
They could swap stories maybe?

We hadn't looked at 14-16 provision, didn't even know there was such a thing.
We got straight into reorganising her GCSEs because we were a bit panic stricken initially.
I'm sure she'd love to chat, she seems a bit more up beat.

Feel heartbroken today.
Dd really struggling with no friends.
We have a couple of festivals coming up which she's really looking forward to u I'll she remembers she hasn't the friends to enjoy it with.
She's asking the few mates she has to come with her but one is busy and the other is not sure.
It's so sad to see their best years spent in the house with little social life. I hope she meets friends at college but it still feels a long way to go.

I have made the decision to de register my 14 year old son today. He is on the spectrum and is dyslexic. School has always been such a battle for him, and his attendance was 41% with legal action threatened for me.
He has been offered a 14-16 year old place at college for September. He will do english, maths biology gcse and motor vehicle maintenance level 1 for a year. Then can progress to engineering level 2 and a gcse in physics.
For the first time in a long time he smiled.
We are going to keep up with maths, english and science for the rest of this school year, but nothing more formal than that.

xx