I need a bit of a moan, pep talk? I'm probably being a prat.

[CarrieErbag]

I seem to be really struggling this week with dd being out of school now.
I'm feeling massively let down by the school and this feeling has been exacerbated I think by having seen the 'welfare' person in town this week.
She couldn't even look me in the eye and was obviously talking about me as the person she was with turned and looked at me.
I just feel completely resentful that the school just didn't give a s**t.
My dd was at an academically selective school, I was so proud when she got a place, she was in a class where many kids had been to private preps, their parents often lawyers and other great jobs.
I'm an ex bar maid, no degree.
I see the girls coming out of school and I think, my dd should be there and you chased her out.
We are still picking up the pieces, she's had to drop some of her subjects and I don't know if she'll ever get her mojo back.
I'm so sad and so bloody angry.

Sorry I don't understand. Why did you pull dd out of school? X

It sounds really hard. And it may take you years to get over what's happened- and in particular how badly you've been let down by people you trusted.

But here's your pep talk - you've done the right thing taking her out. She WILL get a better education with you. And long term you'll be pleased with the outcome. But you've got a couple of hard (and great and brilliant) years to face now. Take one day at a time and focus on what's important- your DD - not on the past.

What happened OP?

You have undoubtedly done the best thing for DD for now. But please think carefully for DD for the future, will she be happy being home ed, will she be lonely without other students/friends around her. We all want to protect our DC and I am sure you have good reason for taking her out. Are there other schools locally to you that you could visit together? DS1 has recently left school, it was such support to him taking his GCSEs with his friends, going through it together and supporting each other etc. I know there are many home ed materials online and support groups on FB etc. Personally, I think a good school teaches much more to children than just education. I respect it is a personal choice.

((Hugs)) You'll get through this. She'll get through this. She will get her mojo back. You've already said in your previous thread here that in some ways she is beginning to recover and the stress is lifting.

It will take a while, however. Bullying takes a toll. You shouldn't have been forced into home education. I imagine that makes you very angry.

Now you're here, keep looking at what your daughter is doing right now and how she is. The school is in the past.

Academically, she has had a setback but it isn't permanent. Remember that the rigid school timescales no longer apply. She doesn't HAVE to be finished with IGCSE exams this time next year. She could sit some next year and some the year after - and that doesn't even mean she will always be a year behind. She can mix and match, doing some IGCSEs and some A levels concurrently, depending what is available and how advanced she is in each subject and what sort of workload she can handle. Lots of home ed kids spread them out. It may be a good thing if she is taking it a bit easy with fewer subjects next year while she is still recovering from her ordeal. If she doesn't have enough to keep her occupied next year, perhaps she'd like to pursue some nonacademic passion. Doing what she loves is bound to be good for her.

It will all come together.

Have you made contact with other families locally? After what your daughter has been through, she may want nothing to do with other teenagers for a while. That would be totally understandable. Withdrawing into the safety of her own family for a time is a healthy response to trauma. However, it might benefit YOU to go chat with parents and teens in the area. They will reassure you that there are many ways forward from here, and your daughter does have a bright future.

Thanks all,
I know you speak sense and I'll just have to get used to having the odd wobble.
Saracen, I have put feelers out locally, but there doesn't seem to be much going on in her age group, not that she would meet up with anyone at the moment.
She doesn't want to stagger her GCSEs currently, she seems to be determined that she won't go 'backwards'.
That being said she isn't exactly being particularly studious.
I will just have to go with the flow for a bit.
I really do appreciate the help offered here and hope you don't mind if I have future panics and need a bit of a handhold.
The experienced amongst you seem so damned together, I can't quite see myself reaching that zen state anytime soon

Ah, but we've all been doing this game for years :)

remember to allow a (rule of thumb) month of recovery for every year spent in school, before starting to expect Great Things academically.

What area of the country are you in?

For me, much of that confidence comes from hanging around with other home ed families whose children are older than mine. I have seen that there are many ways to get an education, many paths to adulthood. When you watch dozens and dozens and dozens of teens following their dreams in different ways and all of them doing what's right for them, you do just absorb the understanding that it will be okay, that doing exams a year late is no massive problem in the big scheme of things.

I'm not surprised that your daughter is determined to carry on with the plan she was given at school, of sitting all these GCSEs at the "right" time. It is really drilled into kids at school that there is only one correct way. They don't get to do exams early or late or not at all. Allowing such flexibility would have an impact on the school's published pass rates. Ofsted is watching.

She'll have spent most of her life associating primarily with kids who have been grouped together according to the month and year of their birth, not according to their individual needs and interests. In this system, there is a "correct" age at which to learn to read, to do long division, to move up to secondary, to sit exams, to go to university. She would not feel that delaying GCSEs represented a step backwards if instead she were hanging out with children who are of various ages, and who progress through education as it suits them, rather than being ruled by the calendar.

When she is 25, will anyone know or care whether she finished her GCSEs at 16 or 17?