Home education because of bullying

[Iamthedogsmother]

Hi, does anyone have any advice? I'm at my wits end.

My dd is 8. I've had to move her once because of bully's my when she was in reception. She was happy at her second school but we had to move because of DHs job so she's now at her third School. It's a small school in a rural place, only 7 in her year group. She was having a few problems with another child which we were working on quite successfully. A couple of months ago, another girl started. Basically, she is bullying my dd, accused dd of hitting her when teachers aren't close by, accused her of stealing School property, turning the others in the class against dd, whispering about her. Whatever is going on dd has completely gone into her shell, I have to take her directly into the classroom, she's terrified. She's sleeping in my bed, won't sleep until 11pm etc

I've been into school so many times, seen the head teacher four times in the last week. The other girls parents deny it all but there are witnesses confirming what dd says.

I've applied for another school place I think this will be refused due to lack of space. No spaces elsewhere. I don't know what to do. Could I home educate? Where on earth do you start? I'm not super clever, just to A level standard! But I can't let this carry on. School have been understanding but I have to take some proactive action. What does anyone else think?

It sounds like you don't have any confidence in the school's ability to deal with the problems effectively, and your daughter is really suffering, so you don't really have a choice, do you?

Why not take her out now and give home education a try while she has some recovery time? Then you can decide what to do in the long term. Maybe a place will come up at another school which you like, or you could consider moving house for a different school. As a fallback, if home ed really doesn't suit your daughter, presumably you can return her to her current school: is it undersubscribed?

You don't have to have a degree to home educate. Some of the most effective home educating parents I have known haven't had a collection of "good" GCSE results themselves. The job is much less demanding than that of a schoolteacher. You don't have to try to engage dozens of children of varying interests and abilities in doing the same task at the same time, all while sorting out discipline problems and completing plans and records required by the government. You can work with your own child's strengths by choosing a time and method which suits her. You'll be helping her to find the answers for herself rather than imparting all the knowledge. If you know how to use the internet effectively, or a local library, or obtain help from people who are better at those things than you are, you'll have all sorts of good resources at your fingertips. It's easier than you think.

Have a look at online schooling. We had to withdraw ds due to bullying and he's doing well at an online school and is so much happier and confident.

I have recently pulled my 12 year old DD out for the same reason. I went to a meeting at the school about the bullying and they could not/would not reassure me, so I handed them the de-reg letter I had in my bag just in case. I had allowed the bullying to go on too long and wish I had done it sooner. The only thing that stopped me was thinking that because my DD is very full on, I would not cope with her. In fact, in the few days since I pulled her out, she is already a different child. We are enjoying the experience and I am going to keep her home with me until next September then put her (hopefully) into a school in another area.

I've pulled my DS6 out due to severe bullying.

We are slowly homeschooling, he's also having therapy.

I had a lot of online websites, it is easy. But when and if you pull her out, make sure you give her some time to get use to being at home. X

I was in that place your daughter is in now, except nobody took notice until I was in senior school. I was eventually home educated. It was never under the promise of "you'll never go back to school". School was something we worked towards and I did return for my GCSE year part time.

Sorry I'm coming at it from a different angle but if your gut feeling says she needs to be removed from school I say go with it.

It's hard work - for both parents and child as I've grown to understand but it is possible. Your LEA will probably make noises about appropriate socialization so make sure you've got some ideas for how to achieve that - I was horse daft so had friendships from that for example.

Honestly the year and a bit I was home educated really did change my life so if you feel it's right then it's right if you see what I mean

It's so awful when bullying doesn't get dealt with appropriately in schools. There are laws and rules and such like in the workplace, but seemingly not so much in some schools.

I've read on other threads that if education has to be provided by school/LA for children who have to be at home for any length of time, that the minimum to satisfy their educational needs is something like 5 to 10 hours per week. Presumably that's just the basics. But you could easily achieve that, and then add in anything else that your DD finds interesting.

Reading what anxious123 has said, I wonder if there's an element in home edding that gives a child a feeling of being active in their education, rather than being a passive receiver in a classroom, and that might help in terms of confidence in oneself.

Kooshbin - you've hit the nail on the head there. As long as I covered the "core" subjects of English, Maths, a science and IT my LEA weren't fussed so I got to do English Language, English Literature, Maths, Chemistry, Biology, ICT, Psychology, Law, P.E and German for my GCSEs - I took subjects I genuinely loved and got to axe the ones I really deemed pointless - notably Religious Education and Design Technology.