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Find advice from other parents on our Homeschool forum. You may also find our round up of the best online learning resources useful.

Original poster

Interhigh & other online schools - comments & experiences please

113 replies

beingamumgivesyougreyhair · 01/05/2018 21:27

Hi everyone,
Have you had a bad experience with an online school?
Interhigh seems to be the most promoted online school on the internet, and here in these forums, especially among some regulars.
But having been caught out before I'm more interested in being forewarned and forearmed of things that you usually only find out the hard way or when it's too late.
We are definitely on board with the whole concept of online schooling and the obvious benefits that it provides over bricks n mortar traditional schooling but there are more online schools springing up all the time and it is getting harder read between the lines and make an informed choice when they all sound the same.
If you have / are attending any of the internet schools with live lessons, your comments and experiences will be much appreciated.

OP posts:
norfolkskies · 25/10/2019 16:59

MOS classes are still small. ds yr 8. smallest class=4. biggest 12 I think.

KateD1980 · 30/10/2019 11:34

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Benniehan · 12/12/2019 10:53

Hiya, I read your comments about myonlineschooling and I'm quite keen. Just wondered if you are you still happy with it a year on? Thanks

Benniehan · 12/12/2019 10:54

Hiya. Does anyone have an experience with online schools such as myonlineschooling and briteschool. Would be happy to hear from you.

Benniehan · 12/12/2019 10:58

Do the online schools offer discounts via voucher codes or money off for introducing a friend?

theweebleshavelanded · 12/12/2019 12:34

no....if only they did lol!

you can ask!

ds uses my online schooling. we love it. used it since sept this year as a trial. its working so well we`re not looking at mainstream now at all. what do you want to know?

Benniehan · 12/12/2019 12:48

The quality of teaching, how soon after submission they mark homework. Any technical issues and how good they are at resolving them. Good communication with parents, in other words, not much!

theweebleshavelanded · 12/12/2019 14:05

oh okay! sorry just had maths....
teaching quality very good. imagine the teacher doesnt have to "police" the kids chewing/ whispering etc etc...so no distractions and its more focussed. kids use a text chat box to answer/ discuss or can use a mic . teacher allows mic priviledges so polices it all!!! works very well.

tech issues: first week was more us our end as my IT skills were minimal lol! BUT ever after its a rare occurance. very easy to pm teachers. emails regulary all the time ! can call the office (we have pin numbers for confidentiality set up as well) as well. its rather fabulous. all classes are recorded, so if for a reason its missed, can catch up .

have you done a free trial?

theweebleshavelanded · 12/12/2019 14:09

we use a laptop and wifi printer. to submit homework we either scan and "send" (maths especially) docs, or share files/word.

in science we have use online quizzes which are brilliant and fun. set up by the teacher. in english and geography we use google docs as a "workbook". google docs is great as ds has an english docs page/ account shared with the teacher (only her) and she can type on it at the same time/ feedback!! its all very clever.

theweebleshavelanded · 12/12/2019 14:13

in lessons in science often have u tube video`s of the experiments. remember the teacher doing an experiment in front of the class and not being able to see? (i was short....). perfect view this way. its all live stream and interactive.

we love it. not cheap..... we pay £234 a month for maths, english, science,history geography, DT.
maths , english, science= 2 , 1 hr lessons a week. the rest 1 class a week. homework for every class. it depends on the teacher when they get feedback.....some by next lesson, some couple of weeks or so.

theweebleshavelanded · 12/12/2019 14:16

you will have to provide all stationary. in august we were given a book list, all came to £30 aprox. so not as much £ as we expected. the booklist is linked to amazon as well. book sharing/ passing down is encouraged on fb page for parents.

theweebleshavelanded · 12/12/2019 14:18

anything else??? no such thing as a daft question!

the timetable runs from 8am- 3pm. but thats not everyday lol. ds has science 8am on a wednesday, thats the only 8am start. he has 10 hrs of class a week. mon= 3 classes, tue / wed 1 class, thurs 3, fri 2

theweebleshavelanded · 12/12/2019 14:21

school is run in a way that its more ability than age. so ds did yr 7 french till a couple of weeks ago (he is actually yr 8). thats because we were still thinking he may transition back to mainstream and hes not done any french! so a yr 8 french class would have been a no. but now hes NOT going to mainstream (hes not into languages anyway) we`ve dropped it. 30 days notice to drop a class/ school. so no nasty contracts (looking at you interhigh).

theweebleshavelanded · 12/12/2019 14:25

ds history class has reached "full" at 19 students. but the quality from when it was 12? hasn`t actually changed. classes are capped at 19/20? to keep classes nice and small.
seems to be more joining ds yr 8 since september. i think words getting out about online schools. not many left though! 1 or 2 maybe?

theweebleshavelanded · 12/12/2019 14:31

Id reccomend callong MOS office. set up a free trial for dc with you sitting in. pick something they like! we did history as its something you dont need prior knowledge topic wise. science is good/ geography....
ds found although he knew zero about the actual topic beforehand, he still was able to interact/ answer questions in the lesson! then we discussed it over a week or so, all the pros and cons between mainstream/ online. then made the decsision. deregistered from mainstream. MOS also do online parent evening sessions. definatley do that! dh and me attended it. dh is a teacher/ A level examiner so knew how to pitch akward questions to really pick the brains lol! and MOS passed dh "test" lol. were very happy with it.

Benniehan · 12/12/2019 15:34

Thanks theweebleshavelanded. Sooo helpful. I'll contact them to arrange a trial. You've promoted them well!

theweebleshavelanded · 12/12/2019 15:39

and i still wouldnt get a discount lol!

seriously its great for us and ds though.

Tulila · 29/01/2020 22:00

if you withdraw your child from the school, they charge you a year's worth of fees which they'll tell you is in the small print in a contract somewhere.

margosfloatydress · 30/01/2020 19:19

thats terrible!! MOS do not do that.

come over to us! plus its not a package of subjects, its pay per bubject at your choice.

ask anything about it to compare....

Nhbaz · 05/02/2020 13:56

Hello all,

New to this thread - just wondering if there are any updated views on best online schools (for use aborad)? My daughter is 11 and will be in year 7 when we move away.
Thanks!

Pleasedontdothat · 12/02/2020 22:38

DD’s had a term and a half of Interhigh sixth form and she loves it. She likes all her teachers and is doing very well. She appreciates not having any disruption in lessons and especially not having to travel to and from school. She’s very self-motivated so we can leave her to it when it comes to completing homework. She doesn’t chat much to the other people in her classes, but she’s very much an introvert and hated having to deal with so many people when she was at mainstream school so that doesn’t surprise me. For two of her subjects, the school has opened up a second set as the groups were getting too large - dd opted to stay with her original set as she was happy with the teachers and the group. She’s so much less anxious now that it’s definitely been worth it

comfypantsisme · 16/02/2020 11:36

still at MOS. still lovin it!

ryanshetlandd · 02/05/2020 09:23

i do interhigh have done for a while i have autism and have dealt with some pretty horrible bullying and you know what it works for me im what they call a libary learner so when im having a bad day my mum just tells my pastoral adviser and then when i feel better i watch the recording of the lesson and complete the work yes it has its faults: the lead lessons can have so many people in, the connection will break up but the fact i dont have to get changed for my lessons and look in the mirror has helped my self esteem so much and yes i wish i could go to a normal school but i cant at the moment and proably wont be but i feel wanted for once and the fact im around people who may have been outcasted makes the lessons so much more intresting like we were learning about diabetes and some one had type 1 diabete and told us all about it, in stem we were learning about avaiton so we made paper airplanes yes theres faults but i dont feel limted and i know i wont be able to be a solider in the army but i feel creative

vivariumvivariumsvivaria · 15/05/2020 12:16

Thanks for this thread.

We have a 14 year old who should be sitting his Nat 5s in Scotland, but, he has a long history of illness and so I am reluctant to return him to school in August - or, really, until there is a vaccine for Covid.

We signed him up for maths/english tutoring online, and he's really responded. His engagement and results are far better than at school - which has surprised me.

He has no SEN, but he has missed large chunks of learning - the small group and short sessions seem to help him focus and he is speaking positively about maths for the first time ever.

I'd never seen myself as a home educator, but, it's not impossible for us to try it.

So, thanks for the links.

Ravensbourne · 02/06/2020 14:32

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