Anyone home edding children with SEN, or have done so and kids now grown up?

[YourHandInMyHand]

I'm currently home edding DS, who has a few special needs conditions diagnosed. He fell apart in year 7 at an unsupportive mainstream.

I currently preparing for tribunal to try and get a place at a specialist independent school, but am losing faith tbh that we will be successful.

DS is happy at home but for me it's meant folding my business and living on carer's allowance. I worry how and what he can achieve if I home ed right up til school leaving age, I'm unsure what routes I can go down for him to gain any sorts of qualifications for example. I've no idea if he'd manage gcses, manage independent living, etc. He's what I would call borderline and could go either way.

I'm constantly trying to decide what's best for him and I just don't know! He should be in year 9 in September, he's missed a full year of school while the LA drag their heels.

We'te home educating DS who has mild SEN. He has dyslexia and dyscalculia, neither of which have been formally diagnosed but which were acknowledged by the primary school when he was there. They declined to implement any kind of formal help for him and were actively resistant and hostile to our requests for help . However although he is only 9, we feel he won't cope with secondary and gcses. We are looking at agricultual college for him when he gets to 16. They don't require gcses for entry level 1.

So many people seem to look at agricultural or horticultural pathways I've noticed. We have a college in our county that's good for these pathways too. Unfortunately my DS hates mud, grass, getting his shoes wet or dirty, countryside air smells, animals, etc. lol So that direction isn't an option for him. I do worry about him!

We were in exactly this position ten years ago and DS was HEed for two years while we ground through to tribunal.

Luckily, we won. If we hadn’t, my plan B was to find a 14+ programme or studio school, relocating if necessary as they were quite thin on the grounds at the time.

(Don’t believe broad generalisations about set tribunal outcomes for certain diagnoses BTW. It’s all about your child’s specific profile of needs and whether that can be met in the mainstream, or in the standard state special schools. Evidence everything you assert. The provision we won was highly specialised and expensive but the LA weren’t offering anything remotely suitable - there wasn’t anything suitable.)

My current worry is that the LA have relabelled a behavioural PRU as an APU (alternative provision) for those out of school for medical reasons. From a cynical point of view it means they have relabelled a state run, behavioural PRU as an APU and are using it as a cheap, catch all solution for kids like my DS. Another family have recently gone up in the same tribunal (parent asking for indie school A and LA suggestion APU) and the tribunal sided with the LA!!!!! So I'm now very concerned we won't win. And looking realistically at what we would do if we lost at tribunal as he'd be going in the APU over my dead body. He's extremely anxious and vulnerable and has several different diagnosed conditions.

We do have a 14-16 college in our town but at the moment there's a college wide strike due to the college hugely slashing their staff.. It has had a good rep in the 14-16 part but I'm concerned if these cuts do come in that it will suffer.

My 12yo has a moderate learning disability. I've had a tremendous amount of information and inspiration from a friend of mine. Over the decades she has fostered many teens with special needs. She adopted four of them, who are now aged between 30ish and 16. On the one hand it's discouraging to learn from her that specialist colleges have been disappearing at quite a rate and there's often nothing suitable locally.

On the other hand, I am reassured by her description of how her young people have continued to develop and acquire basic skills until they are well into their 20s. That means there's cause for optimism: just because someone isn't on track to have achieved a skill or qualification or personal maturity by the age of 18, that doesn't mean they won't get there eventually. With some kids it's apparent early on that certain paths will never be open to them, but with many kids it may be hard to predict how they will develop in the long run and fortunately there is no need to do so. It also means there is less pressure to try to cram in all the education you possibly can, and try to chivvy them through qualifications. before they reach a certain age. For any child, education is a lifelong enterprise, and that is especially true for those who have special needs. Our school system doesn't really recognise that. Schools feel the need to push kids along hard and fast until they finish compulsory school age, to demonstrate the school has added value. But that isn't always in the child's best interests.

Home educating parents don't have to buy into what may amount to unhealthy hothousing. I'm not on a deadline. I think it's well worth keeping my ear to the ground and becoming aware of any local opportunities or national qualifications/schemes which might suit my child later on, but I don't feel any sense of urgency.

I think most of your concerns about future opportunities and qualifications etc are of equal interest to parents whose kids are at school, so you could also discuss these subjects in the more general SEN forums. Similarly, it would be handy to chat as much as you can locally with other parents of children who have special needs (whether or not those kids go to school), to see what's available in the area.

BTW my friend is a fan of the Functional Skills qualifications as an alternative to GCSEs. I think these are commonly used in schools for some children who would find GCSEs inaccessible, and you can sit them independently. She says her young people's prospective employers have recognised these exams as a good way to demonstrate basic literacy and numeracy.

Yy to the Functional Skills route. We are researching that one for DS if he wants to go down that route. They do them at our local college.

Thanks for these replies, I will definitely look into the functional skills route. I think my DS will be one who continues to acquire skills and quals past the "usual" school leaving age and I'm okay with that. I do chat to lots of other local families and some have dcs a few years older than mine so it will be interesting to see which paths they take too.

my dd has autism - all my children do, but shes the only one that is being home educated.

My eldest was home educated for a year whilst i fought for a place at a SEN school, but tbh, seeing how my daughter is now thriving, I wish Id just kept him out.

Im going to see how my middle son copes with secondary next year, with a view to removing him if i need to