Switching to Home schooling in year 11

[Giovanni398]

I am looking for advice regarding my daughter. She has had a very patchy school for year 10 due to school absence because of anxiety and depression. She wants to homeschool for year 11 and then apply for sixth form at a new school. She is set very keen to get year 11 over and move on. Due to her depression she has had little motivation this year and although the school have provided her with catch up work it is hard for her to tackle it on her own and not very sucessful with parental help. We want to support her through this year but are not sure she would manage by herself with an on line program and are not able to financially support private tutoring beyond a few hours a week. She currently has 7 subjects, some IGCSE and some GCSE. It seems that online services offer either one or the other but not both. Could two services be used along side each other? what about timetabling? Thank you in advance.

Just a quick response before going out for the evening!

It sounds to me as if you'd like your daughter to have more support than she is getting from school. If you withdraw your daughter from school to electively home educate, you'll have to do it all yourselves or foot the entire bill for online schooling or tutors.

I'm a bit alarmed by you saying "although the school have provided her with catch up work it is hard for her to tackle it on her own and not very sucessful with parental help" Does the school acknowledge that she is unable to attend due to medical reasons? Has the school/LA not provided anything more than work for her to do at home? They should be doing much more. The best route might be to demand that the LA pull their socks up and provide the help she should have been getting all along. For example, LA-funded home tutoring might be appropriate.

I would also be asking the School about a LEA funded home tutor. My son is at the same age and been off school since Christmas with anxiety and depression. The school have finally provided a home tutor, it took 4months.
There is now no pressure for my son to return to school and if need be he will sit his exams at home.
I hope you can work out something for your daughter as it's a hard place to be as a parent.

Here's the DfE statutory guidance for LAs regarding the education of children who cannot attend school for medical reasons: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/269469/health_needs_guidance__-_revised_may_2013_final.pdf

As you'll see, the school was supposed to involve the LA as soon as your daughter had missed a total of 15 days (in total, not necessarily all at once) or as soon as it was expected that she would miss 15 days. You should have a named contact at the LA who is responsible for your daughter's education, and they should have told you who it is.

If this hasn't happened yet despite your daughter's ongoing illness, you might find it quickest to go straight to the LA rather than via school, telling them that she needs support and she isn't getting it from the school.

Thank you all for your advice. My Daughter is at a private school. Perhaps private schools do not have the same protocol as state.
What does a full time LEA home tutor provide in terms of hours per week and do they teach all subjects? So to get this does my daughter have to be enrolled at a school?

This sounds very difficult and I'd be worried that Yr 11 would not go well without support and she could end up with lower grades than she is capable of as a result. How much of the anxiety/depression relates to school? Would she be better off going to a different school now, rather than waiting until Sixth form - what about re-sitting year 10 at a new school?

Home and hospital education is very very stretched. In my experience she would struggle to access more than a few hours a week as there just aren't enough staff. And if she is not on roll then the school are not obliged to provide anything.

Most Y11s that have severe anxiety only sit a couple of subjects, tbh, as the tutoring from the LA (or in our LA's case, from the hospital special school) is only a few hours.
If you're homeschooling her, where are you expecting her to sit her exam entries? A state school won't be able to offer that service any longer, because of her being added into their performance tables.
Would her current school allow her to enter through their centre as a private candidate?

Has she been an inpatient at all? That might count towards accessing provision. Is she undergoing treatment?

The depression/anxiety is largely school related. Bullying issues and low self esteem as a student and generally. Though the school may agree to her taking the exams there as a private candidate I question that this would be the best ides for my daughter to have to go there to do exams in the circumstances.

Also starting a new school in year 11 with all that that entails on top of her issues is also a big question mark.

Then you will need to find another school that will agree to her sitting them as a private candidate.

Do you want to say more about your daughter's interests, both academic and non-academic? What things make her happy (or what used to make her happy, if little does make her happy right now)? If she leaves school now, there may be alternative routes to get where she wants to go. Those routes might be better for her recovery. Many HE kids don't sit a large clutch of exams at the end of Y11, though some do.

As one example among many, my teen has done no exams at all, instead focusing mainly on her interests of art, music and sports coaching. She's now 18 and has decided she wants to do some formal study after all. She has just been offered a place to do Art & Design at college, with maths and English GCSEs alongside the main course. This was based on portfolio and interview.

I am wondering whether college or an entirely different environment, e.g. having some time out to do voluntary work or independent learning, might suit your daughter better than continuing with all the GCSEs plus aiming for sixth form in a year's time? I know it is really hard to predict that.

She is the one that has decide that she wants the get through year 11 and to sixth form in a year! She is impatient to get on with her life her way.
We suggested that she could take the pressure off and do year 10 again and she is set against this. She is asking to be tutored at home because she feels that this will give her the best chance to reach her goal. However we are not sure that it is is a realistic goal considering all she has been through. She insisted on taking end of year exams even though being at school very little this year and not doing work at home. She managed to get in for 3 out of nine. She had managed to study for 2 out of three of these and
achieved 50/60 % in those two. But the effort and anxiety was off the charts for all of us!

She is very capable and good with all ages, a fantastic artist and cook and filmmaker and singer but does not give these strengths value and wishes for academic success. She is curious and loves languages and other cultures, particularly Japan and Japanese. She is mature for her age and finds her classmates immature. Since becoming depressed she sporadically has bursts of activity in these areas but can quickly become dispondent.
She feels misunderstood and dissapointed in her friends and wishes more than anything for good loyal friends and I has resisted HE because she did not want to be isolated but then when she does get to school is so dissapointed in the friends who in her eyes are not compassionate at 14 not able to understand what she is going through. She feels sad to have to leave her school but feels that she has no choice if she is going to move forward.

She is interested in Politics amd Music and academically enjoys Biology and 20th Century History and English Literature.

She gets very stressed with exams although she can do well if prepared. She is mildly dispraxic. She is funny and has a dry sense of humour.
But she is down alot of the time and in that state cannot be persuaded to do anything and is very down and seeking a lot of reasurrance. She is by nature a very sensitive person and also very loving.

Assuming your fees are £12k p.a. (I know schools vary, but most will be at least that) could you use the Y11 fees to buy in tutors? Even at £40 p.h. that's 8 hours a week up to GCSEs, and in some areas tutors are around half that price. 2 hours English, 2 hours maths, 2 hours science and 2 hours history? Often tutors like daytime jobs (as it allows them to work more per week) so you may find people that will do it for quite reasonable rates.

I will dump a jumble of ideas on you, most of them unrelated to the question you asked in your OP. :-)

Your daughter wants good loyal understanding mature friends and hasn't found them at her current school. She hopes to find some at a different school. But teen friendships are tricky. Many young people live under the constant fear of ostracism if they put a foot wrong at school, for example by sticking up for someone who's being bullied. They are primed to care deeply about their social standing. What's more, if they attend school for 30 hours a week then the school peer group becomes their whole world. Even setting aside the challenges presented by the school environment, there's the fact that teens are undergoing massive changes. At times, they may be too rocked by their own earthquakes to muster energy and empathy for helping friends through tough situations.

Our society tends to exclude teens, pushing them into age-segregated schools and clubs, where we expect them to make friends with others of just the same age. We don't welcome or value them in wider society as they try to take their first steps into the adult world. In law they are classed as children. Many everyday tasks remain off-limits to them until they are 16 or even 18. Parents are often suspicious of the motives of teens who associate with younger children, fearing they may be a bad influence. I think this has a disastrous effect on young people's self-esteem and on their competence.

I wonder whether your daughter would benefit more from spending plenty of time with younger and older people, rather than pinning all her hopes on teen friendships. For example, she could play with young cousins, volunteer to work with Brownies or Guides, or babysit for your friends' children. Younger kids are almost guaranteed to look up to her and respect her unconditionally, not least because they themselves are deprived of the regular company of teens which they crave. They won't judge her, reject her, laugh at her, or turn on her in the way her peers may. Likewise, she could seek out opportunities to associate with adults. She could help an elderly neighbour with gardening, deliver library books to housebound people, serve meals to homeless people, learn ballroom dancing at an afternoon class, join the WI, work as a conservation volunteer or in a charity shop, or sing with a choir which is mostly adults.

My teen did many of the above activities. She found herself received warmly by adults (especially elderly people) who longed to share their perspective and time with a young person but who found themselves usually unwanted and excluded from that role. Often she was treated as the equal of the adults, and at times she even took on leadership roles, which proved to her that she was a capable person. Some of the adults became her friends; others didn't, but there was almost none of the two-faced nastiness which is so prevalent at school. This meant she could relax, be herself, and trust people.

She did have teenaged friends, albeit from a wider age and gender range than is usual at school. (Whoever heard of a 16yo girl being friends with a 13yo boy? But if both love Minecraft, why not?) It's good to spend time with people who are undergoing similar experiences. Teenaged friends are great fun. However, teens formed just one part of her social circle, so they lacked the power to inflict extreme fear or deep misery. She felt well rooted in society, with many people on whom she could rely.

You say your daughter values academic success and doesn't recognise the value in her other skills. That's not surprising, when her school will have been banging on about academics above all else, and the entire school system is set up to favour certain talents above others. I think many people don't realise they have been sold a pup until some years down the line, when they discover that the skills they worked so hard to cultivate at school, college, and university are not the ones they now need to get on in the workplace or in life generally, and in some cases may even be holding them back.

You may not be able to persuade her that her huge array of other gifts are equally important. All these years, she's been getting the opposite message on a daily basis. But you say you think she may be putting too much pressure on herself, because she finds exams stressful. I can see why she might think that re-taking Y10 is a step backwards and she'd rather get GCSEs behind her. Are her academic ambitions related to a desire to go to university or into some particular career? Or is she looking forward to studying specific subjects simply because she loves them? Or does she just want to be able to hold her head up in public when asked about GCSEs, and be able to lay claim to a "decent" number of them?

If she weren't doing all these GCSEs, she might enjoy an Open University course. They will accept under-16s who seem capable and genuinely interested in the subject; I believe an interview is required. The support is good; the tutors are fantastic; the syllabus would let her dive into a topic in far greater depth than the GCSE syllabus. Perhaps she could choose one which is assessed more on coursework and less on exams. She could start with just a single course of, say, ten hours a week in order to focus on it and not risk getting in over her head. There are many which she would be likely to find fascinating.

It's true that wouldn't be likely to help her meet the requirements for college or university entry, so she might regard it as a waste of time, despite it being higher level. But it could be more enjoyable and interesting and less pressured than the GCSE grind. And if she values academic success, she'd be in a position to say to herself and others, "no, I haven't done GCSEs, I've been doing a uni course instead", which could give her a much-needed boost.

I did something a bit similar as a young teen, starting part-time university study, and I loved it. Objectively I suppose it was more difficult than school, but I didn't perceive it that way. I'd chosen from a huge array of courses, so I got to do something which really interested me. The university treated me with more respect than school had. I liked being able to choose what I learned. Acquaintances were agog that I was doing university courses already, though I think most of my peers could have done so too if it had occurred to them to go down that route.

What about doing a language exchange with a native Japanese speaker who is eager to improve their English? If you live somewhere urban, your daughter might meet up with someone in person, say in a cafe or at your house where you can ensure her safety. If there's no one suitable in your area, there are online "lonely hearts" services which pair people who want to learn each other's languages. Your daughter and her learning partner could have skype sessions in which they speak Japanese and chat about Japanese culture for half an hour, and then switch to English for half an hour.

If your daughter has strong political views, maybe she would like to get involved with a political party, do some local campaigning, or shadow a politician whose approach appeals to her. She could go along to local council meetings, perhaps even speak at one if there is a topic about which she feels strongly. My council publishes its agenda in advance and any member of the public can have five minutes to speak on a subject. If national politics are of more interest to her, she might write to her MP or arrange a meeting with them to inform them or change their views on a certain topic which is close to her heart.

I second the suggestion to pay for tutors in enough subjects to get her into sixth form if that's what she wants to do (Eng, maths and 3 others?) as that's what lots of HE teens do. There may also be HE tutor groups where you are (search home education plus your location in Facebook) although they may not work in terms of timing.

You can use online resources, e.g. Oxford, Wolsey Hall in any combination. Google the HE exams wiki for more info. This will also help you to find where to sit exams and to identify which GCSEs you can do independently and where you have to take iGCSEs (the iGCSEs may be a better option given all the uncertainty and lack of past papers around GCSE changes).

Thank you so much for the thoughtful and helful responses.

Yes at the moment it seems that the best option will be to put the funds we have towards private tutors that are well choosen and can help her engage with the subjests that she enjoys. I am not sure that she would be able to work independently with an online programme becuase she finds it hard to concentrate at times for long or just cannot take things in..it may be that she can but and its something that we could try maybe with a couple of subjects and see how she does and what works best. I suppose that if she uses a program that she can repeat lessons then she can do it at her own pace but I'm not sure.

You are correct Saracen in that she has been so programmed to think that acedemics are the most important by those around her. She has a very high acheiving older sibling that obtained exceptional exam results through organisation, method and hard work as well as being bright. This set the bar high for my daughter in her own mind.

The irony of it is that her elder sibling now I am sure would stuggle to recall much of what she learnt for the exam and has not a lot of interest in any of these subjects at this point and has none of the natural curiousity in the world and its inhabitants that her sister exhibits!

On the bright side...she has been volunteering in a week's camp this week looking after younger kids and this has been very good for her as far as being looked up to and an opportunity to make some new friends. She has also been volunteering in a local charity shop. She started to take language lessons last year out of school with a native speaker but we gave that up when she was not well enough to continue.

We are trying to guide her as much as possible but really the bottom line is her mental health. What we don't want is her spending the summer dreading September and then after our holiday sliding back to feelings of despondency.

At the same time she is pretty inflexible as far as her timeline..but I think thats because she in her mind does not want to get 'left behind'.

Its been a pretty stressful year for the whole family. We have however found a family therapist who can hopefully help us show her that she doesn't have to do things the way everybody else does and in a particular time frame. With her depression she has wanted so much to achieve at school but her mind has been so dull and her energy levels depleted and this has depressed her further. She has been very frustrated with it all and afraid too.

I do believe that she will be able to acheive what she wants when her mind is calmer and as her self esteem improves. Its getting her to that point and helping her to be content with a realistic goal and not see it as a 'cop out 'that will be the key. Any suggestion of an slower way to get to the same goal she can easily translate as us thinking that she is not up to the job or that we are losing faith in her.

It would be good for her to take the pressure off herself but in her mind yes, going back to year 10 would be a failure and make her feel as if these years will never end. Hopefully if we keep supporting her to realised that she has time she will listen and maybe take the pressure off herself.

It's very common for the younger sibling of a very high-achieving elder child to struggle with self-doubt.
I do hope she finds a way to come through this soon

On the mental health rather than the educational side...

She will need you to help her maintain a good daily routine, she should not be home alone for long periods, should avoid being in bed in the day. She should maybe do one volunteer role, some regular exercise and a social/peer based activity each week. Its probably 50:50 which is worse, the stress of year 11 or ‘avoiding’ and risking increased anxiety and low mood. So that’s why the other stuff is important. I think pp’s idea of different focus is great (maths, english, a language, pursue art or photography or other passion for fun or to sell items). But routine is all. And lots of parent time.

Apologies if you have already mentioned this, but if you are thinking of going ahead with the homeschooling, are you able to stay at home with her at all? Or would be purely be at home alone with a tutor/online tuition? I'm just thinking that this isolation may not help her mental health in the long term.

I am fortunate enough to be home with my two (who I homeschool) and work part time (from home). They have a tutor for Maths and Science and then everything else we work through together. We do use some online resources and go on 'field trips' together too. They really thrive with this arrangement but I think me being home with them all the time have a big impact on this too.

Also, I have been using these sites www.icould.com and www.firstcareers.co.uk to help with things like career advice (my eldest is starting to think about what he wants to do after education, although he is much younger than your daughter) and we find these really useful. Hopefully you will too.

Best of luck!