Don’t know where to start

[knutsford45]

My daughter has been refusing to go to school for the last 3 months she is year 9. She is not being bullied and just shrugs and says she doesn’t like it. She has been referred to camhs. We recently saw a private psychologist but this has not helped. The school are fairly supportive but I feel they should be doing more. I don’t want her home schooled but as she is soon to start gcse I feel we may have no option. If I want to put this in place for September where would I start. Who could advise? School, local council? It’s put so much stress on us as a family. Any suggestions appreciated.

Would she change school for a fresh start?

Online school? That's a way of keeping her accountable to someone outside the family. I know people use BriteSchool (sp?) Cambridge Home School, Interhigh. One of them is much cheaper than the others, but my friends who use it say it is fine (but of course I can't now remember the name).

Home Education through GCSE years is much less fun than at an earlier point, if you want to follow GCSE curriculum - either you'll need to get her through GCSE preparation yourself, or use tutors. No need to do the full 9 GCSEs (just remember how many children in school don't get a full clutch of marvellous exam results). Work out (with her) what she wants to be doing at 16, and then work out what hoops she needs to jump through to get to that point. If you can get her buy-in to it, that makes it much easier.

Yes, there should be a local authority staffer who works with people doing education other than at school. If there's anything medical going on, you might be able to argue for her to come under EOTAS (which is not the same as elective home education).

Don't de-register her until you're quite sure you want to take responsibility for her education yourselves. Until that point, keep her on roll, because then it's the local authority's responsibility to make sure she's accessing education (through EOTAS if she can't be got into school)

She’s says that would be worse, we have appointment to view a utc this month who take from year 10. She’s not keen but have told her that she doesn’t have many options.

Thank you for your reply. I want her to stay in school as ironically she wants to be a teacher. I’m hoping it’s a phase but just trying to have all options so as parents we can say we did everything possible for her.

If she wants to become a teacher she needs to study education at uni, or do an unrelated degree and then a pgce. That doesn't mean she has to go to a bricks and mortar school herself.

Hi OP

I am having similar struggles - my year 9 DD hates school and is so unhappy and is depressed and anxious. We had support previously with Early Help for some issues but DD refused to engage. We have been referred to CAHMS.
just today I took her to school as she was late - she had panic / anxiety attack in the carpark and couldnt get out of the car - we sat there for 30 mins before we came home again - (i have to work)
The whole situation is horrible.

We are trying to move schools but she doesnt want to go to a local school. the last resort is homeschooling.

Does anyone know if I homeschool for years 10/11 can she go to college without having taken any GCSE's and do functional maths and english level 1/2 ?

Our local authority offered dd a place at a small unit just for girls with mental health issues, is this possible? But in the end her school gave her a separate learning space in the school with a laptop and the secretary kept her full of tea, she went to a few lessons but could go back to her "office" whenever she wanted, quite a bespoke arrangement but she got A's and a*'s

Since you don't want to HE and it isn't clear what your daughter dislikes about school, it's hard to predict how HE would go for her. I think you are right to explore other options first and think of home ed as a last resort.

This is particularly the case as she is about to start working toward GCSEs. If she came out of school for a while and that didn't work out, it would become increasingly difficult to return to school as she would have missed too much. This is less true at a younger age, but the GCSE years at school are very lockstep. So if you did home ed for a year now, say, you'd probably be stuck continuing with it even if it wasn't working very well.

Have you looked at options at your local college? Some offer dedicated 14-16 programmes, which can be done either full-time, or part-time alongside home education. Most of these have a vocational focus and might not suit someone aiming to be a teacher. However, there might be something more suitable. One college near me offers a range of more academic GCSE courses which HE kids can choose from, as many or as few as they like. Another offers a package of five core GCSEs (only two sets of five to choose from) which may be just enough to get onto an A level course later.

Some kids who hate school find the college environment better for them, especially if they can attend part-time.