Please help!

[Chailatteplease]

I’m desperate. My son is being badly bullied at school. He’s 12 and had dealt with this his whole life. I have just pulled him out of school after he was attacked again.
I need to know what options we have but I’m so stressed I don’t know where to start.
Can anyone point me in the right direction? I don’t know if homeschooling will be an option if I have to teach him, I struggled through lockdown.

What is your ideal outcome? Does your DS have SN and/or and EHCP? How much money can you/do you want to comfortably throw at this? (In a realistic not I love my son and would do anything for him kind of way) is there an adult at home who can take on the responsibility for home ed (around other responsibilities).

You best course of action now probably depends on the answer to those questions. The easiest but finance heavy option is pull him out, register him as home ed and look into something like interhigh (online schooling that seems to work particularly well for otherwise mainstream kids that cant for whatever reason homeschooling). But the actual answer may not be this simplistic.

There is an answer and a way through though. One step at a time

Agree with above poster - internet school is pricey, but if you can stretch and you want more or less regular school but at home - it works ( and after a while you even find unique advantages)
There are lots of cheaper options if you want to put together a bespoke program ( but not actually teach ) using other internet lesson and course resources. Mathletics, outschool, Humanatees, Edplace …..the more you dig,the more you find.
Throw in some after school sport and special interest clubs where some new kids might be a bit kinder and educate yourself on exam options and local college courses. it’s more doable than you think as long as he is suited to online education

Lockdown homeschooling was very different to the realities of home educating for most people. It is very different when you have the freedom to adapt the education to suit your child rather than trying to dance to someone else's tune.
Look for groups on Facebook, local and national. There are huge, supportive home ed communities out there.
Don't invest in expensive courses yet, take time to research and also get an idea of what might work for your child - kids learn in different ways I think most home educators have fallen into the trap at some point of forking out heavily for something that gets good reviews but really doesn't work for your child.

I agree with @itsstillgood . You don't necessarily have to pay out for online school, nor do you necessarily have to "teach" your son in a school-style fashion. Home education can look very very different from school.

The fact that you didn't get on well with lockdown schooling doesn't suggest you'll make a bad job of home education. Home ed is far more flexible.

One important point to remember is that you don't need to have a detailed plan before you get started. Schoolteachers do, because it's tremendously difficult to keep the attention of several dozen diverse children who are all working on the same thing. But you can (and should!) adapt your approach as you figure out what suits your son. If your initial idea of making your child do 30 minutes of math worksheets first thing every morning is causing stress, try it in the afternoon. Or use a book he likes better. Or let him learn maths by calculating odds in poker. Or put maths on pause for a while and concentrate for the time being on subjects which build his confidence.

Experienced home ed parents often recommend starting off with a complete break from all adult-enforced learning, especially for a child who has had a traumatic time at school, who needs to recover and relax before he'll be ready to focus. During this time, let him do what makes him happy. You will notice things he's learning spontaneously. Maybe you'll have a discussion about politics, or see him writing about Minecraft, socialising online, learning empathy and negotiation skills by working through a dispute with a sibling, acquiring some life skills by using the washing machine or fixing his bike, or calculating how to get enough money for the new game he wants to buy. That's education too.

It will take a while to find your way. But with your son out of school, you have all the time in the world. Only in a group-learning environment is there a risk of being "left behind". When his learning is targeted to him and his needs, it doesn't matter whether he learns algebra at 12 or 14 or 17, whether he takes two weeks off for illness, or when he has a holiday.

Take him out now, and then figure it out as you go along. You can't leave him to be bullied any longer. The sooner you deregister him from school, the sooner he can feel safe in the knowledge that he won't experience bullying. That knowledge will make a huge difference to him.

Find friends. This is key. Home education takes a while and is for everyone but you need to have the faith and patience to make it work though. Be flexible in your approach, try new things etc. Education is a multi layered thing that is not confined to a stuffy old classroom.

Slow down, take him out, if you feel that's the best option.
Let your lad recover.
Let yourself recover.
Put the LA off if they ask too much -tell them you are busy exploring possibilities (or lack of).
Do what you can.
Ask for charity if you need it.
Better fix m now, and let them pay it back, than leave them struggling forever.