Considering home Ed for 11 year old daughter who is being bullied at school.

[Foxglovesandlilacs86]

My daughter has had an awful time since starting y7, she’s been bullied by older boys in y9.10 and 11 and just before half term was threatened with a k ice by a girl in her year. The school have been absolutely useless, as have the police. This girl has already been suspended for bringing a knife into school literally the week before this happened and the focus seems to be on helping this girl instead of stopping her from hurting my daughter.

There are no other schools locally that are any better and really home schooling is my last resort. I’ve basically told the school unless this girl is excluded then my daughter won’t be going back there. I’m waiting to hear from them but even if she is, what happens next? She’s had trouble from the moment she stepped foot in that school.

My exh says he will pay for a tutor for 15 hours a week (we considered private school but the only one that takes them up to 18 is too expensive) and home Ed seems a good compromise.

Does anyone have any advice about what I need to do next?

Threaten her with a knife not ice!

Don't know if this helps, but my DD (age 11) is with Net School and it's not too pricey and they are very, very good. And lovely kids.
SO sorry to hear what your girl has been through. Awful. xx

Thanks @EyeBallisticSquid I will have a look x

FWIW, Home Ed was our last resort too, but we've struck gold. I never, ever thought we would be doing this, but it's actually really nice and has made my girl realise that there are also lots of really nice kids out there. Good luck with it all x

I do not blame you!
There are lots of home school groups on Facebook...have a look. They are great at suggesting activities and organising meet ups.
Tutor would be great for any subjects you're not confident in.
How disgraceful that she has had to face this behaviour in school.

OP I think you are absolutely doing the right thing. Can you imagine being terrified to go to school every day. Sorry I cannot give you any advice on home ed but the very best to you and your daughter xx

I know, I feel so sorry for her. She was such a confident girl before she started there and she's like a different person now.

It all started because she had her hair cut short, she has mega thick hair that is quite unruly and she wanted it cut short for ages and I said no because I knew people would take the mick out of her but eventually I let her. She actually skipped out the hairdressers when she had it done but the next day at school everyone had been calling her a tranny and it's just escalated from there.

Thankyou @Canyouhearmehello . It's nice to have some outside opinions as sometimes i question my own judgement on things like this, but my gut feeling is telling me I'm doing the right thing.

The school have failed her and should be tackling the bullying instead, poor girl. What does the Head and ofsted propose to do. Has she made friends she can mix with, do the bullies parents care that there kids are bullying.

is it worth speaking to the private school, explain the situation, many schools offer payment plans.

OP - this is at the extreme end of bullying . Threatening with a knife is a criminal offence. If the school is incapable of keeping a year 7 girl safe from knife threats, let alone being bullied by14,15 & 16 year old boys, then they have a massive problem.

I've visited lots of Home Ed families and one thing I've learned is that where children are withdrawn because of bullying, the ones that thrive do so where parents pay attention to building their resilience and making sure that children have a life with plenty of social interactions with other children - theatre groups, scouts, sports etc as well as a good academic diet. If your daughter started off as confident then getting her out of that school seems a no brainer.

With the initial bullying from older boys it took a long time to do anything because she didn't know their names or what year they were in. Eventually they were caught but they were out into isolation for a day or so, it calmed down for a bit after that but I think she just learned that telling the teacher doesn't really help much.

With this other thing, it happened on the last day of term before half term break and when I called them on Monday to see what was happening no one knew anything about it, so the teacher she had told about it hadn't even mentioned it to anyone or to the girl that had done it. It's taken til today for them to even speak to me and the headteacher is ignoring my emails. I think they are scared because the police said they should have reported her taking a knife into school the first time but they didn't.

They've asked me to send in a statement from her (again) so they can question the girl but that's as far as it's gone at the moment. I haven't sent my daughter in since they went back on Monday.
She doesn't feel safe there.

I'm pretty certain we will take her out to home school but I want to see what they will do. The girls family are a nightmare, they were at the same primary school briefly ( and we had similar but less violent problems with this girl there) but then she got taken off her mum by social services, so they haven't seen each other until recently when she went back to live with her mum.

Good for you for being on your dd's side. Good luck.

One thing I haven't mentioned is that it have 8 children! She is my third eldest (oldest girl).

This is good in some ways as she won't be lonely but she does need to mix with other kids. She goes to a dance/musical theatre group on a Saturday and has done since we was little, there's a lot of lessons on in the week too so it's something she could focus on more without school.

I used to own my own florist shop and closed it on Christmas Eve, if I was still open there's no way I could do this but now it feels like maybe it happened for a reason

Foxglovesandlilacs86
I've worked with lots of bullied children (and bullies) and sometimes the best thing to do is to remove the child - especially when the problem solely rests with the school. The fact that she told a teacher about a knife incident and they failed to report it is a massive safeguarding red flag. That's a disciplinary offence for a teacher and it defies belief that they didn't recognise the threat that carrying a knife poses.
Please at some stage (obviously your daughter's welfare is currently the priority) make a formal complaint to the governors about this.

Sorry - poor use of words there. To clarify - the best thing is obviously for the school to have and follow effective anti bullying and safeguarding procedures and for the bullies / knife carrier to be removed and your daughter to remain safely in the school. BUT if a school is evidently failing, then it's reasonable to remove your child for her own emotional and physical wellbeing until such time that her safety can be guaranteed.
I suspect that a complaint to Ofsted (given the seriousness of all this) would be picked up quite promptly.

We were in a similar situation with ds when he was in year 7. Bullied from primary school and it got much worse at secondary.. We took him out and enrolled him in an online high school. He was much happier and did well enough at GCSE level to move on to a levels.
I wouldn't do it again though, with hindsight it was not the best thing for him. If I had my time again I'd withdraw him now, spend money on counseling (particularly self esteem and building resilience) and start a new school in September. He was so traumatised by the bullying it's really affected his peer relationships.

@Goatsaregreat

Sorry - poor use of words there. To clarify - the best thing is obviously for the school to have and follow effective anti bullying and safeguarding procedures and for the bullies / knife carrier to be removed and your daughter to remain safely in the school. BUT if a school is evidently failing, then it's reasonable to remove your child for her own emotional and physical wellbeing until such time that her safety can be guaranteed. I suspect that a complaint to Ofsted (given the seriousness of all this) would be picked up quite promptly.

I made a complaint to Ofsted re a bully kicking a child in the head and playground staff doing nothing. They replied that the child was about the age of criminal responsibility so I should complain to the police! Useless.

I'd definitely homeschool in these circumstances and I think you are being a good parent in considering the impact this school is having on your dd. It's a real shame but sometimes there's no other choice, your dd should not feel scared and worried going to school.

There are options out there.

@ModerationInEverything she is actually talking to a counsellor, she has been for about a month now, I think it’s helping. She just seems quite down and anxious in general so she has a virtual session every Friday which will be moving to in person at the end of this month.

She is on a waiting list for another school, so at the moment I’m thinking home school for now and then if she ever gets a place she could try that (if she wants to) but who knows when that will be. This is the only other school I would want to try, the others aren’t bear enough or are known to be much worse than the one she’s at now.

Alot of parents take their children out of school at this age for various reasons.
l took my youngest out at 13, my only regret is that l didnt do it sooner, home school has suited him much better, recently got excellent results without any intervention, (so much info online and GCP books are helpful, they have studied most of curriculum by this age) and now working part time whilst studying for A levels. It also builds good self discipline., most kids that are home schooled have siblings and a busy life, l dont understand this perception of them being isolated.

I would take her out, homeschool + counselling till September then enroll in a different school.

Dc at Kingsinterhigh and they are very good, I’ve also heard good things about Netschool - if you can afford online school. Person Academy we have small experience of, which is very positive too.
If you go the online school route you will see very many out there that are a bit less than you might hope/outright cowboys or quite niche so research carefully and do a trial period if you can.

It's great that your daughter's dad is supportive. One-to-one learning is quite intensive, so I would say that 15 hours of tutoring a week might actually feel like too much, as well as being an unnecessary expense. Your daughter will cover far more ground in an hour with a good tutor than in a class, and by the same token it can be exhausting because she can't just switch off while the teacher is explaining something she already understands, disciplining other kids, etc.

However, since he is willing and able to invest so much money in her education, there may well be other activities such as sports, drama, or clubs where the money would be well spent in giving her access to a range of experiences.