Please help - I'm about to take my daughter out of school and home school her... but I'm totally new to this.

[Ginismedicinal]

What do I say to her school? How do I word the email informing them? She's 14 and would be going into year 10 in September. School has let her down repeatedly. Her mental health has declined enormously, I've had enough, so I'm doing whatever I need to do. I'm nervous though - I've no idea what I'm doing. Any advice or help would be much appreciated 🙏

Also SEMH is not anxiety. Sorry to be pedantic but if you are speaking with authority, you really need to educate yourself.

You have come onto a Home ed post clearly not understanding the experiences of parents and stated facts that are just not correct. This is a big decision for parents concerned about their child’s wellbeing and you have no right to make a judgement.

This!

You're not a teacher. You can't teach your kids GCSEs!!!

Take a deep breath and get that letter written. Welcome to the club. Loads of good advice and there is loads of support and resources out there.
Don't go spending loads straight away just relax a little and look at what is on offer and what your DD wants to do for y10/11. If she is well enough to follow the GCSEs pathway there is lots of ways of doing it.
There are some great home ed support podcasts too.
My DD did a lot of crafting and art too when she was home ed.
Listen to a few pods to get some support and confidence. Don't be worried about the council visiting we have a check once a year and the lady is lovely.you are educating to your child's ability not following the national curriculum.
I was listening to some pods the other day discussing GCSEs and many home ed kids do IGCSEs.
IXL is a good resource if you are looking for any but like I gave already said don't rush in to anything. You can both do some recovery work first before seeing what your needs are. Good luck you are welcome to pm me anytime if you have any doubts.
Hope you can both feel the relief soon.

A child suffering from MH issues will not learn at school anyway and better MH is more important than doing GCSEs at school.
There are actually loads of resources now on something called the internet which makes home ed a lot easier.
Schools are failing kids not everyone is a square peg.

She deserves a proper education - you are not a teacher and she will suffer in the longer term.

Does she have an ehcp? If not then a simple email saying you will be home educating and to remove her from the school roll is all you really need.

Are you on Facebook? So much of the home Ed community is organised through Facebook so if you can, join the National groups and the ones local to you. That’s normally the best place to find meet ups etc.

You’ll be able to find resources online easily, often for free or not much money. It sounds like your DD could do with a break before you dive in with anything too heavy? Exams can be expensive, yes, but again no need to worry yet.

Hope it goes really well for you, and your DD can start to heal well.

These children have been endlessly supported. They don't however understand that the school can only do so much and if the parents don't back them up and take advantage of the help given then there won't be solutions. I see weekly where children have been endlessly supported, millions of chances given, help and restoratives given, but parents do not engage or accept any responsibility and just think they are being victimised when the opposite is true. Teachers, SLT and pastoral teams are bending over backwards to help these kids but at the end of the day it's the parents that thinks it's the schools fault but the school is doing all it can.

But these would also be the parents who do not engage with the LA and would therefore be deemed to be “missing from education”. This is not representative of Home educators at all.

😂😂

Have a look at Not Fine In School Facebook group. They have lots of helpful information from others in similar situations

But what is that to do with the OPs post?

How is that helpful to a parent who is at their wits end with their child’s school and has a child on their hands who is suffering mentally?

Why on home ed posts must we always suffer the usual shitty comments? Home ed isn’t one particular type of parent/family you know!! We are a diverse range of people with a spectrum of education and parenting skills. Bore off.

Tell me you know nothing about home education without telling me you know nothing at all about home education 🥱

Very useful info from @ThinkingAgainAndAgain . If you are sure school is damaging your daughter's mental health, take her out immediately and figure out the details later. Home ed looks very different to school. You do not have to have everything planned out in advance; it isn't like a school classroom which would descend into chaos if the teacher turns up without a clear plan of what and how they are going to teach.

The first step is to help your daughter recover. Experienced home educators recommend starting off with a complete break from all adult-led school-style work. Let her learn from her daily life and concentrate on doing the things which make her happy: maybe playing with the dog or a younger cousin, drawing, reading, baking, playing games. Try to coax her out for a change of scene and some exercise every day. During this time, you can quietly start researching the different educational options to see what opportunities are available in your area and what approach you think might suit her.

Once she is more relaxed (which could take weeks or months), come to her with some ideas about how to proceed. You could gradually introduce some subjects starting with her favourite ones to ensure she has a positive start. Don't be afraid to experiment. Few families find the best approach for their child on the first attempt. That's to be expected. There is no rush, because you can tinker with it as you go until it feels right. There are no deadlines. GCSEs, if she wants to do them, can be done at any age. Home ed kids often spread them out, studying intensively for a few at a time so as to avoid juggling lots of subjects at once.

Most home ed forums are on Facebook these days and are "closed"; i.e. available only to people who are home educating, have home educated, or are seriously considering home education. If you are bothered by all the "noise" of people commenting here who clearly have no experience of home ed, you might prefer to talk to people on a closed group.

Facebook is also where you will find your local home ed community. It would be a good idea to get in touch with them soon so you can find out about social and educational opportunities in your area. Even if your daughter doesn't yet want to go out and do things and meet other teens, you could get together with some other parents for in-person support. Many of them will have removed their kids from school for the same reasons as you and will understand what it's like.

Go onto Facebook and in its search bar type "home education" followed by the name of your town or county or the nearest big city. If you can't find anything, let us know and I'm sure someone can help.

I was in your exact boat about 3/4 weeks ago.
Child has SEN, 14 and going into year 10 in September. I was ready to homeschool and sent the deregistration letter. Had an email from school asking me to come in for a meeting before they took her off roll. I wasn't sure what to do as we had already made our minds up but thought I would go and see what they had to say.

School was brilliant, they have moved her groups to be with children who are quiet and similar to her. She is only going to do core GCSEs and one option and will have tutoring the rest of the time with a 1:1 so she gets the best results she possibly can. They are also going to do more life skills and enrichment activities with her.

Daughter has been back a week and (so far) school have stuck to their word and she has been happy. Maybe give school a chance to see what they come up with and say. I was also set to home school and if need be I still will! I don't think school would have offered as much if it hadn't got to the point I was going to home educate her.

How's it going OP?

Home educated children can and do achieve GCSEs.

one of the most useful facebook groups (home ed UK exams and alternatives)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/HELinksUK.IGCSE/

home ed exams wiki
https://he-exams.fandom.com/wiki/HE_Exams_Wiki

DC left school (or to be more specific, was off-rolled) due to unmet SEN. 4 years, 10 GCSEs, 4 A levels and a place at a world-leading university later, it was absolutely the right choice for us. The system is broken. It may not be the right choice for everyone, though. The basic question is: if your school can't/won't meet needs, can you do better or worse than them, or is there are third option?

Couldn't she try a different school- you are running a very real risk of wrecking her life chances

That's what people said to me in a similar situation, but in fact it led to life chances that I don't think would have been considered if we'd not taken time out of school to deal with DD's mental health and got more creative about how we did things. Nothing is more important than mental, emotional and physically wellbeing, and DD is now thriving at university with a wide social circle, which I don't think would have happened if she hadn't taken a breather from school. Though home ed we learned that there are many ways to get to where you want to go and a one size fits all schooling system doesn't in fact fit everyone.

See, this is one of the reasons teens suffer so much anxiety: they are bombarded constantly with the message that their lives will be destroyed if things don't come together perfectly in the next few years in terms of education and especially exams. That's unhelpful and untrue.

Always my main aim has been for my kids to reach adulthood happy and well-adjusted. There are many ways to reach their life goals. It does not have to involve misery at school and producing ten "good" GCSEs at the exact age of 16. Home educated kids often have very high academic attainment; in fact, the efficiency of this style of education can mean BETTER opportunities to achieve in a conventional sense than at school. But even if that weren't true, once you break free from the school model, you discover other paths.

My eldest sat two GCSEs aged 19/20, impressed university admissions tutors with their relevant work experience and skills developed through self-study, and is now top of their class in third year. The younger one is 17 and has no qualifications yet. But she is developing good life skills, and because her education has been right for her, she has better confidence and happiness than most of her learning-disabled peers she meets at the special needs groups she attends. I am very optimistic about her future.

School-based statistics would indicate that both of them had their "life chances wrecked" by not going to school. I think just the opposite.

@Ginismedicinal how is your DD now?

I'm thinking of pulling my son out of Yr 11 as there isn't support just punishments. Every one keeps telling me his gcse's are important. How is it going for you so far.
Carol

Eroomc.....he starts at college tomorrow!!!!! (24-19 study programme). Been an up down year, took me a few months to get him settled mentally. How is your son doing x

Not good, He hates the school. I've been trying to get him out for the last 2 yrs local council unwilling to move him schools, welfare officer insist he has to stay at the school. Head of Yr is a total waste of space, o and asking to speak to the head of the school isn't protocol. So for my sons wellbeing I feel home schooling is my only option.