Timeline for deregistering

[shockedandnumb]

Hi,

We deregistered our child on Friday from secondary school - this was also his last day. The school has contacted me a couple of times to arrange a meeting but I have declined. I see through the school app that he's still being marked as unauthorised absence. Should I follow up or be patient? I just wondered how long it has taken for other people. Thank you!

well if you meet with the school, you can have a chat and also ask them

Seems short sighted not to 🤷

Thanks for the passive-aggressive shrug emoji. Helpful.

I've met with them multiple times about my son's anxiety and they want to try to get me to reconsider home education. I haven't made that decision on a whim. There is nothing more they can do to help him. I'm looking for advice from somebody who has been through the process on whether to chase this up with the failure to deregister letter or to wait.

She's removed her child from the school so what would be the point in meeting with them?

@shockedandnumb school admin takes a while to catch up, just delete the apps. You've done your job.

Have the school confirmed they have received your deregistration letter?

Hi, yes they have. They called on Monday to ask why I'd deregistered even though they knew the reasons, and then again on Tuesday to request a meeting. I got an email, too. I've politely declined.

Hey. I think I'd give them until Monday and then email to chase. Best of luck with it, been home adding 3 years now and it's the best decision we ever made for our 2.

The school should have deregistered your son by now, but that is not your problem and you don't have to do anything about it. The important thing is to have some sort of proof that they received your dereg letter. You have that, since they emailed you about it. That means they cannot keep him on the register, put down unauthorised absences, and eventually fine you. If they tried, you would have an ironclad defense.

The simplest course of action now is just to block and ignore the school.

In due course, once the school has removed your son's name from the register and informed the Local Authority that he is now being HE, the LA is likely to get in touch to ask you for some information about how you are educating your son. It is unwise to ignore the LA. However, many LAs imply that parents must do things which are not actually required, such as accepting home meetings or showing them written "work" produced by the child. I suggest that when the LA contacts you, ask them to keep everything in writing. Then you can show the letter to someone knowledgeable here or on another local or national home ed group and find out about your legal obligations, so the LA won't lead you up the garden path about that.

I hope your son will start to feel more relaxed now he is out of school.

I'm sorry that the school have failed your son and it's come to the point of having to deregister. i agree with other posters, since you have received acknowledgement, give them until Monday morning to remove him and then chase with the failure to deregister letter.

I wish you all the luck on your home ed journey, with space for your son to heal. Some of our best friends deregistered from primary school in the last 2 years, and seeing the difference in the children from when we first met is stark.

Thank you so much everybody. Sorry for the delay. I didn't get any notifications come through that they were replies. I really appreciate the support and advice. That's perfect. I chased up yesterday and attached the failure to deregister letter. It's good to know I've done everything required of me. Excited for what lies ahead. My son is already feeling so much better about everything. I know it was the best decision.

@shockedandnumb
well done for doing the right thing by your son. I’ve been HE for years and am shocked at the amount of children being failed by schools. How is he doing?

You’ve done your part of this, just ignore the school now. He’s no longer their remit. The LA will contact you in due course and you can liase with them. By the way I highly recommend you keep all communication in writing, don’t let them intimidate you into having a ‘meeting’ and remember no-one has authority over your family except you. They only have the right to a written response once a year and nothing else. So many are overstepping boundaries recently and going outside of their remit.

Thank you so much for the validation and advice. I always thought HE was quite a radical approach until I realised how unhappy my child was and what the system was doing to him. It's amazing on the other side and I wish I had got here sooner. But we're here now and I can already see a difference in my son. It's amazing. Just over a week ago we were both feeling pretty broken having tried to meet the school's requests to "just get in", and now our mornings are bright, full of chat and laughter and we're navigating the new way of learning together. I hadn't realised just how bad things had got. Brilliant advice to keep everything in writing. I'm waiting for the LA to get in touch and I'll be ready with a plan. :)

I'm so glad to hear your son is already starting to feel better. Just the stress of having to force him to go in being lifted can make a big difference, can't it?

This might not be what you meant by plan, but just in case. Usually the advice is to only share what you have already done with your LA, not what you plan to do. Home Ed is quite flexible and what you plan to do, might end up not working for you, your son or your family, and then, naturally, you'll evaluate and change your plans. If you share your plans with the LA, they can hold you to them.

For instance, I planned about a million things to do with my older children this year. Reality of life with a new baby, means I've had to drop a lot. Insead, they're getting lots of opportunities to learn to cook, garden and do crafts with their grandparents, who are helping us out. Maybe we'll pick the other things back up later or maybe we won't, but the dropping of those things would be much more stressful, if I had to justify dropping them to the LA.

@shockedandnumb that is great to hear how well he is doing. That says a lot about how awful the school system is today. The only regret most HE parents have is that they didn’t start sooner. Me included.

@cloudengel good advice on the written response. OP I would also recommend joining the HEFA facebook group and reading the guides on how to best respond to the LA when they contact you.