This might be long, sorry, I'm just hoping to arrange my thoughts and get some advice.
DD is 14, in year 10. Hasn't been able to attend her girls grammar since September.
She's autistic and really really struggles with new people, busy places, fatigue from masking etc. school is really hard for her, she's very bright but can't manage all the other stuff. Also potentially has EDS and gets very, very tired. School tried a few things but nothing consistently and she doesn't trust adults so it was so hard to get her to engage with anything they offered.
She's had very sporadic attendance throughout secondary and with the help of close friends was improving a bit in year 9.
However, her and friends fell out, they don't speak anymore. She stopped attending altogether.
She's still on roll, EHCPNA is in progress, school have offered a medical needs school, but it's mainly aim is to get her back to the home school, which she can't do. It's not right for her.
So, after trying in vain to find out why she can't attend (she's situational mute and can't identify emotions or feelings at all) I finally got from her that she can't go back and she wants to be home educated
However...I think she's in burnout. Currently I can't get her to much of anything at all. She wouldn't attend groups, at least not right now.
I work 4 days a week as a teacher and I'm a single parent. I can possibly drop my hours until September to 3.5 days, she goes to my mum's for two days, they do baking, crafts etc.
She's been doing school work independently currently and I've put in a section 19 request, going to argue with the LA for a tuition programme of some kind, but might not get it.
I feel like she needs a few months of no pressure, crafts, baking, bit of maybe English work and some maths, but essentially let her recover and then try to get her to engage with groups etc.
She'd be alone at home for 1.5 days a week, but actually she really enjoys this and I trust her. From September I might be able to drop to 3 days in work until she's 16.
I've seen the difference in her in just a couple of months since I stopped forcing her to try to go in, but I'm worried about so many things, that I'll burn out with the stress of trying to manage getting her to do some work, along with managing my job, or that she'll just do nothing and it'll end up with her getting no qualifications at all, or that this won't help and I'll have made a mistake. I'm worried about her becoming isolated too, she has only one friend and barely sees her. I know she'd just want to stay at home at first. We have a good relationship but she still doesn't trust me that I'm not going to o force her into school yet. I've told her I'm researching and thinking about it and that we will talk over Christmas about what it might look like.
I feel like it's the right decision for her and us as a family (she has a younger brother, 9, happy enough in school but possibly also autistic and I don't know if he will eventually have the same issues).
I guess I'm a bit institutionalised myself, been teaching 22 years and I never thought we might be going down this route! I also like routine and things to be planned, so I'm trying to resist that urge!
I do need to talk to her dad, he sees her once a week but he's moving away soon, over an hour, and then will only do every other weekend. His girlfriend is a maths teacher though, so there's possibly support there. He's a bit of a robot though and if I just present him with a plan he'll go with it, he has very little to do with the kids day to day.
Any thoughts (even, are you mental?! No way would this work!) welcome...