Anyone done home ed just for secondary and how to make it work?

[Newsenmum]

We’ve got a few years before this is an issue but I like to prepare in advance and think about all our options. DS primary needs are autism/adhd, but also has dyselexia and dyspraxia. Potential PDA too. He’s on his complete own unique path (I know every ND kid is) and really intellectual in some ways but then very behind in others. I honestly dont know which special secondary would work for him. Primary is ok as its very small anyway and they have a unique provision where he does his own learning.

I wonder if home ed might get the best outcomes by secondary. It just feels overwhelming and Id want to get the social stuff ‘right’.

Anyone done this and how has it gone?

Try page on FB called HEFA

Stands for Home education for all. They have groups with very experienced home educators

There will be a local home educators Facebook page. You should be able to join them and see what people are doing near you.

FWIW I’m home educating straight through, and I know a lot of other people who are HE through the secondary years. Socialising is a lot easier than you’d expect - there will be regular local meet ups, clubs, tutoring classes if that’s your thing. You may find a local college offers condensed GCSEs at 14 (we have one) for HE kids. Or a local tutor, or just a social meet where you can ask people’s advice in person.

Not me - we've done it right the way through - but I am very active in home ed circles and can reassure you it is a very common situation, usually for the same reasons as yours.

I agree that seeing what the home ed social life looks like locally should be reassuring. Your local FB group may or may not let you join now; some of them restrict membership to those who are already home educating. To find them, go to the Facebook search bar and type "home education" followed by the name of your town, county or nearest city. Let us know if you need help to find something.

I would say if at all possible, try home ed by Y9 or so. If you do give high school a try first, and it doesn't seem to be working out, don't delay too long before having a go at home ed. There are several reasons for this.

Being in the wrong social environment can badly damage a kid's confidence. If that happens in adolescence when they are getting a good sense of who they are, it really knocks them for six. Sometimes it takes years to recover. Parents who have left it longer than they ideally would have before moving to home ed may report that their child has been so traumatised by it that they are too anxious to have anything to do with other teens for a very long time afterward.

Trying home ed in Y7/8/9 is really not the big deal or massive commitment which people in the school system make it out to be. If you decide it isn't right after all, your child can easily return to school. But the situation is different for an older child. The school system's approach to the "GCSE years" is horribly inflexible. It's hard for them to accommodate a new arrival much after the start of Y10. That means that if you take your child out, say, halfway through Y10 then that IS an almost irreversible decision.

Most long-term home educators say that GCSEs were their least favourite phase of home ed. It's true that doing GCSEs from home is freer and more flexible and less pressurised than doing them at school. But it is harder work, more rigid and more uninspiring than the previous years or the following years. You'll also need to familiarise yourself with quite a lot of detail to see your child through exams. Even if you aren't helping him with the actual content you will still have to figure out which subjects he'll do, with which exam board, where he can sit them, when he wants to do each one, and how he'll learn the material. So it is pleasant and relaxing to start home education before that time, so you can both have some time to settle in, have fun, and experiment with how he learns best before you get into the nitty gritty of GCSEs.

Neither of my kids did any GCSEs around the "usual" age. They found their friends were less available to them from about the age of 14, as they spent a larger proportion of their time focusing on GCSE study. As I said above, it isn't as tough as for schoolchildren - doing GCSEs through home education is more efficient and less stressful than school - but still most HE 15 year olds are far busier with academic work than when they were 12. They are more selective about how they spend their limited free time and may stick with existing friendships rather than making time to seek out new ones. I notice that kids who arrive on the home ed scene after 14 don't have such an easy time making friends as those who started slightly younger.

I'm not saying it's a bad idea to pull a 15 year old out of school if he's thoroughly miserable there. You have to do whatever is best in the moment, and sometimes that's the only option. But you might wish you'd done it sooner.

We do. We started half way through y8.

Spent the rest of year 8 doing bits and pieces and then when he would have been going into y9 (we stick to terms because his siblings go to school), we started looking at English, maths and history igcse framework and working towards those.

This is incredibly helpful,
thank you.

You're welcome! 😊

I just reread your post and noticed the mention of PDA. You might want to look into the "unschooling" method of home education, also known as "autonomous education". We follow it out of choice. But a number of my fellow unschooling parents have children with PDA, and they felt driven to it because it seemed like the only viable approach for their kids.

My daughter's best friend has PDA, and we go to a small unschoolers' camp where many of the kids have PDA too.

Also, I realise that I rabbited on quite a lot about GCSEs. That may or may not end up being directly relevant to you. IME nearly all home ed kids who are capable of GCSEs do some, though often not at the "usual" age, and most then go on to college at 16ish. Neither of mine did, one because GCSEs aren't suitable for her and the other because they didn't want to do them.

But even for those of us who don't go down that path, exams and subsequent college form part of what you might call the "social landscape" of teenage home education. One of my kids felt a bit inadequate when nearly all their friends were going off in a different direction. Both of them ended up shifting their friendships towards slightly younger kids and other unschoolers, because those were the people who had time to hang out with them.

Did part of it for secondary with DS. It was really hard work. He had gone to secondary school, a grammar, and he really struggled with anxiety (ASD and he has later been diagnosed bipolar). HE was tough. I think he needed a lot longer to decompress. He then had a tutor through flexischooling which was ok.
He ended up at 16 training as a chef. My husband is a chef and took him to work with him. We didn’t want him home alone after multiple suicide attempts.
Recently he quit work as a chef (now 23). He has got a job with the council doing ground work, he’s so happy! They find their own path x

What did yours end up doing in the end - do you know if it worked out for the pda ones?

this so lovely to hear. It sounds like youve been wonderful parents to him helping him through it all

We are on a home Ed path but do now have EOTAS as tutors funded by LA after long fight with EHCP. Similar sounding child to yours. It’s not easy as they were burnt out by yr7 and dropped out completely. Now 3yrs in we’ve done lots of finding out how best they learns as no-one way suits all. Experimented with online, YouTube, in person 1:1 and small group tutoring and self directed learning. We now do a mix of all of this. It does give you the freedom to follow their interests more and it’s fab seeing a young person want to learn something themselves and the pride when they show you (my teen discovered Blender graphics self taught & now has a gaming side hustle selling things online ). I’m more of a facilitator but as we are focusing on exams now I do have to keep on the content which is hard work. However the freedom to take 2 GCSEs, then 2 more and some other things has reduced the pressure. My eldest did mainstream school and it was ridiculous the pressure she was put under by a bog standard comprehensive to do 10 GCSEs in one sitting. Socialising is really hard though as most around us is aimed at u11 but some of that is just teens in general.
my main advice would be invest the time in letting them find out how best they learn. Work with them to switch it up if it’s not working, have an end goal that keeps doors open or find out options at college when 16-17 so you can keep options open. For us that’s a min of Maths & English iGCSE then they are working on getting the GCSE’s to access the college they may want at 17, we are delaying a year to build more social skills.

Whatever you plan home Ed wise definitely include the cost.
Even if you do the work yourself and dont pay tutors or online school. The price per gcse exams is a lot .
I know not everyone ends up doing them but we did and cost a lot of money .

As for how it worked out for some of the kids, here are a few stories.

My eldest (NT, average ability) didn't want to do GCSEs, originally planning to go straight into work in an arts-related job. They had a good range of interests. During their teens they self-studied art and other subjects and tried their hand at a number of jobs and voluntary jobs including sports coaching. Their health declined from age 15, and they were eventually diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. By 19 they'd had to give up most sports and hobbies, sticking mainly with art and music. Even part-time work had become impossible. They changed their mind about exams, taking English GCSE at 19 and maths at 20, both of which they found easy though they'd never studied them formally before. Having discovered a passion for animation, they applied to uni despite their lack of qualifications, and had some very good offers based on portfolio. They did their degree part-time over five years, recovered their health, and just graduated at 25. Now looking for a job and quite confident about their prospects of getting something artsy, though probably not in animation.

My youngest (learning disabled, not autistic) wouldn't manage GCSEs. At 19 she is still home educated, learning life skills and academic subjects in an informal way. She does a bit of voluntary work. I plan to encourage her to do some lower-level Functional Skills qualifications to help with employability, but she isn't ready for that yet as she finds any sort of formal study fairly stressful. She's still maturing and gaining basic skills. It's tricky to think of a job which would be a good fit for her, but I do think something is out there! There's no hurry. We aren't on a deadline.

Friend A (PDA) was always obsessively interested in computers, computer games, and computer programming, doing little else from the age of 10, not going out much. He had a couple of friends who shared his interests, and his siblings' many friends were often in the house, so he wasn't isolated. His parents expected that launching him into adulthood would be a long and difficult process. But one day aged about 20, out of the blue he announced that he'd landed a job as a programmer and was starting work soon, asking his mum to help him shop for some suitable clothes. She hid her astonishment and asked whether it was full time. It was. She didn't think he'd last a month. He never looked back. A couple of years later he moved out when he got a new job in a different city, and later acquired a partner. Now about 30 years old, great job, no academic qualifications.

Friend B (PDA) was adamant he would never do anything academic. He liked gaming and was good at organising people, so he vaguely thought he might get a related job one day. When he was 15 his mum managed to persuade him to try a tutor-led home ed GCSE study group, which he loved. It transpired that his reluctance to try anything academic had been due to a fear of failure, which evaporated once he'd had a go and realised he was bright and capable. Before long he was studying for half a dozen GCSEs, applying himself with zeal and excelling academically. He set his sights on a local sixth form, where he did his A levels and then went on to university. I believe he has a good job now, aged 22.

Friend C (PDA) is 16 and declares he will never do anything academic. Though he has no qualifications yet, he's well informed on a wide range of subjects. His interests are decidedly academic, his maturity is developing in leaps and bounds, and I predict he'll go the same way as Friend B. With many unschooled kids it seems like there is a light switch moment when they decide they want something and just work towards it singlemindedly.

Friend D (PDA) did a good set of GCSEs from home a bit later than the usual age, but continued to find daily life and interactions with other people hugely challenging. Somehow I imagined he'd go the same way as A and B, but it turns out that he's always going to need significant practical help throughout the day. I saw him recently and while he's rather more calm and contented than when he was younger, he clearly will never find life easy. He's 21 and does some hobbies.

Friend E (PDA) I don't know as well. His parents are very well off and have said they love having him live with them and will gladly support him indefinitely to do whatever he wants. He mostly does his hobbies, and has a job in a bookshop for a day or two a week. Aged 25, no qualifications. Seems happy.

When I think back to how friends A-D were at the age of 10, (I didn't know E when he was young), they were so frequently deeply distressed and anxious that it was hard to imagine them going on to develop close friendships, relationships, and bright futures. All their parents worked incredibly hard to help them find their way, and nature did its job too!

Can I ask what alternatives to GCSE if any there are. A child in my wider family is really struggling in school and how to obtain some qualifications for job hunting etc is not something we are really aware of

Thanks for sharing @Saracen it’s inspiring hearing different paths. It can be a lonely place going against the tide especially this time of year with all the “back to school / attendance matters parent bashing” I didn’t think we’d be where we are but equally I’m not surprised as my youngest never found nursery or primary school easy and had always beat to a different drum until she couldn’t mask any more. I have no regrets though supporting her on this wiggly route as the level of skills she has now self taught herself far surpass what she would have got in MS school.

There are some listed on the Home Ed Exams wiki, which has good content in spite of the clunky platform on which it's hosted. https://he-exams.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Alternative_Qualifications There is a linked Facebook group, but I am not sure whether it's open to people who aren't home educating.

The only one I am somewhat familiar with is Functional Skills. You can do them at various levels according to your ability. They are more concrete and limited in scope than GCSEs and are a good way of demonstrating basic numeracy and literacy. They are also somewhat more accessible than GCSEs in that they are pass/fail so there is less pressure to get the best possible mark, and there are many sittings throughout the year so you can do it whenever you are ready, and have another go after a few months if you don't pass first time.

A Functional Skills pass at the highest level, Level 2, is equivalent to GCSE grade 4 FOR SOME PURPOSES. I think too many home ed parents are too quick to latch onto it in the belief that it will definitely provide access to everything which requires GCSE grade 4. You need to check.

Some of the home ed kids I have known, including my eldest, found that part-time jobs and voluntary work in their teens provided a great foundation to a CV, giving them transferable skills and insight into what working conditions suit them best. For a lot of jobs, experience is more important than qualifications. The problem for your relative is that school gobbles up so many hours that they'll probably lack the time and energy to get out there and do all that stuff in their teens which might have smoothed their path into adulthood.

Have they looked at college 14-16 vocational programmes? Some of these are available full time, while others are done on day release from school. Schools tend to allow it only as a last resort for a young person who is deeply disengaged with school and unlikely to pass any GCSEs. It's hard to make the schedule mesh with the school timetable. If the child has the entire day in college every Tuesday, they will miss some of their school lessons.

@saracen that is an excellent summary thank you so much. The learner and their parents will find that invaluable.