Pulling out my Y7 ADHD daughter to homeschool?

[TheCyanCrab47]

Hi everyone,

I’d be really grateful for advice from anyone who’s been through something similar. My daughter is 11 (Year 7) and has struggled with anxiety around school since Reception. On her first days of school, she would sit in puddles in her uniform to try to avoid going in, and burst into tears. She did eventually settle, but I don’t think she ever truly felt safe, she just learned to cope because she had to. Her teachers would say she eventually settled, but that didn't sit right with me, and of course, they would say that...

She went to a very high-achieving primary school, one of the best in our city, but she didn’t fit their “ideal pupil” mould and was often overlooked. I was the one who pushed for external professional support; the school didn’t initiate it. When professionals finally came in, they were surprised they hadn’t been contacted sooner, and within minutes of speaking to her, they asked whether we had ever considered referring her for an ADHD assessment.

In Year 4 we moved her to a more supportive primary school. They assessed her for various needs and said they strongly suspected ADHD. She has been on the NHS waiting list ever since. But even then, none of the teachers really got to know her - they said she was quiet and shy. That is certainly not who my daughter is! She is bright, bubbly, creative, makes lots of friends easily, and really confident, at least outside of school. When she left, I felt like the teachers didn't really know her at all.

She’s now in an enormous secondary school (around 2,000 girls). I must stress that it was her choice to go there, as she wanted to stay with her friends, and it genuinely is one of the better schools locally. My husband and I said it would either make her or break her, and we crossed our fingers and hoped for the best. Other nearby schools aren’t as strong in terms of teaching or support, so we tried to honour her wishes. But since starting, her anxiety has escalated. Most mornings now involve panic, tears, or physical anxiety, and she comes home emotionally exhausted and dysregulated.

The school’s SENCO team are trying, but the system is huge and rigid. It feels like they’re focusing on getting her to conform rather than adapting things to meet where she actually is — emotionally or academically. She didn’t pass her SATs, and while she is bright and creative, she often feels behind and misunderstood. She also has spiralling anxiety attacks in lessons she finds really hard, and has to leave the classroom because she is in floods of tears. Sometimes she tries to skip classes altogether and sit in the Learning Hub because she simply cannot face it.

My husband and I are struggling to agree on what to do. I left a very good job in part to make sure that my daughter settled into her new school, and we are now a single-income household so money is tight. We’ve looked into online schools, but we just can’t afford them. My husband works in a school and feels that mainstream education is still the best place for her, for socialisation, structure, and support with her (as yet undiagnosed) ADHD. I understand that view.

But I’m also watching school slowly drain the joy out of her. I don’t want to wait until she completely shuts down. I know it’s very early in the first term of Year 7 to even be talking about homeschooling, but I don’t want to put her through any more of this if there’s another way. I believe homeschooling could give her time to recover emotionally, rebuild confidence, and catch up on basic skills in a calm environment. I’m willing to make sacrifices to do that. The idea wouldn’t be to homeschool indefinitely — the plan would be for her to return to school or a learning centre for GCSEs when she’s ready.

I guess what I’m asking is this:

• Has anyone homeschooled a child with anxiety or suspected ADHD after school became too overwhelming?
• Did it help — emotionally or academically?
• How did you navigate it if one parent disagreed?
• Was your child able to reintegrate into school or start GCSE learning later on?
• Are there any affordable UK resources, flexi-school options or support networks you’d recommend?
• And how do you know when school has stopped being “good pressure” and started becoming harm?

Thank you so much if you’ve read this far. I (we) just need to know how to navigate this. It feels like whatever decision we make there will be huge risks to my daughter. Bring on the reform of the UK education system!

Sadly it is a very very common scenario. My own kids haven't been through it - they were home educated from the start - but we meet lots of children arriving into our home education groups with a similar story. More often they come out of school in Y8 having reached crisis point, in extreme distress and completely unable to go into school. I think parents find home education a scary and difficult decision, and sometimes only turn to it after their child has had a breakdown... and in most cases parents later say the only thing they regret is not trying it sooner.

IF school is ever going to be a good fit, taking a break to home educate won't make school any harder. It can even be helpful in terms of giving the child a break from a hugely stressful situation and letting both parent and child explore different ways of learning and of coping. At school there doesn't tend to be the time and flexibility for that.

By analogy, if you want to become a weightlifter, you don't achieve that by having a car lowered onto you every day. You experiment to find out what's the most you can safely lift and keep building up; if you suffer an injury, you pause to recover; you try out different workout schedules; you accept that the maximum you can lift may be different from what someone else can lift. And after all that, possibly you conclude that weightlifting isn't the right sport for you - but you'll never know that by having a car dumped on you.

If your child may want to return to school, you just need to make sure she does that by the start of Y10. In most subjects, the GCSE curriculum is fairly self-contained and it is fine to join any time up to that point. But the curriculum is so rigid that it's very hard for schools to accommodate new arrivals much after the start of Y10.

For that reason, now is a good time to try home ed and see if it suits. You don't have to contend with the pressure of GCSEs in the near future, so you can have a gentle start. And there is no risk, because your child could return to school in a year or two or three if that seems like the best way forward.

how do you know when school has stopped being “good pressure” and started becoming harm?

Well, you said "I’m also watching school slowly drain the joy out of her." That's how you know. She deserves better.

You describe your daughter as "bright, bubbly, creative, makes lots of friends easily, and really confident, at least outside of school"

So how is school-based socialisation helping her? Why would she not develop and keep friendships which are at least as satisfying if she left school?

My eldest (now grown up) is super sociable. They tried school in Y5 and soon decided to return to home education. In large part that was because school interfered with their social life! 😂The teachers seemed to have some strange agenda which did not involve nonstop playing and chatting.

Neither of my kids has ever been short of friends.

If you'd be interested in the online school model but can't afford it, you could look at the £2 tuition hub - they have live and recorded lessons all the way up to GCSE and also (private, moderated) online social pods to chat with other children from the lessons in forums and by zoom.

You would probably want to supplement the lessons with your own reading around the subject/trips/practice essay-writing etc if you were aiming to sit a GCSE in the topic but they can get you a good chunk of the way there.

I'd note that recovery from burnout and trauma can take a very long time, so a term more school education that leads to burnout might actually be less education than just starting to home ed without a burnout occurring when taken over the course of a year - as well as less traumatic for everyone, of course.

I home educated my anxious child in year 8 and 9 then he went back with a newly acquired EHCP.
It worked well....BUT and this is a big but...I think this early in the school year you haven't given her the chance to adapt.
Children who are neuro diverse often need a lot of time to get used to new settings. All transitions really.
I feel you are possibly projecting too much anxiety on to her and she will be picking up on this. I felt so so anxious about my child and I feel although home education worked well for us changing to a different school might have also worked (if as you say this school is too large)

Also pushing back hard on all the academic issues like homework detentions squeaky wheel for all those things that were escalating anxiety and staying really calm for your child but rock solid with the school.

Wanting to please teachers by him fitting in (he didn't) and worrying my child was "failing" played a big part in my deciding to take him out when really they weren't "judging" either of us...I was projecting what I thought school expected but they differentiated far more than I was aware of.

Home education worked well for us - he socialised etc but it was additional expense certainly and getting the EHCP a nightmare out of school. We did very informal academic learning and no online lessons mostly meetups and reading together (he was dyslexic) discussing television dramas, sporty stuff, lessons were 2 hours a day max
He concentrated much less one to one ironically and thrived on small group interaction

Son received 8 good /very good GCSEs in the end, three A levels (with a scribe) uni. I would say he exhibits classic signs of ADHD/ but is creative and focused when he wants to be if you remove the anxiety. In his case structure helped anxiety but not noise chaos and "pressure"

What I loved and he loved best about home education was the lack of homework. I think with less homework school would have been just about bearable 😐so ask teachers whether that is a reasonable adjustment

Thank you so much everyone, I truly appreciate all of these responses and completely take on board all of them. This morning my daughter is once again late for school as she can't face it. She spent most of the morning yesterday in the SENCO crying as she didn't want to be there. I wouldn't have even considered home school except for this term, for those days where she was having panic attacks and really didn't want to go in, she would stay home and actually want to learn. The change in her mood was remarkable. She would sit at the computer and visit websites like Oak Academy and actively learn on her own accord. The smile on her face and the positive attitude said it all for me, if I'm honest. But I am also aware too that it is very early in the term of a new school and I want to give her a chance to settle. My worry though is that she will still just put up with it because she thinks she has to, that she won't do as well as she could because of that as she's just one in thousands of girls there, and I don't think this is healthy.

I certainly reached a point where after doing lots of research and talking to real life home educators who I met locally (one of whom had three older children who had successfully navigated school, so a "balanced" view and one local contact for me to build on.

"Exposure therapy" (ie small challenges) whether formal or organised by you are incredibly important. It is like learning to walk again after an accident pushing yourself into social interactions and feeling part of that normal world where people get up in the morning and do daily life work sleep get frustrated bored or stimulated challenged even whilst home educating. My son wanted to be part of the world not weird or separate etc so the de tox bit is important, chilling at home etc, but shouldn't last forever.

You hear people will say if you don't get he/she into school his anxiety will get worse and there is an element of truth in the fact that you both have to make a new confident life for yourselves not a "ill" hiding life.

So that is my tuppenys worth ...avoid too much time on screens and get her out there even if it is not school...parks activities visiting friends, pace it yes but don't cut her off

Anxiety can manifest not even wanting to walk to the post box.

That is indeed a good point, thank you. I understand a little about exposure therapy - I was an incredibly anxious child myself and as someone who played instruments and went to a specialist music school, I would have to perform quite often. I hated it. I would shake and tremble and go red, and fight the urge to run, the same with presentations. Eventually teachers realised that little and often would get me used to it. We have considered flexi schooling as well as homeschooling for this reason, but don't know much about it except that you need agreement from the school as well. I have also thought about the fact that so many say that re-entering secondary education after home education in Y10 is a risk, which to me doesn't make much sense because I know people whose children have left their first secondary school to go to a specialist college (performing arts, sports, etc) in Year 10, and have flourished. It's a minefield though, for sure.

I removed my year 10 last year, I wish I’d have done it earlier. She does an online school now and it’s been life changing for her behaviour and anxiety etc

Ds was re integrated to school at the end of Year 9, May using a Flexi timetable ie only a few days or half days a week so I suppose from a formal teaching point of view he started the GCSEs in year 10 but was already used to school lessons again/school day. So that is my version of going "back" in year 10. A lot of GCSE programmes do now start in year 9, sad but true. Some schools start making choices for students in year 9 which why your feedback is that year 9 is an 'important" year. But if the student follows the science and English maths curriculum at home to some extent the problem of catching up is not such an issue. You might not want to go back to school for year 10 anyway and do GCSEs from home...I know people who managed this fine with self motivated children who wanted to go to sixth form - they had a goal!

The advantage of Flexi schooling is school is still responsible and could possibly orchestrate an EHCP through school channels/ assessments. The disadvantage is that you are still tied to the school that is causing all the anxiety!! For that reason we cut loose but it is a risky leap in the dark sort of thing. But that's what we needed -confidence building wise - both parent and child.

But for some it might be blindly leaping. So do your research don't just rely on gut instinct. It can be a "flight" reaction to some extent, to bail out and electively home educate. Just as staying can be a 'freeze" reaction.

Rather than EHE, have you considered requesting alternative provision if DD is unable to attend school? And pursuing an EHCP alongside this? The benefit of this is an EHCP can fund more provision, including therapeutic provision, than most families can afford to fund themselves.

Thanks once again for your really helpful responses. We have actually sent an email to the school today to request flexi schooling to begin with as we want to work with them, not against them. In terms of an EHCP, we are on a waiting list for an ADHD assessment and have been for a fairly long while. From my understanding, no formal diagnosis, no EHCP, at least not in the formal sense, right? And yes, one of the reasons we are apprehensive about pulling her out completely is how doing so might affect her status on the waiting list....

EHCPs are based on needs, not diagnosis. You don’t need a diagnosis. You can request an EHCNA yourself. On their website, IPSEA has a model letter you can use.

You don’t need a diagnosis for alternative provision either.

I don't know how, after all these years, I didn't know that. I feel so deflated. Why didn't anyone tell me that? The school she was at previously just made her an internal school learning plan "until she gets an EHCP..." I'm stunned. This changes the ball game. Thank you for this as it gives me another avenue to fight for my girl.

You absolutely can get an EHCP without a diagnosis: my daughter’s diagnoses (ASD then ADHD) came after she got her EHCP. She also wasn’t academically behind, nor did she have challenging behaviour. Schools tell you you won’t get an EHCP without any of these things but it’s not true. Whether or not you decide to EHE, I would put in a parental request for an EHCP needs assessment now.