Home Educating a 12 year old?

[Ringatingg]

Hi there. We’re considering home Ed our 12 year old (y7) who is currently becoming unrecognisable after a day of school, she can’t seem to manage a week without burning out. She’s suddenly experiencing anxiety and overwhelm which all seems to have come from nowhere as all through primary and the first term she was more or less ‘fine’.

The way she speaks, her zest, everything has changed and we’re very worried. We suspect autism as she often says she can’t be herself in front of anyone and she is very perfectionist and puts a lot of pressure on herself. She also struggles with sensory overload.

Please tell me if I am deluded. But is it manageable to homeschool a child with two working parents? I would fit clients around my daughter so i can be there part of the day but I couldn’t be there 24/7. I am assuming they do online work a few hours a day and then socialize the rest of it at this age? Is there any way I can make this work without having to quit work? We do not have the finances to be able to do trust. We are stretched as it is and I also have another very young child.

Any advice welcome… 🙏 thank you

Have you looked at minerva online school? They have a good reputation for autistic (diagnosed or suspected) children.

Also look for home education groups in your area, they are usually on Facebook and you will find that there are plenty of other people with similar profile children for socialising and group activities.

It’s very doable if she can be responsible/reasonably self motivated with the work. If she needs more support then it may be harder to keep working, although many people do manage with reducing hours etc.

According to Google Minerva costs nearly 9k a year.

OP if you're taking her out of school to homeschool her then you will need to organise all her work and you/she will need to organise her socialising. There will probably be other home schooling kids around but they may not be nearby or easy to get to. Are you going to be able to do that while working full time?

I've had one with ASD go through secondary school so I know how difficult it can be but I would not start by taking her out. If she started in September it is still quite early days yet. I would go to the GP and start her down the road to assessment and I would ask for a face to face meeting with the SENCO at her school and talk it through with them.

What exactly is your dd struggling with? Is it break and lunchtimes? Is there somewhere she can go to decompress at those times? DS used to go to the library, or maybe she could come home for lunch. Does she have some friends at school? Maybe do all you can to encourage those friendships by having them over.

Is she struggling in lessons? DS found that sitting at the front really helped him concentrate because he couldn't filter out distractions if he was sat further back. Is it speaking in class that is the issue? If she is being assessed for ASD then being excused from speaking in class should be considered a reasonable adjustment. If she's still struggling then I would ask about getting an EHCP for her, they last till 25 I think which can really be helpful if she suffers from burnout and I don't know how it works but I guess there might be support for out of school provision if she needs it.

So I would just try to put as much in place for her as possible to enable her to cope, in the meantime be looking at EHCP and what's involved and the alternatives for her so you are well prepared if it doesn't work and she needs to not be in school.

Ah I’m sorry, I didn’t register the bit saying your finances were stretched - in that case paying for something like minerva may not be possible.

Theoretically it’s possible to get funding from the LA to cover private online schooling, but that’s very hard to get - you’d need an EOTAS package which you’d only get with very clear evidence that she did not cope in school (like significant mental health issues involving cahms).

There are much cheaper options, but your best first port of call will be your local home ed groups which will know what’s on offer on your area.

I think I'd give it your best shot trying to improve things at school and if you and she are still unhappy at the end of the year, consider home schooling from year 8 (in the meantime get saving! SEN is expensive and you get very little support unless you pay).

I'll post some practical suggestions later and a link to the EHCP support thread.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/special_educational_needs/5309128-ehcp-support-thread-no-5?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=app_share

I have no skin in the game and no experience but I have a NT dd who has changed hugely at secondary school, some good, some bad.

What I’d say is that the difference between 12Yo dd and 15yo (y10) is enormous. There is absolutely no way under the sun I could home school her at this age - she doesn’t want me crowding, showing an interest or interfering in any way. I don’t hear about her test scores, or see her books - she keeps it all very buttoned down.

I would therefore want you to find out what are the outcomes for kids who are withdrawn from school, and how can you make impact of home schooling effective until end of y11?

I am autistic and when I started secondary school I had some serious issues. Starting puberty + big change = total meltdown. The only good thing about the total meltdown was that it got me diagnosed. The start of puberty gave me insane anxiety and I had no idea what it was, I think it made my autism ‘worse’ in a way?

Personally I would be reluctant to pull her out of school, I would focus on getting her a diagnosis and appropriate help for her autism first and go from there.

Socialise where? With whom? Most of her peers will be in school. You would need to find local home Ed groups and see what they are running.

I suspect that if you are wanting her to be socialising during the school day you’ll have to be facilitating that- taking her to groups etc. I don’t think many 11 year old home ed kids are independently doing this unless they live very close to each other.

It’s hard going working and facilitating home Ed at this age. We were forced into it at age 12 And the school had tried alot of reasonable adjustments prior to full breakdown point even without a EHCP in place. If you can’t have a parent at home facilitating education I wouldn’t try it until you have exhausted all avenues of support via school. HE can be brilliant and there are many ways to learn that are not just an online school package..however taking GCSEs is expensive as a private candidate you have to pay £200-£400 per igcse, but you do have the flexibility to take exams early or later than cohort. Often colleges at 16 will let some do level 1/2 courses alongside taking maths & English before progressing to L3 qualifications. So it’s very young person specific, yes prioritise mental health as you can’t learn anything if in a constant state of fight or flight but I would not expect a typical teenager to sit at home unsupervised happily learning online for 4-5 hours. Do have a look at the HEFA group on face book lots of information to help make your decesion. Plus there’s many face book groups on taking exams & local groups

I am in a very similar situation with my DD, also 12. She has a friend who is home educated and her mother explained how it works for them. The mum cannot tutor her so she works her way through the yr8 lessons on Oak Academy (free online curriculum). She also introduced me to the local Home Ed group who meet twice a week for the children to socialise and do group projects. My DD doesn’t currently have the motivation to learn that her friend does as she is still coming out of burnout but she has an interest in animals so has recently started doing one or two oak academy lessons a day in science. I’m just taking it slowly at the moment, hoping it will build and putting aside the DLA I get for her in the hope it will part fund a tutor when she is ready.

Hopefully Oak Academy has improved their quality assurance. I used a bit of their KS3 Geography stuff during the pandemic (I'm a specialist in a different subject) and a Geography colleague found a number of errors in it. I'd use BBC Bitesize I think. Or a textbook.

If you are homeschooling alongside working you'll need to think about the following:

• is your DD self motivated enough to complete work without you constantly overlooking her? Is she academically capable of guided learning i.e. not needing you always on hand to explain everything?
• how will you facilitate the social side? Yes this can be flexible but you will need to physically take her to homeschooling groups so she can make and keep friends - have a look at what is available in your area
• you are right that homeschooling usually means more downtime to fill, this is a positive thing for many families as they use this time to do activities out of the house, pursue personal interests etc however it sounds more like a problem in your circumstances, how will you fill half the day if she completes work quickly? Some screen time is okay (imo) but not all afternoon 5 days a week

It's possible but it's not going to be easy and is going to create a lot of planning and life admin work for you.

Do check out the recorded sessions from £2 tuition hub plus theatre of science and mathsgenie are all good cheap or free resources. SouthWestSciences too. There’s lots on YouTube for GCSEs level once you find a learning style that suits your child. We often dip in out of YouTube walk throughs of exam papers. English is covered by MrSalles MrBruff & mrsRumsey are popular. You can do it cheaply but it takes more time to facilitate or you can outsource to a provider like mineva costs more but may reduce the planning needed.

I think this is going to be much harder than you imagine. You need to ask yourself if you will cope:

How motivated is your 12 year old to do the work when you are not around? Sitting alone learning online with something like Oak Academy for example will be no fun at all. If she is just at home all day she may get very bored and start to miss her friends. She needs to be prepared for her old school friends to start drifting away so needs to replace them with home educated friends that will be around for her to socialise with. What about sport and phyiscal activities, art and crafts, science? Do you feel academically able to help her understand the work she is doing, not just now, but also over the next few years? What do you expect to achieve - GCSEs? Can you afford to pay for all her exams?

I tutor home educated children, helping them work towards GCSEs and they do regularly require a considerable amount of help to understand many of the concepts they need to get to grips with, particularly in the core subjects of English, maths and science. Unfortunately using a tutor is not a cheap option.

You need a detailed plan of how you will ensure your DC gets what she needs to allow her to follow her interests into a career later on. Also, you will need to be able to demonstrate to the authorities that you are providing a suitable education.

Finally, do you work from home? Is your 12 year old really mature enough to be left at home alone on a regular basis?