Can I HE for 6 months?

[mum71]

We are having some work done on our home which will take 6months and we need to move out. We could rent another house in the area so not to disrupt DD (10) & DS (8) but this could be quite expensive. We own an apartment about 40 miles away which we could live in but I don't want the children to spend that much time travelling to and from school. Does anyone know if it is possible to pull the children out of school for 6 months? I work part-time at home and could spend a lot of time with them, also my mum is a retired teacher and could lend a hand.

Any advice appreciated.

Of course!

You just deregister them from school, and can say in the letter why, if you want, though you don't have to. THere is a form letter on the Education Otherwise website.

If/As you're planning for them to go back into school once you get your house back, it might be worth finding out if the school will hold the places (they might not be able to, depends on how oversubscribed they are). If they can't, you could put the children straight onto the waiting list as soon as you are pulling them out! Or, since you'd be HEing for however long the work took, then you could always be thinking phlegmatically "well, we'll HE until we move back home, and then for as long as it takes to get a place at the school of our choice".

Also worth investigating whether you'd want to follow along with the NC while they are at home, if you're planning to put them back in (you will just be AMAZED how quickly you can get through that formal stuff with just the two of them at home - maybe an hour or two a day tops?). If so, either the LA may be able to advise you, or even the school, about how to have the children ready to reintegrate.

And after that, just find yourselves the local HE social scene (again, Education Otherwise is a good starting point, or THEN-UK, or get yourself on one of the national HE emailing lists and ask for advice about local contacts because someone is bound to be able to help. THEN-UK has a mailing list and is a friendly place to start ) and have a ball while your house is being made as good as new!

Thank you Onwardandupward

I have an appointment with the Head later today to find out if they will keep their places. I don't think that they will but you've inspired me so much I don't mind.

A friend of mine took her kids out to spend a year in Australia and the school held their places. The key thing was "head count day" which is some time in January. As long as they were at school on that day and back before it the next year the school would get the funding, so were happy to "hold" the places as it meant one less child in two classes for nearly a year. Not sure if that's the same everywhere and it looks like you need a co-operative head!

I HEd DS2 for 7 months last year when we arrived in Australia which had highs and lows It was a very interesting experience though and I'm glad I did it. I now know that if for any reason school doesn't work out for any of my kids there is another way!