MUM who dont know who to turn to.{how do i start HE with my 15 year old }

[curlykiela]

please could you give me some advice on where i stand on home ed.My son is 15,16 in sept and he has not been attendin school since jan he doesnt feel secure or happy in returnin,he has asked me if he can be taught from home but i dont know where and how i go about this,iam getting worried now as it wont be long before i have the authorities on my back.I have a 5year old who is in school and happy,Iam studyin a cache in pre-school setting and go to college 1 day a week and voulenteer in a pre-school 1 day.If home ed is going to help my son then i want to start the ball rollin as he is a brite boy and i dont want him to fall behind or get myself in any trouble.PLEASE can someone advise me on what to do. THANKS

I think you have to ask yourself if you can honestly prepare him to sit a range of gcse this time next year. If not then you'll be doing him no favours. Is there no way he can return to school? I am assuming there is a lot of backgroudn to this that is unresolved. Can he go to a college to do his exams rather than a school although wouldnt be this next year?

I would second the idea of him going to college to do GCSEs, where he would be treated more like an adult, have more responsibility, and hopefully feel motivated to go.

There are places that do GCSEs by distance learning, but they tend to be quite expensive - although you can work at your own pace and do the exams in any time up to two years from enrolling in many cases.

Why don't you contact a home-ed organisation - HEAS are quite good and have a lot of resources that you can borrow as well. They can be contacted at this site. This site also has lots of information, the links on the right hand side of the page have more general info.

thanks for advice so far i will take a look at those links that were sent,my son had a problem with pupils in school and is unhappy about returnin his princpal of school as done home visits and tried to get him back but he doent feel happy and was not attending.Iam getting worried as it wont be long b4 i myself will be in trouble for keeping him home.

Hi curlykiela
if your son is bright and doesn't want to return to school because of the bullies you could ask the school about him working from home and attending only to take his exams? Or flexi-schooling (perhaps attending classes when the bullies are in other classes and leaving the school grounds earlier/later than the bullies?
Or you could Home Educate? He could then go to college through a post-14 programme and possibly do his GCSE's that way? Or forget the GCSE's and start studying for A' Levels?
There are other options. Don't let the school bully or pressurise you into forcing your son into school.
Would your Doctor give your son a sick note (stress) for a week or two, in order to give you time to talk to Education Otherwise and other organisations and individual families, about your options?
Julienoshoes will be on this list soon and she can give you great info about your legal obligations and other options. HE is LEGAL !!
My very best wishes to you both for a happy outcome

Contact Education Otherwise and they will be able to help you. Their helpline number is at the top right hand side of the page I just linked

Briefly...

It is COMPLETELY legal for you to take responsibility yourself for educating your child, without using the school system.

You would need to deregister your child from the school roll (there are sample letters on the Education Otherwise site). If you are willing to go for it, then you could write the letter today, drop it in tomorrow and that's it, you are legally home educating your child.

After that there would be likely to be a bit of a flurry of activity for a few weeks. The Local Authority would almost certain want to visit you, or get you to fill in various forms about how you would be educating your son. And in the middle of that you'd be trying to work out, well, how you'd be educating your son. So it's quite important to take a deep breath and talk to lots of people about how these things can work. I'd say it's really important for you to say to the LA if/when they contact you "we're just starting out on this; if you can offer any support or advice, then that's lovely, thanks, but if you are wanting to grill us about how exactly we're going to be doing this, then please give us a period of time to catch our breath and work out the best way to proceed, and then we'll be happy to let you know what we are doing". And if you are anxious you'll get flustered while talking to the LA people, then you can tell them that all contact will be in writing - again, ask the Education OTherwise helpline person for advice about it.

And if you are going to do it, then I'd say it'd be worth sitting down with your son and two pens and two pieces of paper and each of you just be brainstorming what your expectations are and what he is hoping to achieve short and long term (because, as rooftop says, GCSEs might be irrelevant and he'd be better off finding a way to get straight on with A levels, or get whatever qualifications he needs for the apprenticeship of his dreams, or whatever it might be. Or maybe he wants to go for the 5 GCSEs in the obvious English, Maths, etc. And if so, then correspondance course? Or get the syllabus and work through it together? Or buy in tutors if you have the £££? Or post-14 college programme?

Also worth remembering that it is usual for it to take a child a month to recover for every year they have spent in school (that's one of those rough estimates). He may well want to lie around doing nothing much for a fair few months if he's been having a horrid time in school, and that's totally normal. Look at Sandra Dodd for reassurance and advice on how to set off on a journey of learning which just leaves that whole school treadmill of syllabuses and exams and external rewards behind

I home educated my three offspring right through their teenage years after my son expressed his extreme unhappiness at school, aged nearly 14.
Onward and rooftop are completely right.
Home Ed is the best option for many unhappy teens.

Some do work towards GCSEs and complete them whilst home educating- there is a yahoo list that might help you think this through here
Remember there is no rush to 8-10 GCSEs in one go, when you are home educating-if you do any at all!

It is a myth though to believe you have to do 11 years in a classroom in order to get GCSEs, that you have to have 5 or more GCSEs to do A levels or that you need A levels to get into University.

Some home ed young people wait until 16+ and then go to FE college for free. My son did that and did 2 GCSEs one day a week, the rest of the time he remained home educated, then he used those to GCSEs and interview to get onto the A level courses wanted.

But many other home ed young people don't bother with GCSEs at all-some don't do A levels either, sometimes getting themselves real life experiences which ready them for the world of work (as my elder daughter did)

Others use the Open University courses to demonstrate an ability to study to University level. (My younger Daughter started this aged just 15-she has choices now whether to go on and do A levels at FE college or whether to do her whole degree with the OU) We know plenty of other home ed youngsters who have used the OU this way, including one young man currently doing Law at Oxford without a GCSE/A level to his name.

My stepson, didn't do well at school at all (and I didn't know home ed was a legal viable choice then) but he went to Uni via an access course, as a mature student, without any qualifications to speak of and came out with a 2:1.

I'd also agree with reading some of Sandra Dodd's writings and see if you can get hold of Grace Llewellyn's Teenage Liberation Handbook :How to quit school and get a real life and education It is an American publication, but really opened my eyes to the freedom that home education can bring. It is actually written for Teens to read-but wow it was an eyeopener for this parent!

Lastly I would suggest joining the email support list on the EO webpage, listed by Onward. EO Yahoo email support You don't have to be a member of EO to join that group.

There is also HE-UKanother website with a wealth of information about home education, and it's associated email support group

On both of those support lists, you will 'meet' a whole wealth of home educators, who would be willing to talk this through with you, although the actual home educators on here will be very willing to keep supporting you, we all started this somewhere.

Just to echo what Julie says, some don't do GCSE's, ther are other options depending on what your child wants to do, you can do vocational courses & just sit an entry exam or I've even known of some that just go straight to AS level & their Home Ed portfolio gets them on the courses that they need.
However if you do that you want to do exams, then exams without the coursework is possiblewww.littlearthur.org.uk/
Or then as some say do them at college if you don't want to pay.
There are always ways round things & other options.