Back to school after home ed

[bettywobble]

Hi,

I took my 6yr old son out of mainstream school in September because basically the school was terrible. We thought we would give our son a little time to get it out of his system, with a view to returning to school. We found a school which we like, we are going back to visit it tomorrow. Now we seem to banging our heads against a brick wall with the lea. Nobody knows what is going on, I have no idea whom I have to speak with, what procedure I am meant to go through etc. I have tried getting in touch with the sen officer (my son has a statement but attended mainstream school), but she is nowhere to be found. All I want is for my son to go back to this new school after january. Can anyone please help? Thanks, Debbie

Is there a 'Parent Partnership' in your area?
In Worcs Parent Partnership dept are very helpful as go betweens between families and the LA.

Google it in your area. Worth a try.

Otherwise is your home ed liason officer (or whatever s/he is called) reasonable?
If so I'd be talking to that person to see if they could help.

Thanks, will have a look.

DD2 went back to school after two years of HE - the admissions stuff was all dealt with by the school as it wasn't a "normal" start time for that school. I had no dealings with the LA whatsoever, just authorised new school to speak to old school to get whatever records they might still have had.
What is the Head Teacher's advice re starting? Ours simply said "speak to Mrs X in the office, she'll sort it all out for you" which she did. Might be possible to bypass the LA people altogether?

It seems here the la have to have their nose in everything. One person says one thing, one says another. For all the crap the government is spouting about getting home ed kids back to school, it seems as though they dont want mine!! The sen officer says she has forwarded lewis statement to the school, and says now we have to wait on the school deciding if they can meet his needs?! He has a statement and gets a learning assistant for 26hrs per week. It's a really small school with only 30 odd pupils (we live in the middle of nowhere) so I am having a nervous breakdown about what we will do if they decide they can't.

Sorry I can't seem to write short messages.

bettywobble you're not on your own. I feel your pain and frustration and I totally agree with you about all the carp the govt spout about getting HE kids back to school but the top and tail of it all is the govt just don't care at all! They just like to pretend and make all the right noises but both you and I have found that as soon as you say ok then, here's my DC, they completely back off!!

I have been HE my DC for 4 years now and he has been wanting to go back to school for nearly a year without success. He is now 13 and would be in year 8 but my experiences have been shocking, disgusting and downright mindblowingly bad in trying to find a suitable school for him.

As a result, my DC has not had a school to go to for many months and he doesn't want to be taught at home anymore. All the good schools are full and the only one available with places are because no-one wants them as the school is rough.

I would be a millionaire by now for the number of times I've been told the local authority only have to provide a school not a suitable school.

They just don't seem to understand that most of us who HE do it because we care passionately about our childrens education and a lot of us (like me), started off with them in school and ended up having to pull them out because the school experiences were so damaging and this is a major factor why a suitable school has to be offered instead of just the local rough school that nobody else wants.