Anyone done flexischooling for secondary?

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I have posted on the home ed board too.

My DSD settled well in yr7 but in yr8 has been getting frequent migraines and has missed loads. She is 'borderline dyslexic' so is struggling enough already :(

She lives with her mum and yesterday she told her she wants to be homeschooled by her dad and stepmum (ie me and DH)

She knows that if she really wants to do that, we will gladly homeschool her. ExW is against it, but we all think flexischooling could be a good starting point - either attending just in the afternoons, or only attending certain subjects.

DH will be hopefully meeting with exW and the school to discuss this (we know that schools don't have to provide flexi though) - so does anyone have any experience or advice about this please? :)

I've no idea whether your local schools would allow it, but would suggest going for subjects rather than particular days/mornings/afternoons as it is vanishingly unlikley that the timetable will be organised in such blocks and I think it would make it harder, not easier, to constantly miss 2-3 lessons a week in a subject - whereas if you decided eg she would attend for science, mfl and pe and you would cover english, maths, humanities and art then she would always be at the same point as the rest of the class in the subjects she attended.

Does his uni have a dentistry department? I remember friends at uni getting their treatment free if it was done by the trainee dentists ( they have to learn somewhere). Not for people with anxiety issues, though.

Erm bumply I think you may have posted on the wrong thread :o (though incidentally my dad had his teeth done by uni students and was very happy with it)

Thanks for your reply loshad - yes I agree sticking with particar subjects would be preferable. Problem is mornings though, she's sick a lot when she wakes up. But maybe an early start would be easier if she knew it was just one lesson?

I have no idea how to choose which subjects to stick with - I guess she would decide that with teachers, if it's a possibility.

Not voluntarily. But dd is missing so much time off school that it is what happens in practice. I would definitely spend as much time as possible trying to get the school on your side. Try to involve the Head of Year and the Senco in any discussions of practicalities.

Is SENCO relevant then do you think? She's had dyslexia tests but nothing conclusive (hence the term borderline, maybe I'm wrong in my terminology?). We cannot possibly afford a private test, the ones she had were through school. But no matter what the results, she does have major problems with literacy. Unfortunately as she got a reader/scribe for SATs in yr6 she did really well and the secondary school refused help because of her good results! WTF! so basically I'm unsure if SENCO would be involved - I'll get DH to ask exW if she's had any dealings with them.

I'm worried that if we don't arrange something, at least temporarily, that she will end up missing more. We don't want to just spend any time off catching up with school work because her school is shit. Really really shit. (have posted numerous times but not under this name). Work never marked, inappropriate/seriously underchallenging work, lessons cancelled, horrifying lack of subject knowledge from teachers... Etc. DH didn't want them to attend that school at all because his eldest has been utterly failed by them, but exW dug her heels in so we just resigned ourselves to supporting them outside school and not making them feel bad about it, biting our tongues a lot.

Sorry, I'm waffling - what I mean is basically that because the work the school would send home for catching up (if they bothered sending any) would be pointless, distressing and not actually help her learn, it would do more harm than good to leave the situation as it is now. That's why we are so worried that they'll refuse flexischooling. Hopefully the meeting will happen next week.

We were thinking of coming up with a plan/proposal for the meeting, is that a good idea?

Of course the SENCO should be involved! You don't need a dx of anything to be on the SEN register - you just need to be struggling.....

Ah ok thank you. Is that a legal thing then? The school are very lacking when it comes to support - all these promises that never got fulfilled... Is there maybe something DH can quote at them if they aren't cooperating?

The SEN Code of Practice

A child has a special educational need (SEN) if he or she has a learning difficulty, which calls for special provision to be made for him or her.

The current Code of Practice defines a child with a learning difficulty as a child who has greater difficulty learning than the majority of children of the same age or has a disability which prevents or hinders the child from making use of educational facilities provided for children of the same age.

Thank you :)

You don't mention the reason(s) why she's suffering from migraines now - assuming no previous history?

Was it this school who tested her for possible dyslexia? If so, they seem strangely reluctant to help (It takes a lot of effort on the part of a school before someone will even be seen for testing).

While you're arguing about whether the school is doing its job, the poor kid is sinking, sinking...

If the school is awful, then home-ed may be a way to escape it... but is there really no other school acceptable to all? Flexi-schooling only works if the school is really supportive and flexible, and the child has ususual circumstances, hence the migraine question.

With the migraines, we don't have a cause yet. She has had the usual tests, thyroid, diabetes etc, nothing has come up so far. Could be stress - DH suffered from terrible stress migraines/blackouts in the past. She was fine until starting year 8.

No, this school has not tested her for dyslexia. She had a couple of assessments in primary school, and they were inconclusive. She had extra literacy support there. When she got her secondary school place, they promised her lots of help - but as I said, her SATs results were great and they refused. Oh, apart from weekly handwriting help

TBH we haven't even considered other schools yet. Due to the migraines, I'm not sure there's any point going straight to a new place. However we will ask and look into it, maybe if she's HEd/flexi for a bit she would then want to return somewhere different for a fresh start.

We've always thought that homeschooling would work better for her, due to the way she learns, but her mum refused to think of any alternatives to her school (basically "your brother went there, so that's where you are going, end of discussion"). Now though, due to current stresses, exW has said she doesn't care anymore, that she "gives up". Nice. :(

Haven't managed to get a meeting with school yet, but we are seeing DSD later this week (without her mum as she's working) to discuss her feelings and to answer any questions, and to come up with a proposal for flexischooling, if she would like to try that (she may decide she would rather be totally homeschooled).

Also, DSD was convinced if she does flexi she will HAVE to go in for the core subjects. I don't think that's true though is it? She would want to go in for science, but we feel maths/English would be better covered with us ATM (due to her difficulties and lack of decent teaching, though we wouldn't actually tell the school that ) - is this just down to the individual school, or is there some guidelines somewhere?

I don't know the details but I do know one girl in year 11 at our school is under this system and is thriving. We also have children unable to take certain options - because we are a small school - who are home schooled on taking extra GCSE subjects and the school support home with help marking etc, so the parents and child know the progress is correct. The school act as exam centre.

home schooling does cause more issues now with exams which involve controlled assessment though.