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 thought about online schooling instead. I think it would be really hard to plan a full time education when you’re working but online school seems doable.

Personally, I would work with the school and see if reasonable adjustments can be made to make her day more bearable.

If she was able to manage through primary and the start of secondary, has something happened or changed to cause the change? I agree that a discussion and information sharing with the school, would be helpful.

In terms of home education, it would be very difficult to manage with full time working, but online school might be doable.

Apply for an ehcp and go for education other than at school, rather than elective home education as you’re on your own for the latter

I don't have personal experience of home schooling, but I have read that it doesn't have to be an either or proposition. I believe you're allowed to ask the school for flexi or part-time schooling, where your child attends school part time and does home school the rest of the time. You have to get the agreement of the Head, but you may find it worth exploring this possibility as part of your research on home schooling options.

Flexi schooling may be difficult in terms of timetabling and the logistics. If you wanted to go in for maths and English for example, they might be timetabled at opposite ends of the day.

Can you afford an online school?

As a former teacher, I can tell you that state secondary schools are hell for autistic children, especially girls. We faffed about until year 10 with our own dd and wished we'd taken her out sooner. We found a private school that was more nurturing. If we hadnt done this, we would have home- schooled. My niece did year 10 and 11 with an online school at home. Not much cheaper than the private school our dd went to. Both better than state schools; whatever "measures" they offer to put in place, they just dont get it, im afraid.

You probably have home schooling / home education group in your area, ask them for advice.

Incidentally home ed doesn't have to lead to GCSEs / A Levels.

Some people manage both parents working full-time and EHE. Others don’t. It in part depends on your jobs and how flexible they are. It also depends on DC. Some can be more independent than others. It also depends on how you want to EHE. Some people use a lot of outside resources/groups and others don’t.

If you didn’t want to EHE, have you spoken to the school? They should be providing support. You foul also go down the EHCP route and if it is inappropriate for provision to be made in a school, there is EOTAS/EOTIS via the EHCP.

secondary is a huge step up and too much too soon imo. to go from largely 1 teacher in 1 room to navigating a big school, timetable, more people more faces is such a huge change and requires so much executive function.

Id say in year 7 even the neurotypical children are masking and faking it.

I think it’s harder to homeschool yourself at that age as their brains are wired to find the sound of your voice annoying and light up at other people’s. of course what homeschooling is is varied and perhaps you’d prefer an unschooling approach. if you can provide a decent mix of socialisation because even though it’s not always nice when you’re 12 it is good to keep up with being in groups in one way or another and developing those skills (speaking as an audhd kid who left school mid year 7 and went back.)

I home educated my three children while working from home. At 12 it’s do-able if she wants to do it and will be somewhat co-operative. It does depend on your work flexibility as well and how much she needs to socialise.
We went to home ed social and sports groups and educational trips because mine needed to be quite sociable and that was hard with work - but I’d take my laptop and work evenings as well.
While at home they did a lot of online video lessons and set work. The video lessons were good - as I could see clients knowing they were engaged with something. I had to monitor the work quite a lot to ensure it was being done.
It was hard work and lots of juggling but they all got GCSEs, went to 6th form and are at uni/heading to uni.
We didn’t use one online school as that seemed expensive and I didn’t want to be tied into one resource. We used different resources and coming up to GCSEs also used online one to one tutoring depending on where they needed additional support/how busy I was.
Mine weren’t desperately into studying so there was a fair amount of stress around GCSEs (although I enjoyed the curricula).
At various times we used the following - Absolute Maths, Southwest Science School, Learntec, Humanatees, Dreaming Spires, English Elephant, Pastel & Smudge, P4HE, The Art and Design Room, Homemade Education, The £2 Tuition Hub.
Most of the resources do video courses and set work and mark it. We just built our own timetables depending on what worked at any time.
Do check out local home ed groups on Facebook and see what there is. My kids needed to hang out with other home ed kids and it was great they could do lots of sport through local groups.

On YouTube there is a channel called 'Jar of Fireflies'.

The owner is an orthodox home schooling Jewish mum in Texas, she has some interesting ideas (although she does buy curricula and ). One thing she does is that there is no schedule. She puts work out the day before and when the kids wake up and have breakfast they start work.

Some lessons all three of her older children share, and she shares with them so they may read a poem together and discuss it.

Also things like shopping for various Jewish holidays, cooking with their dad, attending festivals, for Purim they make fancy dress costumes.