School challenging my decision to deregister DS after serious safeguarding concerns

[secondaryhell]

I deregistered DS today and I’ve already had an email and voicemail from the school trying to tell me that they need to check with the LA that I have the right to do so! Of course I do!

This is just another example of them trying to make out that I have less rights than I do.

They tried to stop me taking DS to medical appts in school time (said they wouldn’t allow him to leave the premises).
They referred for fines with the LA for days he had absent due to severe MH issues and SH. They gaslit us in meetings repeatedly, made plans to get him back to school then changed things which really unsettled him.

He was bullied and was told to ‘be more resilient’. He refused the hpv jab and had a teacher make disgusting comments that ‘you all know who to stay away from girls!’

I now have a child who needs a lot of time to recover and I need to look for a better school or perhaps home educate we aren’t sure yet. I just can’t believe in 2026 schools treat pupils and parents so appallingly.

They are saying that I’m de registering not for ds best interests but because I’ve already had 2 fines. That’s not the main reason the main reason is that ds is at crisis point and because we think they are an unkind and corrupt school.

They have a duty of care to ensure that dc being de registered are not in a neglect or abuse situation at home, missing a lot of school is a red flag for possible abuse. You may be an excellent parent but they cannot assume that, children have died because they were deregistered and nobody asked questions

There is a really good home education group of FB called HEFA. They will apprise you of your legal rights. Good luck. Parenting a young person who SHs is hard.

Have you taken ds to the drs about the school based anxiety?

There is a template you can use to deregister them i would send it as a repeat response to their emails and make sure your set up for home education give them zero wiggle room and when social services show up to welfare check you can show that your child is fine and your giving them a mental break before trying a different school

Fucking "resilience" building causes suicidal thoughts in some children

Have they? Can you actually name many children who have died because no one checked when they were registered from school? There’s been a lot of hysteria around home education recently and it’s rarely the salient issue when children are harmed. It’s usually down to failings in social services with children who were known to be at risk.

Sara Sharif.

Yes and he’s under CAMHS

They can’t use that one, they’ve referred for fines for unauthorised absences and at no point made a referral about their ‘concerns’, yet now I’ve de registered they are saying they need to speak to the LA. I think they are worried I’m going to make a complaint as well as deregister ?

He must have had a considerable length of time off if you’ve been fined twice. How many medical appointments that you could not change the date / time of has he attended? Presumably he’s got proof of these appointments?
As a parent, of course you have rights, but as a child he has rights too, and one of those rights is the right to an education. It’s in the Declaration of Human Rights. How are you intending to home educate him? Have you not considered a change of school first?

None of this changes the fact OP can de-register her son from school. They can refer it to whomever they want to check he is ok , but they can’t stop her doing it.

Does he have an EHCP?

If he does have an EHCP, then the school does need to consult with the LA.

a fine is for 5 days (10 sessions) within a 10 week period. They appts were authorised in the end but the days off for MH and SH related incidents were not authorised. Even with the GP writing an entry on his medical
Record each time, so it’s not really a lot of days before you get referred. I asked the LA to cancel the fines and submitted the gp entries to them but they rejected it so we paid. But you can’t have a third fine.

He doesn’t have an EHCP

We are having the holidays to let him rest and get over the trauma of the last year, we are going to put his name on waiting list for another couple of schools and see what we think of them if he gets offered a place but also considering if home education may be better, we are not actually sure yet .

Rightly or wrongly, they absolutely can prevent a parent deregistering their child in some circumstances. These include children subject to a child protection investigation, children under a child protection plan or who were under one in the last five years, and children attending special schools. I’m not saying this applies to the OP though, just correcting the notion that any parent can deregister their child.

None of those apply to us

This is since the passing of the Child & Wellbeing Act this year, the finer details of which are yet to be confirmed.

Have you ever tried changing a hospital appointment in paediatrics? You can’t just pick an afterschool appointment, the clinics are run when they are run. Our daughter would frequently have a mid day appointment at a hospital that was 90 minutes away. Add in the fact they never run on time, a 20 minute appointment can take several hours, which means she is off the whole day. She saw 3 consultants every 6 months so, that’s 6 days in a school year. Then you add therapies etc - also very difficult to get outwith school hours - and it adds up. And that’s on top of the run-of-the mill doctor/dentists/optician appointments. Asking OP for proof makes it sound like you think she is lying.

Anyone who reads this and takes it all at face value has never worked in education.

This is your version of events, I suspect schools is very different and there are stricter rules about home ed now where safeguarding concerns exist.

In what way? Your post is very obtuse.

I’d be writing a complaint to the school and copying it to the LA as it’s outrageous not to allow a child access to medical appointments! My DC have had so much time odd with MH issues And my eldest spent 3 years having tutors coming to our home before GCSEs due to ASD all paid for by the school who were very supportive. I always put things in writing, and follow up conversations with emails confirming what was said so it’s all in writing for the evidence if they tried anything

Specialist schools have all sorts of different rules. In mainstream, they can’t refuse to de-register unless they have specifically been told they cannot under a child protection plan or investigation. That’s different from them just deciding they can’t.

Yes, because the authoritarian school system, with internal exclusions for crimes like not having the right pen, is producing a generation of young people with optimal mental and physical health who are fully equipped to take on the challenges of work. Only there are no decent jobs now. Not even for graduates who have spaffed circa £50K on going to university.

OP, please check out the HEFA group on FB.

Why do you suspect that? You think schools get it right all the time when dealing with children with additional needs?

If you work in education the meaning is as clear as day!