Help my teenager's not in school

[Ellie64]

I am looking for advice for my 14 year old son.He became a school refuser last October, so has been out of school for 9 months.
The history behind this is he failed to gain a place at our preferred secondary school. The school assigned to him by the LEA was unsuitable - a rough school, with poor results . We went to appeal and failed. We dug deep and endured financial hardship to send him to a private school, which he absolutely hated. We kept thinking that things would improve and he would come to like it there. But he never made any real friends, although did fine academically.He was referred to paediatrician at one point due to unexplained stomach cramps, nothing found to be physically wrong. He was bullied physically and verbally, to the point that one day las Sept he just refused to get in the car and go to school. Obviously we tried everything to get him there, to no avail.
To cut a long story short, he has been home educated for the past 9 mths. We have paid out for distance learning GCSE courses and I have had to give up my job as a teacher to home school, yet more financial hardship.

He has been diagnosed with anxiety disorder and some OCD symptons, brought on by his experience with this school.

The home schooling is making him more socially isolated he sees no contemporaries from one day to the next.

We have decided that he has to get back tomainstream school. We appealed to a school (not the same one) where he has 2 "friends" last week but were unsuccessful, despite letters of support from CAMHS, GP, etc. What has a person got to do to get their child into a suitable school??
Now feeling really down about him ever having opportunity to attend a SUITABLE school and don't know where to turn

Ellie
Can you appeal again? Write to your MP?

Honestly (and I'm speaking as a mum and as a person who HATED school and NOT as a professional in any capacity)... I would ask him what he wants to do.

Is it not possible for him to remain HE'ed but take up group / sport activities in the evening / weekend?

He doesn't relly want to go to school, but he will not join any groups either e.g. youth group at our church - agreed to go but then got back in car with me and said he felt uncomfortable. Very difficult to get him to join a group as he does not know many other kids . He has small group of friends who play on xbox together and have occasional sleepovers. He is not one of lifes extroverts. His dependence on us as parents is becoming a massive problem.

Does he have any hobbies? Maybe he could do something around that? I have two DSDs (15 and 12) and they are so different.. One loves team sports / big into parties etc., loves being in the middle of things... the other one is more of a soloist, IYSWIM... Even when she DOES have a party, she will have a joint one so she's not centre stage...

My gut reaction would be to agree some sort of compromise where he joins maybe one or two groups (of his choosing and can be anything as long as they include social interaction of some sort / time away from you) and you agree to HE'ed until his GCSEs. Get him through those and then look at VI form colleges / HE facilities for A Levels / FE.

I'm only really speaking from personal experience, but while I hated school (passionately!) I LOVED college / university!!

In fact, if you check out my recent posts, you will see I'm actually considering HE for my son (2YO)

Ellie, I just wanted to give you a bit of sympathy, as my son was a school refuser (and diagnosed with anxiety disorder) when he was 8, and I know how little support there is out there.

It's great that your son has a group of friends, even if all they seem to do is play X box.

Ask your DS what he wants to do. I gave my DS the choice of HE, or going to a "Satisfactory" school which didn't have a great reputation. (It was one of the few schools which actually had a place) He chose the "satisfactory" school and has had a whale of a time there. Even though it's not been plain sailing, and he has some "interesting" classmates. (The teachers would probably call them "challenging" ) If he wanted to go to the rough school, I would consider giving it a chance.

For high school we are sending DS to school in the next town (my friends think I'm mad) Would this be a possibility?

DS is now 11, and looking back, I'm really proud of him for school refusing, rather than carrying on being totally miserable.

I would suggest that you keep going with the home schooling but do some research in your town and look for home schooling networks. This might help him to become more confident in social situations.

I tutored a girl from Y9-Y11 who lived next door who was a school refuser because of bullying. She spent a day a week working in a kind of placement (in a hairdressers as this is what she wanted to do) and then she had tutors for english, maths and science. Her mum had to pay for all these as the LEA thought that she should go back to the school where kids had run a lighter through her hair!

god, i feel your pain- having just been through a similar but less protracted experience with dd.

just some observations from your post. you mention cahms- has ds had counselling/help outside the family to rationalise what happened to him at school.

it sounds like you are having a hard time having to put your career/job on hold. it must be really oppressive being in each others company for that many hours a day/week. could you work part-time and fit HE around this?

many boys who go to mainstream school aren't great socialisers in any event and spend their lives in ther bedrooms or just mooching about. going back to school may not help.

does he have social skills? ie does he get on all right with adults and others? i think that sometimes getting on with your year group is not a massive indicator of social skills. Maybe as others have said, going to an FE at 16 is a more realistic prospect.

Have you gone and looked again at every school that he can realistically get to, has he?