Hi - have posted in Home-ed too
I have a question on behalf of my lovely neighbor who is non-MN. Her DD aged 8 has been bullied at primary school for the last 2 years and it is definitely not getting any better or being addressed by the school. Outside school she is really lovely, friendly, bubbly good com skills - infact, people stop her in the street/supermarket saying how they wished their Dc was "that lovely" "friendly" "chatty"etc.
Because she is increasingly ostracised and bullied at school and neighbor complained on a few specific occasions, they placed her DD on the SEN reg as they insist that she has difficulties socializing and none of their pupils would have said any of the horrible things she quoted as they sound too "grown-up" and effectively accused neighbor of lying even though she is a very honest person.
They have really been pressurizing neighbor into agreeing to external assessments (and made her sign a referral form) even though she was dead set against it as nobody anywhere else thinks there is an issue and is more to do with the school (btw no places in other schools in LA as there is a shortage of places here). They have not relented and have now written to say that they will be looking into other official ways in which to force her to agree to the assessments they require if she does not comply.
She has been talking of home-edding for a while and def feels equipped to do it but she now feels that LA will be 'on her back' even after she deregisters DD and not leave her alone as things are too far gone against her. We looked at the procedures for our LA and they def mention "home visits" with EWO (where DD would have to be present) in order to gain approval to Home Ed, submitting suitable ed philosophy, min 25hr/wk schooling and periodic visits thereafter in which examples of work must be shown; this all seems to go against advice on MN re LA rights. I don't home-ed so I can't help any further really.
Could anyone help us separate fact from fiction?