I am not a teacher myself but would like to firstly take this opportunity to commend the stellar job teachers, including those at primary and secondary schools across the country, do on a daily basis. Without wanting to go into too much detail (as it's quite a very sensitive and emotional topic for me), I stopped attending school at the end of Year 6. This was in the mid-2000s. I was having some difficulties at school, but nothing close to the extent that would require removing me from school. Despite that, my mum decided to withdraw me from school and home educate. I consider the decision to remove me from school to have been an enormous mistake. It deprived me of the opportunities, life experience, and personal development that takes place at secondary school. It significantly harmed my life prospects. More importantly, it led to me becoming an isolated recluse. I have still not recovered socially as an adult. I have argued with my mum about the matter on many occasions over the years, but recently decided to cease hostilities with her.
As the years have passed, I have wondered why there was no contact from the secondary school I was due to attend, or the local council, after I stopped attending school. I wanted to ask, what is supposed to happen exactly when a child is taken out of school permanently? I have since heard that there is supposed to be monitoring to ensure that a child being educated at a place other than at school is receiving an acceptable standard of education, much like schools receive Ofsted inspections. In my case, there were no checks. It seemed as though that once I stopped going to school, no one was particularly bothered. Would the school or council not send a letter to the child's house or at least make a phone call to the parents? I was 11 myself when I stopped attending school, and the only contact received was when the council sent a letter to the house when I was 16.