THERE is no “One size fits all” when it comes to home education. People choose it for different reasons, and philosophies abound about what that education should look like.
I am a reluctant home schooler. My husband and I did not opt to do it; instead, the decision was forced on us by circumstances.
Last September, our elder daughter told us, unequivocally, that she could not go back to secondary school. She had suffered with abdominal problems for the previous six months. By the end of term, we were sometimes taking an hour to talk her into going in.
She thrived in the Welsh primary school that she moved to in 2021, when we swapped our house in London for a four-acre smallholding in west Wales. A formerly outspoken and charismatic pupil, she had experienced bullying in a London C of E primary school; and this seemed to revisit her, triggering extreme anxiety during her Year 8 exams, and increasing levels of social anxiety (hence the tummy problems).
We deregistered her from school by email, and provided details to the local authority about how we planned to provide her education. One year on, she is thriving in an online school, Wolsey Hall Oxford, a number of which are now Ofsted-registered.
Wolsey Hall offers a modular-based curriculum for students to work through rather than real-time online lessons. At the end of each module is an assignment, which is marked by their subject teacher. A student-progress manager liaises with parents.
She starts her GCSE studies next month at a cost of £6000 (for eight subjects) for Years 10-11, plus GCSE exam fees (Cambridge and Edexcel boards) on top; her Year 9 subject choices cost us £3240 for the year.
Our main hesitation was not the cost (Wolsey Hall’s fees are a fraction of those charged by private schools), but the effect that her leaving her school would have on her younger sister, who has struggled with emotion-based school refusal for the past three years.
We did not feel that we could cope with, or afford, home schooling for both. But trying to juggle work with both children at home is the likely outcome, because the experience of trying to get alternative-learning-needs (ALN) provision for our younger daughter has almost broken us.
MY YOUNGER daughter is still registered with school; but her attendance hit a low of 23 per cent last year.
Has the anxiety of the Covid period had an effect? Last October, when she was in Year 5, her older sister and dad had a sickness bug; this pushed her into levels of fear “off the Richter Scale”.
I asked for two weeks off school, which became three months, which — bar the odd day — became the rest of the school year. She is currently seeing a psychologist with Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), focusing on mysophobia and emetophobia.
In hindsight, many factors have also undoubtedly played a big part in what has become her progressive struggle with anxiety. Half of her reception year (2020-21) was spent in lockdown; so crucial socialisation was missed. Then, our move to Wales precipitated an unexpected jump forwards in academic year. In England, summer-born children can delay entry; this provision does not apply in Wales.
She transitioned well. But, for Year 2, her class was split. Academically able, she was placed in the Year 2/3 class. Her new best friend was placed in the Year 1/2 class.
Looking back, we now realise that, in six months, she went from being with four- and five-year-olds to a class of mostly seven- and eight-year-olds: social and emotional overwhelm? When her Year 2 teacher went on maternity leave, her first replacement said that my daughter had anxiety; and the second teacher was “shouty”, and my daughter started getting tummy aches.
She started wearing an Oodie to school. If she came out hood up, we knew that she was struggling. Getting dressed became a nightmare: the feel of clothes and school uniform sabotaged the school day before it had even begun.
Her first Year 3 teacher left after one day. Five supply teachers followed. It became impossible, some days, to even get her out of the door — for anything.
NOW, we are awaiting assessments for autism (in December, we will have been waiting for three years) and ADHD (she was assessed recently, after a 16-month wait). But, sometimes, I wonder whether the root cause of her now daily struggle is the trauma of too much change at school (every year they also split the class socially, then put them back together the following year).
After three meetings with members of the Additional Learning Needs department of the County Council, she is finally getting an individual development plan, and is being put forward for a tutor, because anxiety remains a significant barrier to her education.
In England, full-time alternative provision is statutory; in Wales, this is just guidance. In our county, if passed by a panel, the provision is a home tutor for five hours a week.
Whatever a family’s reason for choosing home education, they most definitely need church support and a welcome. I have suggested a parents’ support group in our church, because this is such a lonely journey. Care for the Family now provides parenting support for parents with autistic children.
Home-education Facebook forums tell a similar story to ours, over and over. The school system is too stressful for many pupils. They need smaller, quieter classes, and a trauma-informed therapeutic approach. A possible avenue for rural C of E and C in W schools to explore?
