Daughter taken out of school.

I'm with you OP but I do think you need to choose your battles if you want to win. I would leave this bit alone.

tawecdl wrote: »

They went on a 2 week holiday and she is staying at her friends for a long weekend which I know a school would not allow, so why is she allowed to do this? I am also concerned as my younger daughter who is ion year 6 is going to the school that my other daughter was bullied in, so I can see this happening all over again.



What rights do I have, how can I avoid solicitor fees etc and get my children into a decent school this September.

Thanks in advance.

A break for someone who has been bullied during yr7 to the point that she has wanted to be home educated, is quite possibly something needed for her own personal well-being.

It doesn't matter that this is outside of the school term times because home educators don't have to stick to those times/dates

I obviously don't know anything about your situation, how well you get on with your ex or your daughter and I'm not trying to pry.

BUT can you possibly, for the sake of finding out more details put aside your feelings about what is happening, don't express them and just try and find out what is actually in place instead of school. I wonder if you ask, and then there is a big debate/argument on the rights and wrongs of what your ex is doing which blocks you finding out more about what is going on. I understand totally your concern, but you need to find out if there is need to be concerned.

I have been in a slightly different situation and did investigate what online education facilities there are.., there are quite a lot which are inexpensive to cover English and Maths, up to GCSE level. Science as taught in schools can be quite basic and can be taught in the home with the back up of online facilities. Its not like it was when we were at school were books were the only source of learning.

If you are not happy with what your wife is doing, as has been suggested, can you get involved and cover some areas? There is nothing like seeing your child's eyes light up (and the satisfaction) because you've explained something new to her and you know she's learned something important.., particularly in terms of critical thinking and how to engage in self discovery.

My son has ASD, had a lot of problems with school (he is starting secondary School in September though). But he knows much more than most teachers about some areas.., and he teaches himself. It doesn't harm that I am highly educated but anyone can open their child's mind to new ways of thinking and discovery even at secondary school level. A lot of the time my son doesn't even realise he is learning! Which is fun.To him, he's just curious about the world. Because of his challenges he doesn't fit well within a school environment and outgrew primary levels of teaching a couple of years ago.., but the school call that 'special needs' not inappropriate teaching lol. I managed to get my older son through his GCSE's with him periodically attending school but we did far far more work/learning at home than he did at school because he also had ASD and the school couldn't figure out how best to teach him. I did. At one point he was expected to get 2 GCSE's.., he got 7 and he's now going on to University to study what he wants to study. But his attendance at school in the last year was fairly minimal cause I had to teach him because they couldn't.

So don't give up hope, find ways to help make sure your daughter is as educated as you want her to be. She may well decide she wants to go back to school in the near future.., leave the doors open. Don't let this become a battlefield because she won't be able to turn to you without feeling like she is betraying her mother. Her mother probably has her own reasons for taking her daughter out of school, which you may not be able to change (if she left school early). But don't get into arguments about it. Just concentrate on supporting your daughters learning in any way you can, be that on a personal level, paying for courses, suggesting online resources or teachers.

I suspect pursuing legal means of forcing the issue will be expensive and there's no guarantee it will be successful. And you won't be casting yourself as supportive but as the antagonist, with your daughter being piggy in the middle.

In Home Education, the parent's role is more to facilitate learning, rather than teach everything themselves.

This always puzzles me. Why is that teachers have to hold a teaching qualification to teach because anything else is not good enough, but home educators only need to know where to look?

Surely it's all about the outcome and home ed kids getting the same level of education so that they are getting the same opportunities to progress.

Or are we saying that it doesn't matter if a child's opportunity to advance education and a professional career are compromised as long as they are home educated?

I do think home ed can be very valuable in specific circumstances, when the parent home educating know exactly what they are doing and it is not just for the purpose of avoidance. I find it concerning when the decision is made because of an issue unresolved when the consequences of that decision can result in a loss of future opportunities because the parent doesn't have the skills to take the child where they need to be to access them.

tawecdl wrote: »

Can anyone advise if there are rule regarding term breaks when home schooling? I have a feeling she will not do any education over the summer holidays as other daughter is not at school. I see this as a opportunity to catch up with what she has fell behind with.

Home education is not confined to school hours or terms. You can therefore give your daughter some great educational experiences whilst she is spending time with you. Look at the educational potential of outings and turn them into field trips where she is learning and perhaps doing a project.

I would urge you not to panic about this, many children have their school attendance disrupted for reasons of injury, serious physical/mental health problems etc. and still do well. Thankfully, these circumstances don't apply to your daughter, although I don't underestimate the trauma of being bullied. She may just choose to go back into school before long anyway, or your wife may find the challenge of HE too much.

There seems to be a recurring assumption through this thread that home educated children have their options and educational acheivement limited by it. This hasn't been my experience, having home educated my children for varying lengths of time. One has vocational qualifications and has always been in full time work. The other, who was home educated for longest, was able to graduate with First Class Honours. They are both fantastic young adults with great social lives and I know that this is not an anomaly.

If you want to make sure that your daughter is getting some formal tuition you could consider paying for a couple of hours with a Maths/English tutor each week. Try to choose someone who doesn't just go through worksheets but actually teaches.

I wish your family well OP and hope everything works out for your daughter, however she continues her education.

PS My only concern is if she is being used for childcare. That isn't home education.

tawecdl wrote: »

She is 12 years old, she is loving not having to go to school. I believe a lot of children her age would be the same.

I did not think we lived in a society where ultimately a child gets to decide if they want to go to school or not... I did not get the choice when I was a child.

I have spoken to her a lot about this and she is happy being home educated. My heart sinks and my stomach turns to know I have got to watch my daughters education deteriorate over the next 5 years and there is nothing I can do about it.

It depends on how traumatic the bullying was for her. If it was really bad, which removing her from the school implies was the case, being at home could be better for her mental health than forcing her into another school just at the time that things tend to get the most difficult between students. That can escalate into a kid at 15 being a total school refuser, increases the risk of mental health issues and makes them far more vulnerable to all sorts of hideous things.


There's also the point that she presumably hasn't hit what is called 'being a teenager' yet. When that point comes, it might be a blessed relief for both for her to go back to school. Or she could thrive in the home education setting, despite your misgivings.


By all means, ask the court to decide, but I'd recommend that you try and phrase it as non critically as you possibly can - not implying your ex is thick, but that you disagree and would rather it was decided by a professional judge than risk it becoming a source of tension over the coming years.


Some kids are home educated up to 16 and then choose to go to college in order to get qualifications, and this can work very well, whether the parent concerned is a highly intelligent graduate following a rigid structure of tuition or not.

I'm not coming out in favour of either position here - but, from working in a secondary school and also experiencing the kind of things that go on as a kid myself, I have to say that teenagers can be and frequently are truly vile to the more vulnerable kids and whilst you may feel sick that your daughter isn't necessarily going to be same as what you feel 'everybody else' is, the emotional impact of being bullied means that she isn't the same as them already, which would make me far more nauseous. In my case, no matter how horrendous it was at school, it was still better than being at home, so I continued going, but at least your daughter has a home environment that she obviously feels safe in.


Could you - non confrontationally - ask whether it's possible for her to be referred to an educational psychologist? To have input from Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services? There will be a waiting list in most places, but they could possibly assist in finding what is the best way to progress.


Just because going to school is the only way most people do it, doesn't mean it's the only way, or even the best way - the best way is what is right for your daughter's continued emotional health - and that could mean going back to formal education a little bit later, by which time it's changed dramatically from the bearpit that early secondary school can be.


PS. Looking after a younger sibling seems to be a very effective way of helping young girls decide that, whatever happens, they definitely don't want to have a baby of their own for a good few years yet. And once that LO goes to school, there's another encouragement to do the same.