Home schooling child

confused3791

Hi This is my 1st post, please be gentle. Was advised to join up from a very good friend of mine who has been a member for the last few years and has had heaps of help and advice from MSE.
Here goes..................My daughter has been bullied for most of her secondary school life one way or another, we all know how girls can be;).I have been in contact with the school numerous times and things die down for a while and then kick back off.I thought after the last time we had reached the end of a very long and troublesome road and things seemed to pick up .However I have just been reviewing her facebook and it seems as if the bullying has been continuing over the summer holidays:eek::mad:.I feel awful as a mum not seeing it sooner , but I just had a gut feeling this evening that something wasnt quite right.
In her private messages there are 14 messages from people who I thought were her friends , really nasty abusive messages calling her a little c*nt to say the least , and there was one particular one that says that they are going to beat the fu ck ing crap out of her when they see her next.I have sat my daughter down and talked it through with her and she is devastated and very emotional and wants to be home schooled.I do not think that this is just a snap decision by her and I really have no Idea how to even go about this.I am at home every day so I would be able to do it if it is something she really wants to do but dont want to jump feet first into dark waters. Any advice would be very much appreciated.

thegirlintheattic

Be very careful here! Whilst it must be horrid for your daughter to be bullied like this (I was bullied so much I missed most of my schooling), home schooling is not the easy answer.

Legally you have the right to educate your DD at home if you want, as long as you provide a suitable education. If you provide this you can legally 'de register' her from school.

In practice it is very hard to provide a broad education at home and whilst exams can be sat at other test centres, it is complex and you would likely disadvantage your DD by not having her taught by someone in regular contact with the exam boards. You also deprive her of a social setting, whilst this is a problem at the moment isolating her may not be the answer.

Have you considered sending her to another school?

If you really want to home school, do you have the money to provide qualified, specialist tutors in every subject? If not, do you truly think you are qualified to teach her to GCSE standard at least? I'm a teacher with two postgrad degrees and a 1st undergrad degree in different areas and wouldn't attempt to teach to GCSE in a subject I wasn't qualified in.

Bear in mind that whilst your DD may want home schooling now, it could lead to problems at home in future.

The LEA can check that your child is receiving a suitable education and order her to school if not. Although they cannot insist on visiting your home as part of this.

I would consider sending her to a school with a better pastoral system and a fresh start rather than home-school, as children get much more than an education out of going to school.

For further info on home schooling:
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/parents/schoolslearninganddevelopment/choosingaschool/dg_4016124
http://www.education-otherwise.net/
http://www.ahomeeducation.co.uk/

Also consider getting her some professional counselling, this maybe done through the school, through your local authority or privately. Get her involved in other activities to rebuild her confidence and make new friends. Suggest that she deletes her Facebook for a while, seeing so many hurtful messages will not be good for her.

thegirlintheattic

I should also point out that you do not need to follow the national curriculum nor sit any exams but you need to forward think, especially in terms of university or jobs, who are going to want to see evidence of her achievement (not impossible but hard without exams) and you also need to leave her options open with a broad range of subjects.

confused3791

thegirlintheattic wrote: »

Be very careful here! Whilst it must be horrid for your daughter to be bullied like this (I was bullied so much I missed most of my schooling), home schooling is not the easy answer.

Legally you have the right to educate your DD at home if you want, as long as you provide a suitable education. If you provide this you can legally 'de register' her from school.

In practice it is very hard to provide a broad education at home and whilst exams can be sat at other test centres, it is complex and you would likely disadvantage your DD by not having her taught by someone in regular contact with the exam boards. You also deprive her of a social setting, whilst this is a problem at the moment isolating her may not be the answer.

Have you considered sending her to another school?

If you really want to home school, do you have the money to provide qualified, specialist tutors in every subject? If not, do you truly think you are qualified to teach her to GCSE standard at least? I'm a teacher with two postgrad degrees and a 1st undergrad degree in different areas and wouldn't attempt to teach to GCSE in a subject I wasn't qualified in.

Bear in mind that whilst your DD may want home schooling now, it could lead to problems at home in future.

The LEA can check that your child is receiving a suitable education and order her to school if not. Although they cannot insist on visiting your home as part of this.

I would consider sending her to a school with a better pastoral system and a fresh start rather than home-school, as children get much more than an education out of going to school.


Also consider getting her some professional counselling, this maybe done through the school, through your local authority or privately. Get her involved in other activities to rebuild her confidence and make new friends. Suggest that she deletes her Facebook for a while, seeing so many hurtful messages will not be good for her.

Thank you so much for the speedy reply.My head is all over the place at the moment due to the evenings revelations, hense the late night. I think we will need to sleep on it and discuss it in length over the next few days or weeks even. Obviously I want what is best for my daughter and I know that from enquiring towards the end of the last school term that there was very few places in her year at any of the schools in our area , I know the teachers are back in school next week so I think I will leave an email for the school to contact me to discuss the problems.
Facebook has been stopped and I have printed out all the messages as they are threatening and I am at the moment in two minds whether to speak to our local neighbourhood officer to see what he thinks

pogofish

Home schooling is of course a very viable option but I would strongly suggest you get a solicitor and put a bomb under both the school and LEA.

IME, most are woefully inadequate when it comes to bullying and prefer to try and fob-off the victims and their families instead of tackling the problem.

However, when they get the proper boot-in-!!!! scenario, they usually shape-up quite well.

confused3791

pogofish, I agree, I do feel at times that the headteacher was saying things that he thought I wanted to hear.My daughter must have been terrified dealing with this on her own, I do feel like I have let her down big time and all I really want to do at the moment is go and bang on the doors of the bullies and shake them and their parents :mad::mad::mad::mad: and that is not like me at all:o. Why do people take it upon themselves to be so nasty to people ??? Obviously this is not what I am going to do.
GGGGGrrrrrrrrrr :mad::mad::mad::mad:

thegirlintheattic

pogofish wrote: »

Home schooling is of course a very viable option but I would strongly suggest you get a solicitor and put a bomb under both the school and LEA.

IME, most are woefully inadequate when it comes to bullying and prefer to try and fob-off the victims and their families instead of tackling the problem.

However, when they get the proper boot-in-!!!! scenario, they usually shape-up quite well.

pogo, most schools are very good at addressing bullying, the problem is two-fold - it is not always easy to see the bullying and it is not always possible for the school to put a complete stop to it. From what the OP has said the school has intervened and things calm down but as is the nature of these things have flared up again. Also it seems like a proportion of the bullying is happening online, school's have very little power to address this.

I don't say schools never fail, mine years ago certainly did but things have changed and at the end of the day I can discipline every student I see bullying someone else. I can talk to them, explain why what they are doing is wrong. When a student reports more bullying I can pull the perpetrator in and punish them again, even suspend/isolate them if it gets that bad. But in the end of the day, if some girls decide to make nasty comments despite the punishments what can a school do?

OP - certainly complain direct to the head if you feel the school is not addressing the issue. Office staff are around all summer and usually can put you in touch with someone high up if it is urgent. Demand to see the bullying policy (should be on the school website as well) but use this to gauge what action can be reasonably taken.

I agree that you should talk to the police about the threats, it's unlikely they will do more than log it but it provides good evidence of what is happening and you never know a few words of caution from a community officer may be all it needs. Many schools have an officer assigned to them - check this out. Unfortunately the polices' hands are mainly tied until something physical happens - similarly with schools.

Good luck and I hope you get things sorted one way or another.

pigpen

You have written proof they are making these threats.. go to the police!!!!!

It is an offence to behave in such a manner and the ploice have a duty to follow it up.. though it is a VERY long drawn out boring, frustrating process... sadly many do schools turn a blind eye yet claim to be taking action when they are in fact making situations worse, or just dishing out platitudes to parents and doing absolutely nothing.

Forward the messages to the childrens parents.. ask them if they condone such behaviour and that you are most disappointed as these are the girls DD thought of as her friends etc.. you never know they might actually be human beings with unruly children!

pogofish

thegirlintheattic wrote: »

pogo, most schools are very good at addressing bullying, the problem is two-fold - it is not always easy to see the bullying and it is not always possible for the school to put a complete stop to it. From what the OP has said the school has intervened and things calm down but as is the nature of these things have flared up again. Also it seems like a proportion of the bullying is happening online, school's have very little power to address this.

Sorry - your experience is the exact opposite of mine then and I've had a lot of it, at all levels in the system and personally.

There are exceptions of course but all too few of them.

confused3791

pigpen wrote: »

You have written proof they are making these threats.. go to the police!!!!!

It is an offence to behave in such a manner and the ploice have a duty to follow it up.. though it is a VERY long drawn out boring, frustrating process... sadly many do schools turn a blind eye yet claim to be taking action when they are in fact making situations worse, or just dishing out platitudes to parents and doing absolutely nothing.

Forward the messages to the childrens parents.. ask them if they condone such behaviour and that you are most disappointed as these are the girls DD thought of as her friends etc.. you never know they might actually be human beings with unruly children!

Hi pigpen, I have only just really learnt how to check facebook as not having it myself , is it possible to send these messages onto people who my daughter is not friends with , in this case the parents ??
Appreciate advice given:)

Anacrusis

Hi Confused,

I haven't had time to read all replies so sorry if I've missed anything.

Yes you can home school, or if you'd like your daughter to be able to go back to the school she can have time off sick (stress) while you speak to the school. I would also involve the police, print copies of the emails and take them with you to the police station.

Legally, the education of children is the reponsibility of parents, whether they use a school or whatever, so while it could be said that it's scary to be responsible for your daughter's education by home schooling, you already are responsible and at the moment you're choosing to send her into an invironment which you've just discovered is extremely upsetting for her and possibly potentially dangerous (if the threats are carried out). Even if the bullies never do anything physical they're harming your daughter emotionally right now.

While schools have to provide a broad and balanced education, home schooling parents don't. Schools want to offer a little of everything to give children the chance to try everything so that there is something for everyone so to speak. While home schooling you or your daughter can choose what she studies. The national curriculum is online though if you'd like to follow it or use it as a guide.

It's common practice among new home schoolers for children to have some time off to recover when coming out of school after bad experiences, so you might want to think about that too.

Education Otherwise is a charity that had a yahoo discussion board, you can join that without being a member of EO and ask for advise from loads of people who home school:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eo/?yguid=393782273

They also have a website if you goggle Education Otherwise.

I hope that helps, if you have any questions I've been Home Educating my children for five years and I'd be happy to help if I can.