Home schooling child

Anacrusis

anadelB wrote: »

Legally you have the right to educate your child at home if you want, as long as you provide a suitable education. But, with his age and growth and development, he needs to play and mingle with other kids to promote self confidence, camaraderie and other values.

As a home educator I have to add here that if anything I have to schedule days to stay in to have time a home! My two get to mix with children of all ages and more importantly adults, not sure there are enough of those in schools.

Debbie_A_3

Hi Condused,

I am so sorry to hear about this. It sounds dreadful for your daughter. Home schooling is always a possibility but it would be a very big step for a parent with a child midway through secondary school. I am a teacher myself and I would not feel confident teaching my own children outside my subject area.

Here are some steps that you could take this week:

1. Print out the offending FaceBook comments (along with details of who posted them) and request a meeting with your daughter's Headteacher before the start of term. Be polite and indicate the nature of the Facebook messages. She/he may delegate the meeting to a Deputy or Head of Year (but always go through the Head). Hand over copies of the Facebook comments and ask that something be done. Hard evidence is really important when challenging culprits. Do not expect a miracle response immediately. If I were on the other side of the meeting, my reaction would be to listen, make notes, and say little but then schedule an urgent meeting of colleagues.

2. Has your daughter had any support or help? Whilst nobody is responsible for being bullied, there are strategies that people can take to prevent it happenning to them. Unfortunately this tends to mean that it gets displaced onto someone else, but that is not your daughter's problem. The school should have teachers skilled in counselling victims of bullying (ask about this at the meeting with the Head). Also, take the Facebook evidence to your daughter's GP and ask her/him for advice on counselling services.

3. If you feel that the school does not listen to you when you present the Facebook evidence, go looking for a new school for your daughter. This should help her develop friendships and relationships in a normal social environment. This is really important: schools do more than just teach children. But do make sure that she has had some counselling first. It is not easy to start from scratch in an environment where it will feel that everyone else has known everyone else for their entire lives. There will also be bullies in the new school because there will be people in the new school.

I do hope that your daughter's experience improves. Give her a big hug and tell her that you love her.

Debbie

marrbett

Hi Confused,
Just to say that we home educate our children and my eldest has just reached 16 and taken exams. He has done very well and is a balanced young man.
I would just say that the 'education' side of life is secondary to the 'happiness/how you view yourself' side of life(I'm not writing this very well, sorry!),if I can help at all, please ask.

kafkathecat

Hi confused, I home educate my 13 yr old and know many children who have gone on to get qualifications and go to work or college. If I were you, I would research home ed as much as you can, including local groups, so that you know all your options when you speak to the school. You may be surprised how much is happening in your area. Home educators get together for social and educational activities all over the place. I hopethat, whatever you decide, it works out for you both.
I just wanted to add that lots of children use distance learning courses for GCSEs or share tutors with others.
http://home-ed.info/gcse.htm
This link might be useful and from here there are links to yahoo groups where more people may be able to help you.

kafkathecat

Reading some of the other replies, I would just like to add that in my experience, home educated children have very good relationships with their parents and very active social lives.
My ds has more friends than I had at his age and approx. half are home educated and half go to school.

heretolearn_2

Oh your poor daughter. I was bullied at school but at least once I was out of those gates, that was it till the next day. Poor kids these days get it 24/7.

If they really are threatening I would go to the police. There is a law specifically relating to threatening communications - whether or not they are serious threats or just a bunch of gob!!!!! is irrelevant to that.

I'd also contact the school.

Can you try and find her a place in another school? Under the circumstances I'm sure a decent school would help.

Or if you feel able to go the home-school route, look around for local groups and resources to help you. I used to be quite anti-homeschool as I knew several children that were all, frankly, weird because of it. But it's becoming increasingly common and better supported I think, with more ordinary parents doing it, and the homeschooled children I know now are lovely with good social skills.

Anacrusis

kafkathecat wrote: »

Reading some of the other replies, I would just like to add that in my experience, home educated children have very good relationships with their parents and very active social lives.
My ds has more friends than I had at his age and approx. half are home educated and half go to school.

This is also my experience of home education!

Your home education will be what you make of it

Lakeuk

confused3791 wrote: »

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

I would go to the police even if it's just the local community bobby, with the recent social media / riots it may get more impact on the seriousness of this to the originators

bluenoseam

I'd look into moving schools before even considering home schooling, there's more to life than exam results but ultimately in a school situation you're learning the foundation skills of team work, social interaction & community which in home schooling are vastly reduced. You'd also need to consider the impact on future employment prospects, further education prospects & the impact it'll have on her own attitude towards schooling if she ever has kids.

While you have my sympathies over the bullying issue i think that as the adult you need to consider her education and understand that most 14 year olds lack the mental ability to compute the consequences of something like this.

blackandwhitebunny

I can't comment on home schooling but re: the bullying:
The first thing your daughter needs to do is close her facebook page and start a new one with a slightly different name - get someone to help her with the security settings so that it is completely hidden except to people she invites onto it. She needs to be very selective in future.
Secondly facebook is banned in nearly all school systems so the culprits are doing this at home, report it to the police - often having the local community officer speak to the culprits and their parents will make them think again.
Lastly it's probably worth changing her mobile phone number as generally if teenagers are bullying via facebook they are also doing it via mobile.
Hopes this helps