Forsee trouble with LA

[NettleTea]

I am just preparing myself as I am concerned that there is going to be trouble ahead.
Brief background (if I can keep it brief!) DD (13) has cystic fibrosis and recently suspected undiagnosed PDA, although this has not caused her a huge problem until transition to secondary as was in a small local primary where she had known same kids since birth practically, and felt safe and supported.

Behaviour has, with hindsight, always shown PDA traits at home.
Transition to secondary didnt go well, and her health suffered too, resulting in a year where she had alot of medical changes, a dramatic refusal to do treatment/medication and illnesses which later transpired as school refusal/extreme anxiety. She missed approx 1/3rd of the school year in yr7, but was supported by a very kind head of house, who she liked alot, but who sadly retired at end of that year.

Yr 8 started with her 'trying' to go back, she suffered text bullying from a girl in her year which the school jumped on, but the new head of house wasnt terribly sympathetic to her anxiety and as a result she just refused in October and ended up in hospital again. FLESS became involved, offering her online classes while ill, but only ill due to CF, not anxiety. Almost immediately they started pushing a 'back to school' programme which involved her attending a local childrens unit for lessons, which went OK ish, but the woman, who is also the HE area coordinator, was very pushy and didnt seem to take on board the fact that she had had no treatment for her anxiety at this point, and started suggesting that she went into school one day a week, during a PEP meeting at the school. This resulted in a complete shutdown during the meeting, with my daughter displaying typical PDA behaviour and the lady from the LEA unhelpfully saying she was having a 'tantrum'. She was aware that she was awaiting assesment for ASD - I filled in all my papers abut she didnt do it at all. CAHMs were involved, promised alot and then disappeared completely - we have had no contact from them since Feb, despite apparantly putting us on a course for anxiety in May (didnt happen) and assesment for ASD.
As a result my daughter then became hugely anxious about attending the small unit, and our GP and CF consultants signed her off. I knew the school were arranging an ed psych assesment and we needed to stay 'in the system' until we had the results, because I felt this would help me to understand how to help her to learn in the best way for her. So as a result we struggled to go back to the small centre 3 mornings a week, with the online lessons as and when she could do them (again, typically PDA, she had numerous reasons why the lessons were not 'working'- computer fails, headphones not working, 'forgotten', etc)

Got some very interesting results from the ed psych, who offered direct contact as I suspected he knew we were going to pull her once he was done - and confirmed a very fast and intellegent mind, but with a delay in processing which causes anxiety and a huge emotional shutdown in response - sort of a panic that she doesnt 'get it' as quickly as she thinks she could, followed by a shutdown and refusal/belief she cant do it/switching off. Also abstract concepts or areas where she has no personal reference were difficult for her.

We de-registered in June and the school were fine, suggested to contact the head about coming in as a private student for exams, and wished her luck. Local centre and LEA lady not so. Her initial response was 'well, she got her way then' (I had phoned the lady one day very upset when my daughter had totally refused to go to the centre, was self harming and I couldnt get her out of bed, I think she views it as weak parenting, suggesting I should literally drag her in half dressed, screaming, spitting and smashing herself in her face, and they would 'deal with her' - but Im not prepared to treat her like this, she needs me ON her side, not fighting her, and she has far more health and emotional issues than your average child)

So, since then theyve been ringing me to get this woman to my house for a meeting. Last week I wrote to the FLESS dept and stated that we did not require a meeting, and quoted the bit about how they had no right to demand one. Said we were taking some time to settle.

And now, within 2 days, theyve written to me again, saying this was a meeting offered to all parents so they can discuss and assess plans, etc, and that they will be in touch in Sept to organise this meeting for October, as 4 months should have allowed us to settle into our HE.

My fear is that she has made her mind up that I am a shit parent and that my daughter is just bloody mindedly getting her own way. The stress of what they might try is making me anxious and instead of allowing my daughter to find her feet, recover from these awful 2 years of being bullied by kids, and then by this woman, I am panicing because I am NOT able to get her to do school-like work, and scared that the lack of evidence will demonstrate that I am not fullfilling my duties and it will legally be forced out of my hands. If that happens I cannot say what will happen to her because I know 10,000% there is no way I can force her to school.

I am in East Sussex, my LEA is ESCC. My GP has referred her direct to NORSACA for a PDA assesment, everyone on her medical team are trying to help - her CF social worker supports the HE choice and we regularly have medical staff at our house so I believe that even if they try to involve child protection there has never been any issues about her care raised in the past. However Im scared of what they can do, even if they have not done it yet, and Id rather have my back up prepared if it starts to get tricky

[NettleTea]

also embarrassed that I misspelled foresee......

[Thinking2014]

Gosh NettleTea I can't imagine what you're going through, you'll get lots of help here though I'm sure!

All I can say is stick to your guns and believe in your decision. Take it easy with your DD, you don't need to produce any work of hers anyway. Have you looked at these websites: //www.educationfreedom.org.UK or //www.edyourself.org

You'll get lots of useful tips there about the law and what you can legally provide in your Ed Phil etc.

I think you need to try to relax with your daughter, allow her time to adjust after her bad experiences & the rest will come naturally without you even realising that she (and even you are) learning! :-) best of luck

[ElephantsNeverForgive]

Good luck from me too, I'm really sad your DD hasn't had a nice time transferring to secondary.

DD has a DF with CF. No one would be allowed to bully her, her old primary school friends (and nowadays most of the senior school) would kill them.

I think you are totally right to want to HE, at least for a while and let everything get sorted out. Stick to your guns and deal only with those professionals who have some idea what they are talking about.

Make sure you know the letter of the HE law for the unhelpful ones.

[Nigglenaggle]

That sounds rotten! Hope things are better soon. I am sure someone will be along with more useful advice soon, but if you have a social worker already on your side could she intervene in some way on your behalf?

[Saracen]

Here are a couple of statistics Fiona obtained from your LA which you may find reassuring. In 2010 your LA was aware of 315 home educated children in its area, and that number had risen to 439 by 2013.

The total number of School Attendance Orders served by your LA in the last five academic years is two. So that's an average of what, something like 0.1% of all HE families in the area who receive an SAO each year. And it's unclear whether the LA even proceeded with a prosecution in those cases. If I understand correctly, they say one of the families had refused to provide any information whatsoever about their home education. The parents sent their child to school after the SAO but later deregistered again, and this time did supply some info to the LA.

I'm suggesting it's unlikely they will do anything other than bluster and try to bully you into playing their game.

educationalfreedom.org.uk/research/

[ommmward]

God, I love the internet.

[Saracen]

"My fear is that she has made her mind up that I am a shit parent and that my daughter is just bloody mindedly getting her own way."

OK, just for a minute let's allow our imaginations to run wild and suppose that you really were a shit parent whose daughter was bloody mindedly getting her own way. You know what? That would not be sufficient legal grounds for your daughter to be sent back to school. In order to be allowed to continue home educating, you do not have to prove that you are a good parent or that you are HEing for the "right" reasons. A parent is perfectly entitled to choose HE simply because said parent can't be bothered to make the child to go to school.

All you have to do in order to comply with the law is to provide your daughter with a suitable education. (Not a perfect education, not an education which is better than she'd get at school, only a suitable education.)

You do not have to have detailed plans. You do not have to require your daughter to do school-style work. You do not have to present "evidence" to the LA. That is spelled out specifically in these government guidelines to LAs: www.gov.uk/government/publications/elective-home-education

I think you're best off continuing to refuse the meeting the LA is trying to force upon you, but do start thinking about what you can put into a written document for them. IMO four months from deregistration is not a very unreasonable timescale for that. Would you be willing to promise them an educational philosophy for October instead of a meeting?

You may feel like no education is taking place now, but that doesn't mean you cannot describe what you are doing for your daughter, discuss how your approach suits her individual needs at this time (not forgetting that your daughter's SW can attest to the benefits she sees to HE for your daughter), and list some resources which are available to her if and when she chooses to use them. I'm sure people here would be glad to help if you want to talk it through.

[Thinking2014]

I agree with Saracen I also had a look on that research page before and saw my borough had served no SAOs so I'm hoping I'm not going to be their first! I've posted the de reg letter in the post, (2nd class post) & just hope the Head reads it on the first Monday in Sept & act on it!

Try not to worry, and if you need any help, just ask :) enjoy the summer x

[morethanpotatoprints]

Hello Nettle, I too think the LA are bullying you into following their procedures. just stay firm and say no thanks to home visit and there really is no law that says you have to.
We didn't know what we were going to do when LA contacted us, we were already 6 months into H.ed but the school hadn't told LA we had deregistered.
I just did an ed phil stating how she would benefit more from being at home, which should be easy for you with your evidence to hand.
Don't worry but starting it now and seeing some examples of others will have it done by October and I bet with some response from you they will leave you alone.
I also think maybe the woman who is in charge of H.ed and also working for LA needs her very different roles explained to her.
For part she works for the system the rest she works outside the system, a huge conflict of interest here.

[NettleTea]

Thank you everyone, its certainly good to see the statistics and to get some level headed, non panic, information.
I have had some good advice from a FB forum as well, and will start to take a look at putting an educational philosophy together, so that come Sept I will be able to offer it up as an alternative to the meeting, which DD is adamant she NEVER wants to happen.
Its always handy to be reminded that what they say and what is actually within the law are often 2 very different things.

[bronya]

I'm not a HE person (yet) but I'd imagine that by October you would be thinking about education for that year anyway. Plan out what you want to do, what you want her to learn etc, and write it down. Then give that to them, in a condensed, less detailed form. Perhaps send it to them before October (recorded delivery?) stating that this is what you'll be doing, so there's no need for a meeting.

[Saracen]

I know this is going to sound a bit odd, bronya, but from a legal standpoint what you suggest is not such a great idea for a parent who anticipates trouble with the Local Authority. This is because the legal definition of a suitable education is very vague, but one thing which is actually specified is that it "achieves what it sets out to achieve".

For this reason, I'd advise against laying out future plans in any detail when communicating with the LA - especially a potentially hostile LA. If you say that you are planning to do something and then don't manage to do it, for whatever reason, the LA could claim in court that this makes the education unsuitable, and use this as grounds to try to force the child back to school.

Instead, I'd recommend giving some examples of how your education has worked in recent months and what the child is doing now, describing the approach you are currently using, and listing available resources such as websites which your child can use, HE groups she could attend, libraries and museums she could visit, or knowledgeable relatives with whom she can discuss particular subjects. Best not to say she will use any of those resources, only that they are available to her.

It's not necessarily a bad idea to formulate educational plans, but it is a bad idea to share those plans with the LA!