Home Schooling a child with SEN

The Founders of the charity have been home schooling all three of their children over the past 14 years. Two children are now fully grown adults and their youngest child is 14.

Because of their experience parents often ask them about home schooling a child.

There may be many reasons why you may be thinking about homeschooling, and most often the reason is that your child is not coping with the pressure of the school enviroment.

When a child is constantly anxious this will effect their ability to learn and absorb information. If this is severe there comes a point where you need to decide what is best for your child in the long term.

Contemplating homeschooling and even making the decision to do so can be a very stressful time for parents, as still even today home schooling is often frowned upon by other parents and even professionals. For some parents this may not be an option due to work commitments.

Wherever possible, it is best to work with your child’s school to find a resolution however if a child’s mental health or physical well-being is at risk of declining then the best option maybe to home school your child.

Every parent has a legal right to decide whether there child with receive formal education or will be educated at home. Some parents are confused and believe that if they de-register their child they will be breaking the law. This is not so. You can decide at any point to home educate you child, however you would need to be sure that you are making the right decision as you could risk losing a child’s school placement should you want your child to return to a school in the future.

So you have made the decision to home school, now what do you do?

You will need to write a letter to the school requesting that your child be removed from the register. There is a fantastic website full of information regarding the law and your parental rights, plus sample de-registration letters that can be found here: https://www.educationotherwise.org/index.php/deregistration

My child attends a Special Educational Needs School, can i still remove them?

If your child attends a Special Needs School you are still be able to home school them and would need to write a letter in the same way as a child attending a main stream school (as above) however where a child is a registered pupil at a special school under arrangements made by the LA (so this excludes those who attend special school placements not funded or arranged by the LA), LA ‘consent’ is required to delete the child’s name from the register of the school.

Further information can be found about homeschooling a child with SEN here: https://www.educationotherwise.org/index.php/he-and-sen#can-i-deregister-my-child-who-is-currently-at-a-special-school

The charity founders discovered the Education otherwise website when it first began - before it too became a registered charity many years ago, and has referred many parents to this site for support to help them to decide what is best for their child’s education.