Well, thats it. As of today we are going to be prosecuted for our sons non-attendance of school. They have removed all coping mechanisms such as half days and phased return as they say it has not worked (which it hasnt but at least he did attend some days with that in place) and have said he can now only attend school 'normally'. We are to expect a letter to attend a meeting under caution to see whether it goes to court. My son has aniexty and fear about school, relating to bullying and the fear of bullying and is being seen by Vibes which is part of Mind. We did have an educational psycologist but she has disappeared and CAMHS have said he hasnt got a mental health issue but they are concerned about him and have arranged another meeting with myself and my husband on 21st Jan. Dispite all this the school say their is no medical reason for him not to attend school and therefore they are starting prosecution. I have sort legal advice and have also been told to start a formal complaint against the school. Any advice??? We seem to be being crisitised as parents by these experts...too soft, no boundaries etc

Oh Sue - I am so sorry to hear you have all this to deal with. This must be incredibly stressful for all your family. What on earth is wrong with the school?
How is your son taking it? The guilt they have put back on you is unbelievable.

Would you like us to send accounts of our children so that you have many other stories to back up the fact that SR IS an issue? I'd be happy to put something together for you.
The other thing is the court case in the UK that was thrown out by the judge - I did send the URL for that in a previous post - see if you can find that or do a google search (not quite that easy to locate but comes under one of your main newspapers).
The other issue that I can think of is the bullying. It seems to me that the school has not addressed the bullying and so they are also liable in the eyes of the law?
Also - is there any past teacher or anyone at the school (even a parent council) who could be on your side to stop it going to court? Can you find if any other kids have been bullied and work together?
You could do without all this - it is all consuming just having the SR to deal with. My thoughts go out to you and please don't hesitate to contact the forum for any help you need. And let us know re the report on our kids if that will help.
Hang in there and take care-
Linda

Sue, I am so upset to hear how awfully you are being treated by your son's school.
Your son is obviously very anxious and I disagree that this does not come under having an impact on his mental health - what on earth are CAMHS on about? I hope your meeting with them is met by a better understanding on their part.

Is your GP supportive? Maybe he could help in some way?

We are all here to help if we can.

x

Thank for the support. My son really does not need this added guilt, he sobbed for hours yesterday. I have made an appointment to see a new GP who is meant to be very good with mental health issues but without CAMHS support i dont know what else he can do. I have spoken to lots of people and got some good advice and also have a copy of the newspaper report from on here so my evidence file is growing. Anything useful i find i will post just in case anyone else needs it (which i really hope isnt the case) Has anyone tried home schooling?? Would i have to give up work? I am looking at so many options my head is spinning!
It all started this time last year...my son changed in a matter of weeks from a confident, happy boy to some one with no self esteem or self worth as far as school is concerned and they still give me the impression that they think he is just a 'naughty' boy that we can't control. Funny how he attended school from nursery upwards fine until that point. Something happened...i wonder if i will ever know what??

Good wishes to all who are dealing with this problem. XXX

Sue - I can't believe how you are being treated, but then again yes i can. Is it actually the school who are theatening or is it Education Welfare ? I had another meeting at school on Tuesday and they have told me that they would never take legal action against me but they couldn't say that for Ed Welfare. I am seeing an excellent private Ed Psycologist who has been so helpful - obviously you don't want to say where you live on an open site - but if there is anyway you could see someone in the West Midlands i can highly recommend him ( he is abour 40 miles away from me but well worth it ) With regards to home ed, I have read different ideas of what happens - some say no regular timetable or formal lessons but my Ed Welfare said they would have to set a timetable and I would have to give up work, but all the web sites say different, so I am not much help sorry but will support you in any way i can.

Please keep us updated.
Take care

Sarah xx

Sarah, i do live in that region so info on your Ed Pscy might be useful. As far as who is prosecuting i'm not sure, the ed welfare officer for the school does all the talking but the year heads etc from the school are all sitting nodding in agreement to her everyword.
I have contacted the home education advisory service and they have said that many parents work part-time and home educate at the same time. There are no legal requirements about when the home education should take place, so there is flexibility both with regard to your work and when the home education takes place. They have a website etc.
I have contacted the ed psyc my son saw through school but her service has been withdrawn by the school. She has said she will support us with what is happening but cant see my son again on a 1-1 basis. She was not happy about the prosecution and was going to contact CAHMS to see if she could have any input. Just need to organise some work for my son so he can have some sort of structure to his day. Need more that 24hrs in a day!!

Sue i am very disappointed with your CAMHS, of course it is some sort of mental health problem, that what anxiety is. I am currently sitting here organising my sons work for tomorrow, but i have to say it is difficult as i will be at work when he does it. I can't e-mail from this notebook but will e-mail you the details tomorrow direct to you - if you are not too far away i would like to meet up with you and offer you my support and will help you in any way possible. How old is your son ? does he have anxieties about anything else but school ? My son thinks he has a terminal illness and that people are not telling him, i have to check his pulse and heart beat 20 times a day. He did have a couple of days last week where he was ok as he had an MOT at the doctors, where of couse he had a perfect heart etc, but now thinks he is lying to him as well, or that he has missed something. School were absolutely lovely with me last week - we now see a different year head and he understands or at least tries to and has said that if i do home ed then they will help me. Well must go and try and finish the work, one word of advise keep all the work your son does at home as this is proof he is working - unfortunately just doing work that is not traceable on the computer will not count.

Talk soon

Sarah x

Thanks Sarah, will wait to hear from you. I too am sorting out work for my son. He is 12 and i have brought workbooks and printed the home work book from the school website so he can do some of the projects from that.
Thanks again..today has been a hard day as i keep becoming overwhelmed by it all. Hopefully tomorrow will be better

Sue - I have e-mailed you my Ed Psy details direct to you which I hope will help.

Let me know how you get on.

Sarah x

Hi there

I am so sorry Sue to hear what you are going through. Is there a PRU (pupil referal unit) in your Local Authority, they have worked wonders on my son (who is also 12). Fortunately our school and CAMHs have been great in our situation, school are sending work home for him to do and he is linked to them via web site and e-mail as well as school work from the PRU. We have lots of correspondence from school and other organisations that I wouldn't mind sharing with you as evidence that anxiety can be sorted out in a positve way.

All the best
Kirsty xx

Sue,
I am reading this thread in horror at what you are having to go through. I am in the US, and while there are huge disadvantages to not having National Health (like the thousands that I have paid out of pocket for therapists, medications, etc.) at least I did not have to go through a huge bureaucracy to deal with my son's school. All I needed was a doctor's diagnosis of anxiety for the school to give my son a specialized learning plan in which he had extra time to complete assignments and a free pass to leave class and see the social worker at any time. (Unfortunately that was still not enough to keep him in school.) My son was 14 when all of this started and by the time he was 16, he hit a wall and that's when we were first introduced to the whole notion of school refusal. That is also when I found this forum.
I would like to address your question about home schooling. I pulled my son out of school just two months ago to home school him. It was not an easy decision and it has been an adjustment but it seems to be working out. I have NOT had to quit my job. What I discovered is that home schooling is a completely different philosophy than traditional school; home schoolers teach the basics but beyond that they use the whole world as their classroom. There are communities of home schoolers that get together regularly for activities and classes such as trips to museums or writing/acting out play productions. People have the misconception that home schooling is teaching the traditional subjects as in a classroom setting except at home. It is not like that at all , in fact I think that home schoolers have far more creativity since they are not locked into a specific curriculum. I admit though that I/we spend a fair amount of time explaining why we made the decision that we did, to the skeptical reaction of our friends. (Home school parents, on the other hand, need no explanation.)
Having said that, I might add that I work as a librarian in a very traditional elementary school so it took me a while to be able to embrace the home school philosophy. But at the same time I am more and more convinced that school is not for everyone - some kids are simply not hard-wired for the constricting environment that is traditional school. I see it all the time. And the anxiety and depression that results is very definitely a mental health issue. The amount of children on who are medicated just to get through school is shocking.

Keep your head up, Sue. We are all in this together. If you want to consider home schooling there are lots of books and websites about it. There are even conferences.

I wish you the best,
Helen

Thanks to everyone for your support and comments. I have set up some kind of structure as far as work with my son and he is doing some fab work at home, especially art. School have said if we agree to transfer him to another school they will stop the prosecution.........no comment from me needed on that one eh!!!! Still cant believe that is was said. We have approached the subject of looking at new schools with our son but he doesnt appear that keen (same problem-different place). We have put our side of the story in writing to the governors of the school and education welfare but i doubt it will do much. We have our next CAMHS appointment this coming Friday so i will let you know what they say but i do not hold out much hope. Its crazy, he obviously needs help but i just get the feeling that he isnt 'BAD' enough- does that make sense????
Hugs and wishes to all XXX

Sue - did you get my e-mail regarding my fab psycologist ?

If not let me know and I will re-send as I now have a new e-mail address.
Sar xx

Helen,

I am glad to hear that Home Schooling is working out for your son - that must be such a relief. What I would like to know is do or are these these students who are home schooled able to then sit final exams for the end of school to enter College/University or do they have to attend alternative tertiary courses? There are some home schooled students who take art classes at a Community Centre I attend and they seem to be younger students (not 17 year olds) so I just wondered where students end up afterwards?

And Sue H - glad you are finding some ways forward. And yes - our kids not being 'bad' enough has been actually spoken to me by my school. He is not 'bad'enough to have a separate learning program - to have a teacher aide or to have work sent home. That is - he does not have 'autism' or any other recognised disability that can mean a whole new learning program that ensures the child does not miss out. Sad isn't it - a very unrecognised problem that is obviously effecting a lot of kids out there! Maybe in years to come it will be recognised.

I had forgotten how it felt to feel 'relaxed' but as we are now on holiday for 5 weeks then I have finally - after three - wound down from the extreme stress levels. It will be a different story in Feb - so my heart goes out to you all feeling stressed right now. Mind you - things are not quite 'all smooth going' as we have issues that seem to not disappear such as not wanting to meet friends - avoiding the local shopping centre - getting obsessed with buying things and refusing to go anywhere on holiday. Anxiety does not miraculously disappear when school is not on the agenda - but it certainly improves. Good luck to everyone of you still facing lots of issues.
Linda

No i didnt - could you email again. Thanks

Sue - have e-mailed to your address shown on an earlier post - any probs let me know.

Thanks

Sarah xx

Sue,
When I read your posts, I can't believe how familiar it all sounds. My son also refused to even consider alternative schools - I think that the unfamiliar is just as anxiety producing as the familiar situation, even though it is clearly not working. I wanted my son to go to a school with a music focus since that is his talent but he wasn't having anything to do with it. He also isn't "bad enough" for a therapeutic school or an alternative school where the kids have far bigger issues than school refusal anxiety.

But the worst part is what this does to their self esteem. It is very difficult for a child to see those around him being able to cope when he is not. (Even though not all of them are coping well but at least they still attend.) It is alienating and no child wants to feel different.

To answer Linda's question; I don't know exactly how the system works in the UK but in the US, home schoolers can put together their own transcript or "portfolio" of what they have studied and as long as they have taken the standardized college entrance exams, almost all of the universities here accept them. In addition, there is a an equivalency exam (to a high school diploma) that can be taken which is recognized by most universities.

But you should definitely ask around. Home schooling is certainly becoming more mainstream here. Especially in large metropolitan areas (like where I live) where the public school system is questionable. It would not surprise me at all if home schooled kids in the UK can take the final exams. We started exploring alternatives to traditional school when all of this started and talked to people whose children had found an alternative path and found that there are many options. And they all went to college where the whole experience was quite different. You just have to be willing to be a little different than most of the people you know.

Even though things are calmer in my household now, my son's anxiety issues still need to be addressed. I don't feel like this is over just because he isn't in school. That is an ongoing process. But it is a relief to not have to see him curled up in a self-defeated ball in the mornings when he couldn't get himself to go to school. I don't miss that.

Best wishes to all.
Thanks to all of you for this wonderful forum. I am grateful for the support.

Helen

Thanks for the info, Helen - and good luck with your road ahead. I know from our experience also that school is not just the issue but certainly the biggest issue that hits them as it is every day and all their peers go.
I am actually in Australia - so not sure how the system works here but might look into it as I have the whole of secondary to go yet - starting next year.
Perhaps let us know how things go for you or if you have any more insight - it has been interesting to know of someone taking a different path.
All the best,
Linda