Just a quick question...
Am considering options and was just wondering if anyone had used online schools, particularly with secondary age children?
Such as InterHigh or Academy 21?
Be very interested to hear from anyone with any experiences... Good or bad?!
Jo x

Hi Jo

I do recall someone having used on-line schooling but it was a long time ago that they posted.
I also listed some websites for on-line schooling (secondary) at one point in the UK when someone asked.
Sorry I can't help you on that one.
Everyone is probably caught up with christmas events at the moment - but someone might reply to you regarding this in the new year.
All the best
Linda

Thanks Linda :-) yep I think I found ur list when I did a search on here, was helpful. :-) just be good to hear from anyone who has tried any of them.
Anyway, like you said, everyone busy with Xmas stuff!! Have a great Christmas Linda!
Jo x

Hi Jo,
We used Interhigh for my son last year (then year 9). It got us through a bad patch as relationships with my son's previous state school had deteriorated even further and I could not take on educating him myself as his dad had just been diagnosed with an aggressive cancer.

It helped him keep up to date with core subjects at a time when we were all struggling to cope. My son has health issues and it helped that he could access some of the lessons he missed when he was unwell. There is a library of lessons - actually they are often PowerPoint presentations which give the bare bones of the lesson but they are very useful and of course he could use the internet to research if he needed more detail. Interhigh follows the national curriculum so it is possible to come out of and go back to state school and have covered the same topics - although technically with all the academies and their "new freedom" this may not be as relevant

It was more appropriate than the online schooling provided by our local education authority for children who are out of school as Interhigh has classes for each year group whereas with our local authority he'd sometimes had to be in classes that were either too basic or too advanced in some subjects.

The school tries to facilitate some social contact with other pupils but when my son logged on he did not find others were posting. Maybe this improved, he did not look often.

I think some children respond better to online education than others. My son got on with the work but did not seem particularly stimulated. He did better when we had time to go through some of the work together after lessons as we could bounce ideas off each other. This kind of inter reaction with others did not really seem to happen much in the lessons he was in. However, there were children getting together in groups to present items in other forums within the school so presumably they had a different experience of the school.

We also had some technical problems accessing the lessons in the final term and I was unhappy about how the school dealt with this.

Our experience was very much affected by the serious and then terminal illness of my husband and father of my children. The welfare person at the school was excellent and very supportive of us as a family.In different circumstances, my son may have been able to get a lot more out of the online school experience. He left the school a few weeks before the end of term as he was not coping with his dad's prognosis.

How are you going these days Leah? You've had it tough and I'd imagine the Christmas period doesn't make things easier. How is your son doing now? What do you plan to do in regard to the on-line work in the future? Do you think he will return to that?
Remember - no education has to be on a straight line. I am sure your son will find his way forward. He has a lot to deal with at the moment and his education might have to come via various sources.
Take care and I do wish you strength on your road ahead.
best wishes
Linda xx

Hi Linda,

Our plan was to use correspondence courses to study GCSE Maths and English language. Unfortunately, this hasn't taken off, as grieving for his dad has thrown my son's sleep patterns into chaos. He cannot sleep at night and cannot stay awake during the day. As this has continued for about 3 months I began to get very stressed by this, which didn't help either of us as he clearly wasn't doing it deliberately. The Xmas break has given us "permission" to set education to one side for a while.

We've started on the coursework again today as it is the first day of term for those in school. He was able to get up in the morning and has done quite a bit of work on his Maths. We checked through it together this afternoon and he's planning to start on his English this evening. Rather than have set study times we've decided to go for set amounts of time so he can then choose when he wants to work. However, he does have to check with me if we need to go through things together so we have a time we both find convenient.

I really hope this will work for us. I'd like to think he can get enough done by the time he's 16 to get into our local college as he needs to be with others. I don't intend to try to get him back into the school system in the meantime unless he chooses to do it, as they only seem to focus on children as units of data: attendance statistics and exam results.

Best wishes to all families out there dealing with the start of another term.