Homeschooling advice

Yes, we're doing the same with our 13 year old autistic daughter. There's lots and lots of support out there. A few pointers:

Search on facebook for local home education groups. These will recommend group meet ups, they may be able to give you details of local tutors or joint home schooling groups. There are also often organisations who run special sessions for home schooling families, for example we have a local wildlife rescue centre that run sessions training home schooling kids in caring for animals and there are special home schooling only sessions at a local swimming pool, as a chance to socialise with others doing the same as you. A local facebook group will help point you towards these.

Your council website should have a home education section, which should list resources you can use, including local tutors as well as online resources.

There are tonnes of good educational resources online. Try these:

- BBC Bitesize - tonnes of videos, written lessons and games

- Oak Academy - free video lessons and quizzes at all key stages

- IXL - maths and english support for a monthly subsription

- Learn laugh play - online lessons in a broad range of subjects for £2.50 per session per week. Both academic and fun

- TKSST - amazing range of interesting educational videos outside of normal curriculum areas. Worth a look!

- Mathantics (youtube channel) - maths explained for kids

Online schools offer the whole school experience, but over the internet. Good ones include:

- Wolsey Hall Oxford - very flexible, good range of tutor support plus SEND team

- Kings Interhigh - online lessons with same kids each time.

You can absolutely do the whole thing from home and it can be much better for autistic children to do this. I was initially worried about how this would affect her social life. But socialising doesn't have to happen in an institution and in fact it's been pointed out to me now that school is the only place where people are expected to socialise in a large group of people who are all exactly the same age as each other, but who don't necessarily have anything much in common. The idea that this is the natural way to learn social skills is largely misplaced. Home education can offer a more rounded and natural experience, with children able to learn to socialise with a more mixed range of ages and with people they actually have an interest in common with. This can be a much more positive experience for autistic people.

Good luck with it all if you do take the plunge!

Yes, we're doing the same with our 13 year old autistic daughter. There's lots and lots of support out there. A few pointers:

Search on facebook for local home education groups. These will recommend group meet ups, they may be able to give you details of local tutors or joint home schooling groups. There are also often organisations who run special sessions for home schooling families, for example we have a local wildlife rescue centre that run sessions training home schooling kids in caring for animals and there are special home schooling only sessions at a local swimming pool, as a chance to socialise with others doing the same as you. A local facebook group will help point you towards these.

Your council website should have a home education section, which should list resources you can use, including local tutors as well as online resources.

There are tonnes of good educational resources online. Try these:

- BBC Bitesize - tonnes of videos, written lessons and games

- Oak Academy - free video lessons and quizzes at all key stages

- IXL - maths and english support for a monthly subsription

- Learn laugh play - online lessons in a broad range of subjects for £2.50 per session per week. Both academic and fun

- TKSST - amazing range of interesting educational videos outside of normal curriculum areas. Worth a look!

- Mathantics (youtube channel) - maths explained for kids

Online schools offer the whole school experience, but over the internet. Good ones include:

- Wolsey Hall Oxford - very flexible, good range of tutor support plus SEND team

- Kings Interhigh - online lessons with same kids each time.

You can absolutely do the whole thing from home and it can be much better for autistic children to do this. I was initially worried about how this would affect her social life. But socialising doesn't have to happen in an institution and in fact it's been pointed out to me now that school is the only place where people are expected to socialise in a large group of people who are all exactly the same age as each other, but who don't necessarily have anything much in common. The idea that this is the natural way to learn social skills is largely misplaced. Home education can offer a more rounded and natural experience, with children able to learn to socialise with a more mixed range of ages and with people they actually have an interest in common with. This can be a much more positive experience for autistic people.

Good luck with it all if you do take the plunge!

Thank you ever so much for your reply - my reading for tonight! I’ve heard from a friend about Kingsinter and Wolsey being very good.