The Day Home Education Changed Our Lives.

This piece was written for the blog by one of the tribe; Jayne. My tribe of parents are who I have been called to serve. At Eco Ed Forest School they have a huge voice and are invited to share their experiences, expertise and enlightening moments for publication. You’re Just One Session Away — Mark

It all started when we realised the school our children attended was not able to meet their needs.

At the time they seemed to be coping academically but the social and emotional care was almost non-existent.

Sadly, this seems to be the case for many adopted children. Either the resources are not available or the teachers are not trained sufficiently to identify the specific needs of adopted children.

Even When Training Is In Place, A Child Can Go Unnoticed Amongst Thirty Others.

Let us just be clear from the outset that we are not school or teacher bashing, we are not sharp elbowed, pushy parents of angels with rose tinted glasses on.

We simply want our children to be helped with their needs.

We have many points of reference in our circle of family and friends: a lead SENDCo of a referral unit, 4 plus teachers, a school pastoral worker, a school business manager plus our post adoption social worker and many friends on the same journey as us.

An Example Of This Is Our AS7 Dave.

Dave is hypervigilant, he is very aware of his surroundings and given his background he has survival techniques that Bear Grylls would be envious of.

Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on the circumstances, Dave would use these survival techniques at school and blend into the background, only to come home at 3.30pm and have a two-hour meltdown because he had held it together all day.

When we expressed our concerns to school, we were told they could not help because he wasn’t disruptive enough.

“He’s not throwing chairs across the classroom.”

We soon began to realise that this was going to be a difficult journey. We looked at changing schools, but did not find anything suitable that was local and because Dave has Attachment Disorder (AD) we did not want to cause him more distress.

We Were Simply Made To Feel Like A Problem.

We continued to attend meetings with the head, The SENCO, Dave’s Therapist and our social worker, however nothing improved,

My husband Mark and I discussed the possibility of Home Education and in July 2019 we attended the Home Education Families Festival (HEFF) at Newark.

We met so many lovely families at this festival and learned so much. When we returned home, we continued with life as normal wondering how and when we could make the leap to home education.

I believe in fate and with a little help from the Coronavirus of 2020, we were able to choose the path we had been looking for.

Fast Forward Twelve Months …

We can honestly say we have no regrets. Home-schooling has been the best decision for our children.

Dave and Tilly are much happier and I believe this is due to the holistic approach that we able to provide.

This includes;

• Attending Forest School twice a week.
• Working at a level that suits our children.
• Having the flexibility to be able to stop or change an activity.
• The ability to provide positive social environments.
• Being constantly aware of their emotional needs and being able to provide support and comfort.

An example of this would be using the swings in our garden to aid self-regulation or hugs/comfort on demand.

For all these reasons and many more, the current Education System is not equipped to provide the loving, nurturing environment our children require to thrive.