Nissai is a good option. They " get" ME. ( They have a part time primary teacher who has it). I' ve met with founder and their development officer with tymes trust to try and get this option into scotland. Aiming to get a pilot centrally funded over a number if councils .
Here, over my local 3 councils, absence of 80% or more ( potential social work trigger), runs at 10-13% for secondary education.(FOIs are wonderful things as schools are good at presenting attendance , not absence) A few ill children in school can keep attendance overall at 96% , but looking at absences provides a more accurate picture. My council are now crunching numbers to determine those with illnesses who could benefit from help to help make a case.
I have recently developed a skill in " raising concerns"
Some kids don' t want to be in school but are made to ( child benefit stops at 16 if you don' t do 16 hrs week education), but many kids have mental health issues or illnesses, and are effectively being written off by a system that is not flexible enough, mainly due to defined outcome parameters, and the processes geared to delivering these.
Virtual lessons at Nissai are live with children responding via private message/ class message or via mic. If child is too ill they can catch up with recorded lesson and " attendance" is logged. There is a wider forum for friendships and non academic stuff - photography / art/ writing competitions to try and bolster social skills too. For ME this is ideal.
There are a lot of online providers and they have been around for 10 or so years.
The fragmentation of education in England has seen some providers run bases in schools.
In Scotland we have problems with a different curriculum and required teaching qualifications. I can't believe that when the " curriculum for excellence" came into being, that there was not at least a centralised online syllabus with ideal exercises etc that could be downloadable ( like Moodle in further education). With a widely spread rural population it would only seem sensible - but as we know sense rarely comes into things.
I now at least have acknowledgement that GCSEs are better than nothing, and it may be that some funding will be made available when my daughter is able to engage.
For something that should be easy, it is incredibly difficult- lots of disparate boxes to join together.
Petitions, such as this are a good way of raising awareness.
Most people think that lessons are sent home and work marked .
Home tutors here are for a couple of subjects for up to 4 hrs/ week. If your child has a fluctuating illness there is huge pressure to " use this resource" - often it is at the wrong time/ inability to engage a few times puts pressure on it being withdrawn as there us much demand and little funding.
For those partly in school anxiety is heightened when it us impossible to keep up.
Noone wants to look forward to potentially a life on benefits - sadly little is being done to enable potential to be realised.
I hope everyone signs
