My name is Natalia and I’m 12 years old. I love horse riding, swimming and playing computer games, especially Roblox. This is my website where I write about the fun stuff I do every week. If you want to see what I’m up to, please read my blog!
I live in England, I have ADHD and I’m homeschooled. I have been homeschooled since I was 9. My parents do something called “unschooling”, which is like homeschooling but without boring lessons or a strict plan of what to learn. You don’t even have to follow the national curriculum or do any exams (but you can if you want to).
My parents decided to take me out of school because I wasn’t doing well in a normal school. My school was great and they tried really hard to help me but it still wasn’t working for me. I would come home feeling angry and sad and I’d ask my parents not to make me go back to school the next day.
I do all kinds of cool stuff for my home education and it’s not just reading books or writing tons of things down. There are lots of ways to learn without sitting still for hours. I often do fun activities with other homeschooled children in groups that our parents organise.
A lot of people don’t really understand homeschooling in the United Kingdom and there’s loads of wrong information about it. It’s actually really easy to deregister a child from school in England and Wales so they can be homeschooled. I think Scotland is a tiny bit different but still not difficult.
Your parents (or the adults who look after you) don’t need permission for you to leave school. They just need to send a deregistration letter or email to your school saying that you’re being taken out of school and will now be homeschooled.
There’s a bunch of stuff on the gov.uk website for parents and guardians about switching to home education so they know how to do it properly. It’s super important that they do it the right way or they could get in trouble.
There’s something called a ‘Local Education Authority’ (grown-ups say “LEA” because it’s shorter) and there are lots of them in the UK. Their job is to make sure all the children in their area are getting the right kind of education for their age and how they learn.
This all sounds super official but really it just means that once a year someone checks in to make sure you’re OK and learning stuff. They don’t need to come to your house or even meet you. They just need to see that the education plan your grown-ups made for you is good for you and what you need.
If your grown-ups are worried, confused or have any questions, please ask them to contact my parents and they’ll be happy to help if they can.