education is compulsory

But I couldn't stop myself from becoming increasingly excited about what home-educating might mean to us as a family and at 1.30 am, by which time we had of course both become experts on the subject, we were all ready to go and wake the children and tell them they couldn't go back to school even if they wanted to! (Fortunately we slept on that one and decided just to 'sit' with the whole idea for a few days while the implications sank in.)

Our enthusiasm didn't wane, in spite of my uncertainty as to how this would fit in with life. We discussed the option with the girls and received two very different responses. Anna, our eldest, was very excited; Sophie however was initially horrified at the thought of being at home and leaving her friends but at the same time didn't like the idea of remaining at school without her older sister. We told her that no decision needed to be made immediately and that she would not be made to do anything she didn't want to. This reassured her. She returned to school and saw it with new eyes - observing more things that she was not happy about (with no influence from us - we truly wanted them to make whatever decision felt best to both of them and have tried to act unconditionally throughout).

By the end of the summer term Sophie had moved her position entirely and was now happy to give home-schooling 'a go'. We took them out of school provisionally for a year and held our breath...