An 11-year-old girl from Merthyr Tydfil, Millie-Rae, has spoken out about her decision to leave school due to anxiety and pursue home education instead. Millie-Rae’s mother, Seana-lee, began homeschooling her daughter in September of last year, around the start of the UK’s second wave of COVID-19. She has struggled with the school environment since returning to in-person classes, which led to her falling behind on her coursework. When Millie-Rae started secondary school in September of this year, she only attended for five days before refusing to go any further.
Seana-lee has stated that her daughter’s self-confidence was beginning to suffer in school, and that the school environment was no longer suited to Millie-Rae’s needs. Millie-Rae was recently referred for ADHD investigations by a GP, and her mother has reported that she found the large, noisy classroom environment difficult to concentrate in. Seana-lee says that homeschooling has given Millie-Rae the one-to-one attention that she needs, and that the relaxed environment of home education has helped to improve her mental health.
Figures reveal that 5,330 children in Wales were being homeschooled from September 2022 to August 2023; a record number. The rise in homeschooling in Wales has been attributed, in part, to COVID-19; some parents enjoyed educating their children themselves during lockdown, while others have struggled with social anxiety and mental health issues in the wake of the pandemic. Home education is recognised as a legal right in Wales, but the Welsh government maintains that, in most cases, children are best served by attending school.
Although Millie-Rae misses seeing her friends every day, she attends a weekly drama group to maintain her social life. Her mother worried about the decision to homeschool her daughter, as her family were against the idea, but Seana-lee believes that homeschooling has improved Millie-Rae’s confidence and helped her to find happiness. Councils in Wales are said to be making greater efforts to find and record families who have opted for homeschooling, which may account for the apparent increase in homeschooling figures
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