My biggest advice is Don't Rush

I spoke to Jenna (18) about her education. She went to school until Year 9. For more real-life stories like hers, The Teenager’s Guide to Taking Control of Your Education is available now from all good booksellers.

To be honest, I think problems in education for me started quite young. When I started nursery, I just did not want to go. My mum nicknamed me Koala, because I would cling to her leg and not want to go into nursery. I can remember have lots of issues with peers and that sorts of thing. I struggled outside the home when I was little.

It got worse when I started at primary school. It was a small local school, just reception through to year 2, but it was very overwhelming for me. I have a memory of dreading a spelling test. I had a teacher who was almost a bully and I think that’s where the school trauma really started. I carried a fear of teachers and educational people in general into secondary school. I think those early years are so important because it sticks with you for a very long time.

Once I accidentally stepped on the teacher’s foot when going to get my milk and I got into huge trouble over it. So I started tiptoeing around people. I was still tiptoeing when I went to my next school, at least two years later. A teacher laughed at me and said ‘You don’t need to tiptoe, you know’ and I didn’t even know I was doing it. Little punishments made me absolutely terrified of teachers and I had problems with my peers as well. There was a lot of bullying. I was very different as someone who was neurodiverse.

I moved schools and when I moved I cried, I think every single day for the first term that I was at that school. I was really stressed trying to fit in and still absolutely terrified of the teachers. I was lucky enough to go to a private school so there were only 20 in a class and I had some decent teachers. My Year 6 teacher had a habit of shouting really really loudly quite randomly if anyone was disruptive. I got quite tense whenever anyone would talk which was basically 24/7.

Then I started secondary school and it was so fast and intense from the second we started in Year 7. I had autism which had gone completely unnoticed. Dyspraxia which had gone unnoticed and possible dyslexia. I fell further and further behind and had to constantly try to catch up. The stress got to me so much that I came down with mental health issues and depression which meant that by the start of Year 9, I ended up leaving school and moving into home education.

My mum was terrified of the idea of home education. I knew deep down that it would be the best thing for me, and I was the first person to mention it. My mum immediately dismissed it and said ‘No, that’s not possible, that’s not going to happen’ and I kept saying it. I suggested flexi-schooling but my health had declined so much at that point that it wasn’t possible. The days I wasn’t at school I didn’t have the energy to do anything. I feel if I had started earlier flexi-schooling might have worked it was too late.

My mum took me to look around another school but I said ‘It’s just going to be the same kind of experience’ and in the end she came to understand by talking to the mum of someone else who was home educated.

…

My biggest advice for others is don’t rush. There’s no pressure. There’s no need to rush. You don’t have to do your GCSEs in Year 11 or your A-levels in Year 13. I’m now what would be technically Year 14 and I’m only just starting one A-level. It’s really just to do what you can at your own pace and you will find things will gradually flow with time. It doesn’t click overnight. I wish it did. It took me a good five years to get where I am now after leaving school. That stress and that exhaustion of all that stress being built up for years and years is finally being lifted. It takes a while to recover, especially if things have been difficult.

Illustration by Eliza Fricker.