this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2026
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Thank you - this is extremely helpful.
It's been difficult getting honest, balanced and intelligent input from people around us. We live in area with a big 'alternative' subculture and most people seem to have a bit of an axe to grind (both for and against), making it hard to get a useful perspective.
A couple of questions, if you don't mind:
Do you know what it was that your son struggled with about going school and what changed when he did start? Also, I didn't know it was an option to go to school part-time these days. Is this arranged directly with the school and are they amenable to it?
How did you go about finding groups and meetups? And what usually happens at them?
Everything you've said makes perfect sense and I can see how it would effect us.
Thanks again!
Yeah I appreciate the difficulty; a lot of people will look at you as if you have 3 heads and many people are very against it, often for the wrong reasons.
Our son is very emotional and get very anxious easily (if you ever look up a "highly sensitive child", he ticks a lot of those boxes) - less so these days but when he was younger it was a challenge. I think it was just too overwhelming for him - too many children, too much noise and chaos. Noise and chaos is still his number one issue with school, but he manages it much better now. He's also a late August child, so he's basically the youngest child in his school year group (the school year starts from 1st September in the UK), so he's a year behind developmentally compared to some of his peers. When you're starting school at 4 or 5, that's a big difference.
It depends on the school. We found a very small school that allowed part time schooling and it was popular with home-ed folks, however it was very far away and he wasn't there for long as the commute was too much. We then found a local school and he went there full time and was OK for 2 years, had a wobble and we managed to agree with the school that he could do 3 days a week for year 3. We were very fortunate and the head teacher was very understanding about our situation. At the end of year 3, the school decided that he should go back full time, and we also agreed that it was the right thing, as that was our goal anyway. He went back full time this September and he's been doing great, absolutetly no issues.
My wife mainly found them on Facebook. Usually the kids would play. The age ranges of the kids would vary but they'd all play together nicely. Some parents would set up activities for the kids to do. Sometimes they'd be at gymnatics clubs or drama clubs and so on.
Out of interest, what's making you inquire about it?