‘I felt absolutely lost’: the crisis behind the rising number of UK children being homeschooled

Families pull their children out of school because they feel they aren’t getting the support they need. Photograph: Maskot/Getty Images, posed by model

Steve Bladon has been a headteacher for a decade. Yet when he found himself temporarily home educating his 11-year-old daughter, who had such severe anxiety that she couldn’t leave the house, he admits he felt “absolutely lost”.

“Initially we had no idea what to do,” he said. “All we knew was that she needed time and space, so we weren’t compounding her anxiety.”