Leaving school at 16?
For young people with ME who are unable to attend school or college, there are a number of organisations to help them complete their education. These organisations can provide live online classes taught by qualified subject-specific teachers for students who struggle due to physical, emotional or learning-related barriers, from Key Stage 2 to A-Level.
Some of these providers are approved by the Secretary of States for high-needs funding and are therefore available through each local authority and its local offer. Other providers are fee paying but have their own plans to try and make payment more manageable – 0% interest on instalments; monthly payment plans for example.
The Local Offer
The Local Offer is a guide to the services in each local authority that are available for children and young people with special educational needs (SEN) and disabilities. Pupils diagnosed with ME meet these criteria as ME is classified as a disability and the symptoms of ME cause special educational needs by the barriers to accessing learning it creates (brain fog, fatigue, inability to attend school etc).
The following are examples of online providers who can be funded via The Local Offer:
- Academy 21. Tel: 01438 535001
- Nisai. Tel: 0208 424 8475
Fee-paying online learning
These online learning providers are fee paying but may be helpful to contact - it's by no means an exhaustive list, and Action for M.E. doesn't recommend one institution over another.
- Cloud Learn. Tel: 0330 111 4006
- Future learn. Tel: 01438 535001
- ICS Learn. Tel: 0333 920 3677
- National Extension College. Tel: 0800 389 2839
- Oxford Learning College. Tel: 01865 95263
- UK Open College. Tel: 0121 730 1177
- My Online Schooling. Tel: 800 031 4340
- Courses Online. Tel: 020 7236 2114
Please contact our Information and support service if you'd like more information or resources. We have also listed some potentially useful organisations in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland on our Useful contacts page.
