‘Everyone champions each other’: two families on why they chose an online school for their children

When Lucy Gray’s husband retired from the navy after 22 years of service, she looked forward to beginning a new chapter of their lives and settling their daughter, Olivia, 14, into school.

“As a military family we bounced around a lot, so Liv experienced many different aspects of education in both the UK and the US,” Gray says. “She was born in North Carolina, and we later moved back to Maryland from Salisbury, with a stint in North Yorkshire too.”

Olivia – who was diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder and sensory processing disorder at five years old – faced each move and new schooling adventure with courage, but Gray says the whole family was “incredibly excited to put down roots and stop the disruption to Liv’s life and education” by settling permanently in the UK.

After three “delightful” years at primary school, with “supportive, encouraging, and caring” teachers, Olivia hoped for a smooth transition to the local secondary school with her friends. Unfortunately, this was not the case. “It took just half a term at high school to completely break Liv,” Gray says. “She became a nervous wreck, a shell of her bouncy self. She stopped eating and sleeping, and getting ready for school in the morning was punctuated with nausea and trembling. It was horrible for her and for us as parents.”

It emerged that Olivia was being bullied. “It didn’t take much persuasion for us to remove her from this awful situation, and that’s how we began our research into online schooling.”

King’s InterHigh, an online school for children and young adults aged seven to 19, has proved to be the place where Olivia can flourish. It’s the 10th school she has attended and she couldn’t be happier. “It took a while to make friends because I was new to the whole experience, but now I have a really strong friendship group made up of people from all over the world,” says Olivia.

Related: ‘I’m so excited we can do school differently’: how online education really works

Pupils attend King’s InterHigh for a broad range of reasons: some have families who move regularly, some find traditional school doesn’t meet their needs, and others are following careers in acting or TV and need more flexibility with their studies.

For 13-year-old TJ Owen, balancing a passion for sport with academic interests was a significant challenge until he moved to King’s InterHigh. Already a championship-winning sprinter, TJ has recently joined a football academy and hopes to eventually play in the Premier League.

“I struggled with managing homework alongside all my training,” TJ says. “It was exhausting trying to do both.” After trying home schooling and private tutoring, TJ and his family discovered King’s InterHigh. Online schooling has provided the freedom and flexibility to pursue his promising sporting career without compromising his education. If he misses a class, he can catch up later as all live lessons are recorded and available for students to access.

Recently, TJ achieved a new personal best in athletics while managing his football commitments and academic workload. “The teachers are incredibly engaged and quick to respond to emails, so I always have the support I need,” he says. “Now I can pursue both athletics and football simultaneously at a high level.”

The flexibility has also allowed TJ to avoid the exhaustion he experienced at a traditional school. “If I have physio or need time off on a Monday morning after a weekend full of training, I don’t miss out and I can watch the class recording,” he says.

Initially, TJ’s mother Sofia Thomas had concerns about whether online schooling was the right choice. “We were unsure whether it would work at first, but it’s been life-changing and the happiest year at school so far for TJ,” she says. The supportive environment at King’s InterHigh has been crucial, especially when TJ shared his dream of pursuing a career as a professional footballer. “In a traditional school, maintaining a dream like that can be hard but at King’s InterHigh, everyone champions each other. It’s a community.”

Perhaps the biggest concern about online schooling is that children will suffer from a lack of in-person interaction. But Olivia quickly rebuffs this idea. Online schooling at King’s InterHigh hasn’t just spared her from a distressing situation at her old school, it has empowered her to find her voice and flourish. “People are much more themselves at King’s InterHigh, because they don’t have the same constraints from the point of view of society trying to put us all in certain boxes,” she says. “I think a lot of kids I know would benefit from online schooling – they just don’t know it exists. Online education isn’t limiting in the way some people think. In fact, it’s totally liberating.”

With the support of King’s InterHigh, both TJ and Olivia have found a supportive, flexible environment that allows them to thrive both personally and academically, paving the way for bright futures both in and out of the classroom.

To find out more about King’s InterHigh, visit kingsinterhigh.co.uk