We took our daughter out of school at 15 when she was half way through her gcse's. She was falling asleep in lessons due to lack of interest, had been placed in low groups and needed some intensive tuition.. . I approached a college to see if she could enter before she was 16 but was turned down. A friend who took her son out of school within the last 18 months however managed to get a college to accept him early.. . As home education was the only option, I obtained the relevant info. from the local Education Dept. and booked out any instructional text books from our main library. This was pre internet. It would be so much easier now with so much info. just a google away.. . I paid a Maths tutor and an English tutor for an hour a week each and called on odd friends with degrees who had interests in particular subjects, ie. religious education, sociology. I paid them back with child care. The rest I did myself with nil experience of teaching, just an enquiring mind and common sense. . . The maths tutor told me my daughter was quicker at calculating than she was herself, gifted in fact. The english man said she was very imaginative in her use of language. No teachers had ever picked up on either fact and encouraged her. . . It all depends on whether your child is going to go into Sixth Form college to take A Levels as to the range of subjects they should take. Again the local Education authority will supply the info. If the child plans to take an NVQ, presumably fewer subjects would be necessary. . . We phoned round first to find out which local school would agree to her sitting the exam under their auspices and then ordered up the relevant syllabus from the appropriate exam board. We bought advised text books. These can be sold on after the exams have been taken. We started from scratch as she had learned nothing in the first gcse year. . . When the Chief Education Inspector called to see how she was progressing after a month, he was impressed to find bulging files of work, more than she'd achieved in an entire year at school.He said he wished he'd taken his daughter out of the system if this was the level of progress because she had been unable to achieve her aim of teaching due to being poor at maths. . . We included swimming, typing, french conversation and dress making as thought they would be useful and make a break from the academic subjects. The day was divided into 1hr. periods and we wrote out a time table. We both dressed smartly as I felt this was good psychologically. She saw her friends after school time and didn't miss the school life. . . Can't see any of this would be possible if you worked yourself as you need to be there to supervise. I had a small child at home so was able to be around all the time. The younger child benefited from the experience and started school with prodigious knowledge! Daughter didn't do any science subjects at home and physics would be challenging but after all, Open University students manage experiments and so should be possible.. . She achieved good marks in the exams and everything she tackled once she had left school was successful. She started her own business in her early twenties.