Esther Jones | Jessica's mum

She was getting a lot of peer pressure off the other girls. They gave her a lot of hassle online as well as in the classroom. She wasn’t getting any support really from the school she was at and she was also suffering from terrible IBS – but we didn’t know that at the time. She was in and out of hospital and they said it was stress. The hospital consultants were saying, ‘are you sure there’s no problems at school?’ and it wasn’t really until a bit later it started coming out of the woodwork that it was all to do with that. Since we’ve been at King’s InterHigh, her IBS has really improved, so health-wise she’s also a lot better.

I went online because Jess was adamant she wanted to be home-schooled. Me and my husband both work full-time so that wasn’t possible, so I went online because we were really pulling our hair out at this point. Then I found King’s InterHigh via a google search for ‘home-schooling’. I delved in a bit deeper and then got in touch with the home education officer who was fantastic and couldn’t stop raving about King’s InterHigh. I’ve actually spoken to a lot of prospective parents in the local area about King’s InterHigh.

If she was having a bad day, when she was at school, she’d always have to put her hand up or whatever and she’d have to go. Whereas now her teachers know what the situation is, and she just nips out and comes back and there’s no stress and worrying now. It’s all just a lot happier really, she’s more relaxed and she just enjoys life more now.

Her confidence has really gone through the roof. When she was at the public school, she was having troubles and she was going really inside herself. She was very depressed and really anxious about everything. Now she’s just turned into ‘our Jess’ again. She’s back to being happy and everyone’s commented, all our in-laws and relatives have said what a difference she is, it’s really brought her back out to being Jess and she’s really enjoying school now.

She does a lot of dance classes, so she has a lot of interaction with her own age group. She also physically meets up with some of her friends from King’s InterHigh. She’s got outside relationships with them and one of her best friends came to our house to stay for the summer party.

You get prompted when your child’s classes are, and the teachers will ring you or let you know if they are not on time or don’t turn up for class. But thankfully we’ve never had that. But they will let you know if there are any issues straight away.

It’s a bit different from public school – she never really had a teacher bond. She hated school, the teachers and everything. She’s just a lot happier now. Yes, it’s a lot of money but we said our daughter’s health and happiness is more important really.

Jess always felt very pressurised in class and she doesn’t like speaking openly. But at King’s InterHigh she can reply and get her point across without feeling self-conscious and everyone looking at her. And that’s where a big difference is.

It’s just not got the bullying involved that most schools have, so I’m all for online schooling. I think it’s the best thing we’ve ever done. She’s a lot happier now and her grades have gone up dramatically. We’ve got no bullying in our lives. She does so many social activities outside. She does six hours of dance a week, does her pageants. If anything, she does too much social and it wears me and her dad out!

King’s InterHigh gives her the flexibility to compete in beauty pageants across the UK, because she does have to go off to places and travel around. So, she can catch up on the work that she misses when she does have to go off and do appearances or dance competitions, without it affecting her grades.