In thinking the school should have made contact by now.

[GratefulHead]

Long story but DS who is autistic (among other things) has refused to go to school for the last three days. It's very very fraught here and all over an incident in school on Tuesday. He came out of school on that day in full meltdown and hasn't been back since.
I have left messages with the school SEN department daily since then asking to speak to someone, I am desperate to talk to them as I need help to get him back into school. To date they have made no contact with me despite the fact that I have phoned the school absence people in the school to report "school refusal" as a reason for absence.
I spoke to the Local Authority yesterday and managed to get hold of the Caseworker allocated to DS just to see if the school had made any contact with her....but they hadn't. Managed to talk it all through with her so that was useful but not sure where to turn now.
DS has a Statement of SEN and we had an Annual Review on Monday where it was agreed that his needs had significantly changed and there needed to be a new plan of action to support him in school. I have written some ideas down and the SENCO and Caseworker are meeting next week to rewrite the plan. I will meet with the SENCO the week after to go through it all.
Have spoken via email to IPSEA who want me to phone them but currently I cannot get through....am persevering. I have also been referred to a support group who provide support workers to help with issues like this. Referral came from another local service and not the school.

No longer sure what to do anymore. I have sat DS down and we have done every bit of homework he has plus looked and reviewed other work. He also has ADHD and is difficult to get focused hence I really do not want to home educate. Part of the advantage with school is that he will sit down and work because all the other pupils are doing the same.

I have asked that provision is changed to a special school but the local authority are reluctant to agree until we try the new support plan which we will put into place in the next two weeks.

The incident on Tuesday was over an after school detention, DS struggles to organise and plan so losing equipment and PE kit is an issue. I have already replaced the PE kit twice and last time it took me a week to replace it all financially. He had everything except trainers which I bought over the weekend. So his detention was for not having full PE kit for two lessons.

I was torn between wanting DS to do the detention as he lost his kit and between feeling they were sanctioning him for a huge part of his disability (executive functioning) and my lack of finances....he would have had full kit had been able to go straight put and replace the trainers.

Detention consisted of DS and other pupils in detention being asked to watch the rugby for an hour after school on the field. DS says it was cold and it rained (only lightly but yes it did rain). DS did not have his coat with him so says he was cold and he cried and the other boys called him a "crybaby".

He says the other pupils teased him on and off and that he eventually shouted at them saying "FU*K YOU" and that they swore back at him. I asked if any of the teachers heard this but DS says they couldn't as they were on the field.

I am so upset as DS definitely struggles during unstructured and unsupervised times and the school have already identified this. However they STILL put him in that exact situation on Tuesday. I accept the teachers were there but they were too far off to adequately supervise what was going on.

And so DS came out utterly raging, I couldn't drive with him as he was so out of control. I had to wait for him to calm down before I could get him in the car and gradually get out of him what happened.

I am honestly not a patent who believe word for word what their child says. All I want to know is what the school think happened as it might be very different to DS's interpretation of it. Being autistic he can and does get things wrong.

How on earth can I get their version of they won't talk to me though?

He wouldn't go in today and in a fit of stubbornness I haven't even phoned in today.....going to make them ring me.

Any advice....he's 12 and in Y7, we've had loads of problems since he went up. He sailed through Y6 and made huge progress in junior school. I have NEVER known him to refuse to go..

[foreverton]

Having similar issues op so my sympathies..
Ds also 12 in year 7 who is constantly "sick".
He has asc but no statement.

Please keep fighting and unfortunately, school refusal is more common than I thought and there are often underlying reasons.

Good luck:)

[GratefulHead]

Tbh am on the point of looking at other schools, however it's difficult as his secondary school is the smallest one locally (less than 1000 pupils) and I a wary of goi g anywhere larger due to th effect the sensory environment has on DS? Yes it's very hard and I am so stressed by it all.

[foreverton]

Just to add.. the school should obviously be bending over backwards to get to the bottom of what went on and to get your ds back to school.
You also need to question any homework that may have been given whilst ds is absent.
My ds was almost given a detention for not doing hw that was set when he was off and knew nothing about.

[TheFecklessFairy]

I had similar with my son. I got him out of mainstream and most of our problems disappeared. There were some small incidents (as there will always be with an autistic child) but our lives changed significantly for the better. Mainstream was a bloody nightmare, if I'm honest.

[littleducks]

Could you turn up at school? Would ds be ok to stay home alone?

[GratefulHead]

I want my DS out of mainstream too and I will fight until it happens quite honestly. The LA are full of comments about how he is "too academic" etc DS is in all the bottom sets and some children from the local special school do GCSEs so that's rubbish for a start. He isn't "too academic", he needs the right support to maintain what he has and achieve more. I doubt he will get it in this school.

[GratefulHead]

I think I will be doing that today as the school haven't bothered phoning me back. My Mum will look after DS as he cant/wont be left in his own as he panics.

I will go in there and wait until someone sees me,

[Parliamo]

I would try phoning the school again, but this time tell the receptionist that you need to speak to someone, not necessarily from the learning support department, today and insist they give you a name and time. Maybe the senCo is off, or the message that your child is refusing school and it's urgent has been muddled in transition. Maybe you could try the Head of year? They maybe more effective in dealing with an urgent situation.

[zazzie]

Send an email to the school and include in it that you have contacted them x times and that no-one has responded. You can continue to contact them in other ways but that way you have everything in writing which may be useful if you are looking for other provision.

[GratefulHead]

Thank you, good idea regarding emailing the school. Am also going to put in writing what DS said and ask for the school's version of events.

I passionately do NOT want to home ed bit my kneejerk (and therefore wrong) opinion is that if they don't contact me before the end of the day I will deregister him from school and give the LA a headache they don't want or need. They don't like home ed it seems, especially if the child has a Statement. But that's just me being angry and acting in haste so I won't do it.

[redexpat]

I would ring and speak to receptionist as pp said, then send the email that zazzie suggested. Start leaving a paper trail. This might be a one off oversight, or it might be the start of a saga, and the bigger the papertrail the better.

[TheNothingGirl]

Contact the school and ask them for their complaints procedure. It's completely not acceptable that they haven't contacted you. My dd (asd) is only 7 and refuses school already some days and the Senco always makes time to talk to me and clears his diary to meet with us and try to talk to her when we have been able to get her in.

[GratefulHead]

I have left messages via the receptionist and also on the answerphone of the SEN department. My ONLY thought that might mitigate things is the SENCO had a cold on Monday. I am prepared to accept she may have been off sick but as I was pathetically crying on Weds morning on their answer phone.. So would have thought SOMEONE would have phoned me.

[Parliamo]

Poor you. The only (rubbish) excuse could be that no one heard it. Otherwise they're just heartless. There are more options than home ed, but will take a while to sort

[GratefulHead]

Emailed them via their "request info" contact form on the website.
Hopefully this will cause ripples.

[TheAnswerIsYes]

Call and ask to speak to the headMaster/mistress urgently.

[GratefulHead]

Right, in keeping with my "let's keep all lines of communication open" ethos I have not only emailed the school but have also gone in there this afternoon.
Receptionist suspects the SENCO hasn't been getting her messages as she is apparently reliable at returning calls.

Didn't manage to speak to anyone I needed to but did have a long chat with one of the office staff who took all the details of what DS said. I couldn't speak to the PE teacher as he was teaching at that point, it was lunchtime and he had a lunchtime club. He said via a call with the office staff that DS seemed okay at the end of detention and he wasn't aware of any incidents during the detention. He has offered to come and see DS at home on Monday if I get another refusal then.
He is head of Y7 and I have always found him approachable, I suspect that he would not have knowingly put DS in the situation he did if he'd thought it through, so we just need to make plans if DS earns an after school detention (hopefully a rare occurrence), even if the plan is that I go in and sit with DS for an hour.


SENCO was in a meeting and not available either, I have no idea why she hasn't had her messages. Am hoping that one of them will phone me back today now...fingers crossed.

[GratefulHead]

...and nobody phoned me back

[enterthedragon]

In your position I would be putting the onus back on the school to support your son during unstructured times.

I would be asking how he is being supported with regards to executive functioning. As well as pointing out that the loss of the PE kit was due to his diagnosed disability, and the replacing of said PE kit was down to your inability to afford replacement trainers. Assuming that the kit was lost in school has nobody helped him to search for it bearing in mind that it was the second time you have had to replace it, he may just need help with remembering were he went after the PE lesson when he lost the kit.

I would be asking what they were going to do with regards to the bullying he suffered whilst doing the detention.

I would ask what steps they would be taking to ensure this does not happen again.

If there is nothing in your statement regarding executive functioning try to get something added.

Hope you manage to get this sorted quickly.

In a similar situation a few years ago I phoned our schools allocated ed psych and had a very productive conversation with her however I'm not sure whether you can do that now.