should a child be allowed an indulgent half hour ripping a copy in school?

[re8x]

Sorry, first post, but I need to vent, I know this is a UK based site and I live in Ireland, but this has always been my first port of call for third party advice.
This may seem a trivial matter, but it has surfaced under different guises over the current school year.
OK, a bit of background, my son has been diagnosed with high functioning Autism and ADHD, and is mainstreamed, with a half share of a special needs assistant in class. He also has an educational plan with contributions from an occupational therapist and an educational psychologist with detailed outlines of where his difficulties lie and how to address them. Today I got a note saying that my son had spent half an hour tearing his copy up when he should have been doing his English writing. Honestly, I thought he had some sort of hissy fit and decided to tear up his copy in protest. But, no, he didn't understand the exercise and was afraid to ask the teacher for help in case he got in trouble,so he got bored and started slowly ripping his copy without the teacher or his SNA noticing for half an hour, but yet the wording indicated it was his fault. It is stated in his educational plan that he need assistance with instruction and this is one reason he has access to an SNA. I understand they are under pressure, but this is not the first time this has happened. He has problems with organisational skills, so he needs help with bringing home the correct books , or bringing his books to another class. He has gotten lines and detention in the past for forgetting these, even though it is stated in his plan that his SNA should assist him with this. So how do I address these issues in a diplomatic manner, I have seen some casualties of this process in the past, so it has to be subtle.

Many thanks for any responses.

[ThatVikRinA22]

snap.
my son has AS, dyspraxia and dyslexia. i could have written that post 6 year ago. he is 22 now. it gets better. promise.

i just spent my entire life trying to explain him. letters, i wrote lots of letters.
i also managed in the end to get school to agree to the use of a home - school communication book - this enabled his TA to tell me anything of note and for me to do the same without having to constantly be ringing or coming into school.

does your lad have home/school communication book? if not suggest it. someone has to have responsibility for reading it daily though, and commenting where needs be.

does his TA understand his condition? are they willing to be educated?

[confuddledDOTcom]

I think there comes a point where you can't be diplomatic. We're trained into diplomacy, aren't we? But sometimes what we really need to say gets missed because of it and you just need to say "Look, this is the situation and you did this"

We're right at the start of all this with my 5 year old, it seems like one fight after another. They've just agreed she needs to be in a specialist school but they're still assessing her, she has someone there daily to watch her, different specialties. The HT decided a few weeks ago she should be made to change her own nappies because she needs to learn that it's not on. Fortunately next day the inco team said no she has a problem and she can't be expected to do it herself - her class teacher was relieved. She hasn't stopped crying about school since, she feels she was abandoned.

Anyway, not trying to hijack, just trying to show some sympathy. Definitely get blunt "Well what did you expect? You don't tell him what to do and you didn't even check on him for half an hour. HALF AN HOUR??? What do we bother doing these assessments for? You know his needs, don't put the blame on the poor boy if you're not doing your job."