Soooo angry with the LEA!!

[sarah573]

Sorry this is going to be long!

DS is is 10 with AS. He has had 2 absolutely crap years at school, which resulted in him leaving his mainstream school in April/May last school year. He is now having home tution.

Since he's been at home he's been a different child. He still has his AS related problems but is much calmer and happier.

It was a big deal for him settling in with his new tutor and pupil support worker, plenty of tears and tantrums (and that was just me lol), but he's now settled, he's working really hard, his grades are well above his age, and while I accept home tution isn't ideal, its working far better than him than school was.

When he was intially put on home tution it was presented as a temporary stop gap measure until he could be intergrated back into a new mainstream school, or a specialist place could be found. However having discussed things with his pshycologist from CHAMS and his tutor, we all agreed that it would be beneficial to DS to keep him on home tuition for this school year (he's in year 6), they could work with him while he was calm and build him up towards going into secondary school next year.

This was about July time and I've heard nothing more since.

Today I had an out of the blue phone call from the prat man from the LEA, wanting to find out 'where we were at' with finding DS a new school. Hs said that there was no specialist ASD place for DS, and that he felt it important to get DS back into school asap.

I presented him with a long list of reasons why DS shouldn't go back to school this year, the main reasons being the detriment to his wellbeing of having to try and settle into a new environment (a HUGE big deal for him), and the health and safety issues for him and the others around him (he can be very violent especially when in a stressful situation i.e. starting a new school). All this for 2 terms when we will have to start again when its time for secondary.

He is insistent that DS must go back to school as keeping a child on home tution for a whole year isn't an option (they provide 2 hours with a tutor and 2 hours with a pupil support worker btw). I have visited the only other school locally and didn't think it was suitable.

He suggested that if this wasn't what I wanted I could always withdraw DS from school!!!!!

I am just so sad that something we have worked so hard to make work, and after all is rubbish provision for a child, but that we are accepting as better than nothing, is going to be taken away, and they are going to try and force me to send DS somewhere that I know will cause him mental and possibly physical harm.

DS has a statement with 10 hours btw.

Sorry for ranting!

[needmorecoffee]

Home education. I took ds1 with AS out of school at 6 cos 10 years ago aspergers was barely recognised. He thrived at home as had your lad obviously.

[sarah573]

I don't want to home ed him.

[pushkar]

keep fighting, go through his iep and find a school who will go though it and meet his needs
ask them to fill in what they will meet for each need. there is a school out there... meanwhile you still need a life,, keep search engine for schools and visiting with your son ..if he likes it you know its a winner.
don't GIve in TO LEA PRESSURE! good luck

[sarah573]

There is only one other school I can get him to (I have 2 other DCs at his old school who I don't want to uproot), and I don't drive so my options are limited. The other school is a very good school (outstanding ofstead), but is very big with 4 classes in each year group and 31 children per class. It appears to be bursting at the seams, and is certinally not the calm relaxed environment DS needs. When I visited the HT took great pains to tell me how DS would be the 32nd child in the class, that they did not allocate a TA to the class and therefore the teacher was often unsupported, and that there was no quiet space available for DS to withdraw to if he needed to. The whole attitute was very negative.

[jenk1]

sarah,DS received home tuition for 18 months so what the man said from the LEA is rubbish,they DONT like it cos it costs them money.

Can you get the psych from CAMHS to do a letter recommending he stays on home tuition,thats what DS,s psych did and we also had a private psych involved who recommended that he stay on home tuition as well.

might be time to start looking at out of area schools now,this is what we had to do for DS,we took the LEA to tribunal and we got DS into an independent special school,it took 2 years from start to finish.

keep posting if you need any more advice.

HTH

[needmorecoffee]

why don't you want to HE him? It saved my sons life.

[Kazann]

Hi Sarah so sorry to hear you are not having a good time at the moment i have had a crap day to but don't feel like sharing it at the moment, as i would end up writing an essay, but short version is we have no choice other than to change Our DDs school when she has only been there one term.

If you want to e mail me or meet up for a chat let me know I have to come of now as my son needs to get on computer to look at jobs i will try and come back on later nd also check e mails if you feel like sending one.

Take Care, thinking of you

[sarah573]

Karen, I'm having email problems - have just tried to email you but not sure if it went through
Sarah x

[Kazann]

How frustrating your e mail not working, i have checked and no it hasent come through. I have just come back on here after doing a mountain of ironing.

Really sounds like you could do with a good old chat and get everything of your chest, it is all so hard isnt it so many decisions to make and lots of pressure to go down a path you clearly don't want to go down.

I can understand why you dom't want to home educate I don't think i would want to either for some people it works really well but it is not the right choice for everyone. If you don't want your DS to go back to school till next year then put your foot down, you sound like you have some backing fom CHAMS and DS tutor i am sure there must be a way round this. I have alot of people on my DDs case at the moment you will not believe the amount of people that have got involved in a short space of time i will see if i can find anything out for you and get back as we are in the same area.

Have you had any dealings with PASN as they are really helpful with situations like this and have been great support for myself and my DD will try and get back to you tomorrow evening if i find anything out, of to bed now speak soon.

[sarah573]

Thanks Karen email working now have re-sent the email to you.

NMC - I have considered home ed since thingss started going pear shaped at school. I've looked into it, spoken to people on forums about it, and dabbled with it over the last few months while DS has been off school - unfortunately (as I agree it would probably be best for DS), I don't think it's the right choice for us at the moment.

I take my hat off to you for sucessfully home edding your DS but it isn't for everyone.