She had no choices. You don't get choices when you need specialist education. You get the setting that has a space and says they can meet need.
Secondary School - I knew from the very first taster session that they'd got it wrong. She was in an LD primary school. LD schools take any children with Profound and Multiple Learning Disability, through Severe Learning Disability, to Moderate Learning Disability, Profound Autism (needing objects of reference to communicate), medically complex children.
DD1's class was described as a 'bubble' of ability. The year below and the year above had more severe needs and her year were generally slightly more able.
Her needs were well met. She had swimming every week, which acted as both physio and OT. They had an in house OT programme so staff could work through graded exercises and consult with OT if they got stuck. They had SaLT based on site, so they were given SaLT programmes that were woven into the curriculum and if they needed support they'd just check in with the SaLT, who would modify the programme. They had a sensory room which was used several times per week. They had large outdoor space so they could do regulation activities as part of their daily lessons.
She was always meant to go to secondary school A, which was also an LD school. Even in year 1 the staff were saying 'and when she goes to school A....'. Annual review came around in year 5 and we wrote school A on our parental preference slip. Then the final EHCP came and school B was named.
We phoned the LA and spoke to a very brusque woman who said that they had needed 3 pupils to go to school B because school A was full, and school A was '0.5 a mile closer, isn't it?' We tried to have an open mind and I didn't know as much about SEN legislation then as I do now. I didn't appeal. That's on me. School B was a 'moderate learning disability' school.
We went to the taster day and they had split the children into their proposed sets. I sat beside DD1 as a teacher performed a science experiment and wanted the children to write down what he was doing. All these children were writing away, and I was saying "DD1, we're writing 'alker seltzer', we need an 'a'. Do you remember how we draw an 'a'? Now we need an 'l'....'
She started and it was clear that they expected more than she could deliver. They wanted page long stories in a 45 minutes lesson. She had previously written 4 lines on a white board. The children were much more sophisticated than her. She got manipulated and was drowning. She would climb over the 6ft fence to get out of the playground in distress, but then wait on the other side because she didn't know what to do next.
There was no swimming, no OT, no physio, no SaLT. She was expected to move from classroom to classroom. It was mainstream-lite.
In COVID we had shut down. She wasn't allowed to go to school because she didn't get free school meals. Then, when they returned to school, the school adopted a strict bubbling approach and staff wore scrubs and visors, despite Government guidance saying not to. DD1 got the sense that school was a dangerous place. She had developed an eating disorder by this point, but she was seen by paeds on the same day as CAMHS called in August 2020. They were both relieved that the other was involved, so both discharged, leaving me with a dietician who shrugged and said 'I can't make her eat'. Finally, in January 202, I phoned the GP, described her physical state and said 'is that ok?' We were sent to hospital and admitted.
When she returned to school after a few months, the school said that they realised they were the wrong place for her, but that it was too late, so we needed to limp her through until the end of year 11. Again, I should have contacted the LA, but I believed them.
College 1 - I had a meeting with them and said that DD1 was an absconder, I was concerned that they were on a main road, and they must not give her an exit pass. I was assured they knew what they were doing. Long story short, they couldn't meet her needs, she ran away, they excluded her for doing so.
College 2 turned out to be a secure portacabin on the main site. One room, 13 kids, 7 adults. No break out space except a corridor. She got so distressed that they excluded her.
College 3 had better facilities but they expected too much of her and wouldn't listen to her psychologist who was telling them that they had misunderstood her capabilities. So the placement ended.
It isn't their fault. None of the placements have had the expertise to deal with DD1's complex presentation. She has a really spiky profile and she is very verbose, which hides her lack of understanding and overwhelm. She has very poor executive functioning skills, a poor sense of danger, very poor impulse control and acts 'in the moment'. You can never quite predict how she will respond to anything.
She has been failed because each setting took their money and didn't hold their hands up and say to the LA 'we're not getting this right' until they hit crisis point. Every time I would say 'this is going wrong' and they'd tell me it was fine.
You can comfort yourself with the rhetoric of 'choice', but there is very little.