ds has refused his first 2 days of year 7

He's ASD. And you want OP to "wallop" him? Jesus Christ. I wish I knew where you lived, because I'd be calling social services with severe worries for your children. Do you abuse them?

Do you have any support from social services OP?

I'm 2 years into the situation you describe OP and sadly it's a long road. I'm counting the years left at secondary school. The stress it has caused all of us is immense. The system is broken and not built for our ND kids. I've got a fight this year for an EHCP which is in progress. You can do a parental one if school won't do it for you. Also remember when your boy is not going to school it's can't not won't and forcing him in just adds to the trauma of the whole thing. There are some good groups on FB such as Not Fine in School and The Unworn School Shoes where you will get sympathetic advice from people in the same situation. Nobody there will tell you to just drag him to school. Sending you a hug 🫂

You are going to need to be quite realistic here. He has refused two days of school and you are talking about when he’s more confident he might be able to get the bus on his own. That might happen in the future but right now that is a very very long way off.

you need to prioritise your yr 7 right now. You need to on top of him and the school every day. You will need to make arrangements for dad/friend to take younger child to school with the baby and you take yr 7 (or vice versa… especially if dad drives). You need to be in touch with the school senco, attendance officer as much as possible. Ehcps are taking an extraordinary amount of time at the moment so building a good relationship with the sendco is vital here.

He/the school can have a clear plan without an EHCP
Yes it would be a good idea to start the process but that will take far longer than anyone wants the DC to be out of school.

Speak to HOY/Sendco, I have known a Y7 child with MH issues spend some time back at their previous Primary school, along with short periods at high school, to ease the transition but no adjustments can be made before the conversation happens.

I’m sorry OP this is horrifically difficult in many ways. Hard enough if your DS was your sole focus. trying to manage him bolting with other kids yesterday must have been terrifying.

while not great home again is probably the safest thing. If he was that deregulated he wouldn’t have been likely able to go in when you’d got there.
you need a plan for phased entry with send team. Going in a little later or earlier. They will be experienced in this.

honestly as parent of similar child I get the pain her and I’d come and look after your baby and 5yo if I could so you can give the DS full attention and support.

Wishing you luck. And ignore the idiots on here being nasty.

She can't exactly put them back in can she?
What use is your comment.

I'm glad you know me and my children... NOT.

He’s autistic

You, presumably from that response, have absolutely no idea what it is to parent a child with neurodiversity.

OP, ignore this ridiculous post. Wait and speak with the deputy head. They will generally talk this through with you and offer some kind of guidance. You have not failed. You put your child's needs first. Good luck !

Hi OP, I appreciate this all sounds tough but I do think you need to find a way to prioritise your 11 yr old for the next few days. At the moment it is too easy for him to refuse school - I appreciate his feelings may be that that is what he wants to do but you do need to do everything you can to actually get him to the school whereas it doesn't seem you have done this so far? The first day you said you needed to looks after your 5 yr old and baby and the second day you said you left your 11 yr old to go with his older sibling. Is the father or family of your baby not around? Can you ask a neighbour or friend to take your 5yr old (thinking state primaries are usually only a walk away)? It sounds like you are assuming the 11 yr old will struggle because of his diagnosis but you haven't actually got him to the school gate yet. As others mentioned, did he had a discussion with SENCO on transition? My ASD DC has had bumps in the road at secondary but we have had SENCO support (without an EHCP) and they are managing OK now two years later

She didn’t say if it was a regular bus or just a school bus, if the 2nd that wouldn’t have been an option and nor would going on the bus with him

Oh dear. If you have children, I feel very sorry for them and hope they can recover from your parenting when they are independent of you. What an ignorant comment.

Year 6 isn't relevant anymore. Mine had 100% attendance in primary school despite me flagging up endless problems and requests for CAMHS. I was always dismissed / put on waiting lists.

The shit really hits the fan in secondary school. Would probably be cheaper in the long run to listen to parents and sort an EHCP out in primary.

Suggesting to someone to use physical violence against a child is not a good look.
I am sorry that you feel that that would have happened to you.

OP said that she had two younger children to manage at the same time. That sounds difficult. I am not sure what hitting the child would have achieved.

OP has he had any transition days to get to know staff and school.

I don't know if you'd noticed, but these days rather a lot of us don't think hitting children is OK.

I'm going to assume you've never had a school refusing child with ASD or an 11yr old boy who's physically bigger than you. Dragging them isn't really an option.
This mum is clearly trying her best and asking for support, your post is really unhelpful and actually insulting!

Can their dad help? You need one person to get the 5 y old to school and another to ensure the older two get on the bus.

How was his experience at the school on Moving Up Day at the end of Y6?

Is his father seriously not helping with this? Why?

@dinosaursroars I'm sorry the primary school haven't been helpful and in fact have been obstructive. Not what you or your DS needs.

Getting a bus for the first time on the first day of secondary school was always going to be a bit ambitious. That clearly isn't going to work for now, so you definitely need a different approach. Keep trying to get onto the SENCO at the secondary school and get a meeting to discuss a plan. Eg. arriving later, slow transition, half days, etc etc until your DS is able to get to school daily.

Did you practice the route to school over the Summer, we did it every day until confidence was gained doing it alone. It was a hell of a lot of change to dump on one kid yesterday if not. We racticec getting up putting uniform on getting to the bus stop etc in bite sized pieces then doing it in reverse. You can t
just chuck them in at the deep end.

Just looked up the woman who was the educational welfare officer dealing with DD2 for a couple of years who was from a private company engaged by the school for the same.

Her background is cabin crew, customer service and admin. No mental health, SEN or welfare training whatsoever, no experience with children or teenagers and no education experience. Says a lot really. All she did was set up meetings and send letters threatening fines and prosecution.

Work on getting him there even if it’s late, I think you’ll need to go with him all the way in. The bus on his own/with brother is too much to expect

having an EHCP might make it harder to withdraw them from school

At the moment, if in mainstream, a parent can deregister a DC with an EHCP just like they would for a DC without an EHCP. You don’t need consent.