To say my DS cant keep missing school because the school “cant cope”??

Absolutely.

But such is our system that it's really important to start thinking about secondary at age 9.

I also don't think the government are making that distinction sufficiently.

I work in a PRU and we aren't punitive in that sense. We have clear expectations but we also have strategies in place to support students achieve them. We have some children who come back to us, usually younger ones who return to their original school. (We run from 4-16)
School needs to come up with a plan and show they have tried different things before they can declare they cannot meet need.
Ask about changing teacher, put it forward as a fresh start. As a PRU we've had some teachers who come in (usually they are substitutes) who are too combative with the students, and it doesn't work, the children will get their backs up and there is no trust or bond. That is very hard to get back for a lot of students once it is gone.
Another option school might suggest is a reduced timetable so he isn't having to face the whole day.
Ask for the EHCP to.be reviewed, if their statement is usually we don't have the staff, then does he require a 1:1.
Honestly, reading your post and a few of the comments, it seems to me as though your son needs someone he can trust in the classroom, who can read him and understand him, sense when it is getting too much and remove him from the situation, even if that is for an intervention (regulate behaviour or pre/reteach both options)
I have worked in mainstreams where people are not comfortable being involved in extreme behaviours, it is not an aspect of my job I enjoy but I have had to physically restrain many students in order to keep them, other children, staff, the school safe. Not everyone can do that and once your child has reached the point of throwing tables, if they aren't walking out when asked with a countdown, he needs to be escorted from the room but you need people qualified and confident to do this 🤷‍♀️

I should have qualified, my experience and background is early years and primary (schools, headship, LA senior staff).

The OP is also discussing a primary age child, hence the relevance of my knowledge and experience.

No, just years of professional knowledge and experience in education.(and the bold statement was copied and quoted, written by another poster.)

"DH says im refusing to accept that he needs specialist help and maybe i am. I just feel like once we go down that road thats it, he gets labelled and everyone gives up trying to make mainstream work".

That's not how it works. And "labelling" isn't a bad thing. Everything has a label, absolutely everything (try ordering a takeaway without using a "label"), it's how we know what is what and what needs what.

My eldest grandson was in mainstream school until the age of 9. There was talk of him moving to a SEN school but I hated that idea, and he was suspended many, many times during those 4 years of school, until he was eventually permanently excluded. He then did move to a SEN school and it was the best thing he's ever done! His behaviour couldn't be managed in mainstream school. They didn't have the staff, nor the knowledge, required to do what was needed for him. He wasn't formally diagnosed with anything at that time, though a couple of years later he was diagnosed autistic and, then later, ADHD. From the moment he entered SEN school he was like a different child. The classes were smaller, the staff knew how to deal with his behaviour without making it worse, and he could escape to the sensory room when he started to feel overwhelmed. His behaviour improved dramatically (he was taught how to handle his emotions in a healthy manner, something mainstream school doesn't even try), his meltdowns dwindled and his grades started climbing. At his own request he transferred back into mainstream school when he was 14, because he felt he had grown, and could handle it then. He turns 16 in a few months and is in his GSCE year now, and he's making plans for college. He's a totally different child to the one he was and he wouldn't be the child he is now without the SEN school. The chances are, he would have just gone from one school to the next, awaiting each new exclusion. He wasn't "labelled" as anything just because he attended a SEN school, the only difference was, he was able to access the full help he needed. He too had a slightly older sibling at the same school, and moving schools meant leaving his sibling, but they both thrived. You're trying to do what we did for far too many years, you're trying to squeeze a round peg into a square hole and it doesn't work for either peg, nor hole! Mainstream school isn't the be all and end all...

Hey Jacobator, I feel your pain 100%

We have been in the same position, and yes whilst our son was having heightened moments, often the school and nursery helped to push his heightenedness......instead of helping him calm down, they put him in confined spaces, which made him worse not better and certainly not calmed. I would often have to go and calm him down or pick him up. If it was deemed that he would need to come home (bearing in mind he was only allowed to attend on a shortened timetable varied from 1-3 hours a day) I would calm him down, but I would insist he would return to class for a small while, as I did not want him to associate that behaviour would result in him coming home. So I would end up waiting 10-15 minutes, chat to the support team or fill in forms regarding the incidents that had occured. Then he would come out of class, calmly, with his things like it was a normal pick up.
The school were great however, but they did say they could not meet his need. We worked together, got the local authority, any specialists, additional support people and had meetings. We were given the option of alternate provisions that actually work with him and us, the desired outcome was that they could help transiton him back into mainstream but with a much better understanding, of how he copes or his triggers. These are usually for 12 weeks, our son did come on leaps and bounds whilst he was there. The school visited each week, they learnt lots about each other and how to deal with him. He loved the new provision, it gave him coping mechanisms. Sadly he could not transition back into the mainstream classroom, as he just did not cope, too many children, too many demands and other kids used to purposely try to antagonise him, which would then result in him being heightened and getting taken out of class. We were then offered a placement on a permanent basis to a provision that could support him better. He grew massively, he was happier and he really has come on leaps and bounds, we have less incidents and he is growing up to recognise his feelings better and is able to cope better. He is better in a SEMH provision, rather than a SEN provision, they do things similarly but definitely more focused on the social emotional mental health which is what our son needed.

If you can work with the school, LA and therapists etc, it will really help when you get a review on his EHCP, our little boy was coming home and honestly was quite depressed, he is unrecognisable now, its taken a lot of work and frustration, tears and tantrums from me in the main, but worth it to see him have friends, fun, party invites etc.

I didn't mean to say it was a good idea. Just that treating the Feb deadline as absolute "oh no we ignored your emails too long, now we can't put her in for it this year" that can also be another lie.

If home invigilation is required, leaving it to anywhere near the deadline wouldn’t be a good idea. Those exam centres who can offer home invigilation have limited availability for it. Many book up well in advance. I know some who are already booked full for home invigilation for the summer 27 series. For those DC the LA is responsible for organising exams for, this is obviously their problem to sort, but it still isn’t a good idea as it adds stress and work to chase.

I don't know, sorry.

Just a tad!

So the local authority at mediation decided to continue with not letting my son be assessed for an EHCP despite having an autism diagnosis, non verbal, not potty trained, reduced timetable. We now go to tribunal. Think how much money is being wasted on the LA doing this when if they just observed the child it would be so obvious my child needs a lot of help. Also without an EHCP my child wouldn't get a place in an SEN school. Maybe start campaigning to stop all these reforms which will make this even harder to appeal if you are really that bothered about kids like mine being in a classroom with your kids.

There will be children in every county who can't attend a school or college to take exams. The LA may not admit this to you because home invigilation is expensive. It's absolutely possible but it can be hard to get LA to pay for it.

Also note that the deadline for being entered for GCSEs is surprisingly late. I think it's sometimes in April. It gets more expensive the later you do it though and exam centres may close their application window before the exam board does. It's certainly easier and cheaper if you can get it sorted by the standard entry date which is mid Feb I think.

What about those with EOTAS/EOTIS/C for whom going to a college as an exam centre isn’t appropriate for?

In my LA you go to the local college to sit gcses

As you said earlier, too often it is left to parents to arrange, but it is the LA’s responsibility. You could always put it back on them to sort by going down the pre-action letter route.

Thank you. We're in quite a rural county so distance can be an issue for home exams but that would be the ideal.

There's a lot of 'it would be nice' in there though. Currently we don't have enough specialist places. That isn't going to change with the send reforms and if the gov get their way there won't be eotas packages anymore either so what will happen to those children? They may end up with no education at all which will have huge effects on the economy and society further down the line or they'll end up forced into specialist. The kids who need specialist won't get it because there's now even less spaces, they will end up in the hubs and the children who need the hubs then won't get a space and will continue in mainstream.

i do agree private run schools are an issue, as are private run care homes for looked after children. LA's are spending way too much money on these (because they have no choice) and are being profiteered from. It should be stopped, but until we invest the funding to ensure there are enough LA spaces for all the children who need them, they have to go somewhere. They've got themselves in a right mess.

I also dislike how academies are run for profit and think all schools should be brought back under LAs or be run on a CIC basis if they want to keep academy trusts. No one should be profiting from children's education.

The LA can’t force a school not under their control to accept external candidates. However, the LA can pay them a handsome sum to do so, which is attractive to schools who wouldn’t otherwise accept external candidates at their exam centre.

I have 2 DSs with EOTAS/EOTIS who have home invigilation. The LA paid a very large sum to an exam centre to do that.

Some in my LA sit exams via exam centres in person, some sit then via exam centres but via home invigilation. If the out of county exam centre near you isn’t too far, home invigilation can be possible. Needs booking early though because demand is high. It doesn’t work for my DC and it is only possible for some exams/boards and only if certain EAA aren’t needed, but there is also online remote invigilation for some subjects/boards.

I don’t need to re-read what you wrote. You said “It is always the class teacher who is left to deal with the shit show. Not the LA, the school or the parents.” Parents are left to deal with.

We also need more money to fund clinical research into why there are higher needs (and not just pretend it is more being diagnosed).
Older DD has suffered from iron deficiency for a number of years which may or may not be linked to Long Covid and presents similarly. She has been told in no uncertain terms by certain professors that she is to make sure she is not anaemic before planning a pregnancy because it may well be linked to higher rates of ASD. I had never heard that one before! It is always about folic acid. It is theoretically possible that all women should have blood tests before planning a pregnancy and that the NHS should be managing proactively the health of women hoping to conceive. But usual maternal health/women’s health/largely female professions like primary teaching are at the bottom of the priority pile.

As a parent of send children I wish schools would take a stand too. We'd be much better off working together to improve things.

You should probably re-read what I wrote before jumping on that high-horse 🙄

Nicely melodramatic.

No, I think that teachers should refuse to do a job for which they are not given the resources. Not gonna happen though, so you don't need to worry.

Oh I know they're fobbing me off and it can absolutely be done but thank you. Problem seems to be they haven't done anything about making sure there's somewhere YP can go to sit the exams in our county. They expect people to travel to an exam centre in the next county, which is ridiculous and frankly impossible for some send YP to cope with. As usual parents are left doing all the leg work to figure things out, or risk things dragging on forever. It seems schools in our county won't accept external candidates, can LAs make them if they're not actually named in section I? What happens in your area?

You think teachers should strike to stop disabled children accessing a public service?