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

Adding to my previous posts about the legal framework, I would approach this from a slightly different perspective.

It is important to understand the documentation and guidance that sit behind SEN provision, so that you know what you can reasonably expect from school and what the school is required to do. However, equally important is developing a positive working relationship with the school.

Try to approach this without blame. Ultimately, you and the school want the same thing, the best possible outcomes for your DS. You are on the same side.
The school also has a responsibility to meet your DS’s needs while ensuring the safety and wellbeing of your DS, the other children and staff, and while working within the relevant legislation and guidance.

I would therefore work constructively with school to look at how your DS’s individual plans are supporting him. Are the appropriate plans and strategies in place? Do they accurately reflect his needs? Are they being implemented consistently? What is working well, and what could be improved?

I do think you may have identified something significant in the change of teacher. It is still early in the term and there has been a considerable change for your DS. It may be as straightforward as him missing his previous teacher, their relationship and the routines or approaches he was familiar with. He may simply need some time to adjust.

Equally, it is worth establishing whether his agreed support and strategies are in place and being implemented consistently. Regular, open communication between you and school should help identify what is happening and enable staff to make appropriate adjustments.

If your DS does not settle, the evidence gathered through his individual plans, provision and ongoing monitoring provides an important basis for considering whether further support or adaptations are needed, either within the current school or, if appropriate, through consideration of alternative provision.

The key is to work with school, rather than against them, keeping the focus firmly on understanding what your DS needs and how those needs can best be met.

Sounds like they are considering the safety of the wider school community, teachers & pupils. This doesn't sound unreasonable at all. It sounds like your son needs a different school.

Unfortunately, this is the age that dysregulation often escalates, alongside the child being bigger and stronger. I would be very concerned about the risk of him hurting other children or staff and their safety has to be the first priority. Whilst your son has the right to access education, this needs to be in an environment where everyone can be kept safe.

If you are affected by the issues in this thread, please write to your MP. The Education White Paper is likely to greatly increase these types of issues. The solution is NOT to try to guilt parents into putting up with illegal exclusions. Do something practical before it's too late. Please!

Write to your MP: protect the legal rights of children and young people with SEND https://share.google/LEskzF54ni6lzMaML

You need a review of his plan. His current school clearly are not meeting his needs.

Have you looked at private? As if a private can meet his need then the council can fund it if you push enough and it’s the best fitting space.

A friends son was having hell In year 7/8 and the school wouldn’t or couldn’t meet his needs. It took about eight months but he know goes to a local ish private and is thriving and we have all found out he is a pretty bloody good cook!

This is illegal.

School should have you in for a meeting and come up with reasonable adjustments . If these are not working they need to organise alternative provision and follow legal steps to get him assessed and moved to a different school or alternative provision permanently. There are very clear legal guidelines they much follow and sending him home because they cannot ‘meet need’ is not allowed.
Ask for a meeting with school to discuss what they will be doing to help him going forward.
Do not agree to pick him up early.
If they continue to try this then escalate to governors or the local authority.

From what you've said I think you could be letting your own prejudices about specialist schools form your opinion here. Your child knows he's different, I'm sure the rest of his class don't have their own safe zones, ear defenders etc. Your job as his parent is to make sure he doesn't form the opinion that different = bad, and that goes for school types too.

You could be doing him a massive disservice by not weighing up whether he'd thrive in a specialist school, it may just set him up for exactly the future you're hoping for.

ok thanks everyone, i think i probably havent explained it very well and maybe thats why people are thinking he is just being violent all day which he isnt.

You focus on violence, but I'm thinking about the time & attention your DS's disregulation is taking away from the 30 or so other pupils in that class. Every time he is overwhelmed & can't control himself is time taken away from ALL the other pupils' education.

Other DC need to be safe, but they also should be able to be educated without this sort of disruption. You don't know how upsetting - even disregulating - it will be for other DC in your DS's class. Teachers and the school have to think about all pupils, not just yor DS.

You say you're spending up to £2000 per moth extra - would that money be better spent on a private school able to educate your DS? £24,000 would go a long way towards paying for a specialist school, where your DS could be calmer, happier & receive an education he can cope with?

Exactly, what are schools supposed to do? They are no resources and not enough staff. People in the media keep complaining about schools not meeting the needs of their children but how can they when run on a shoestring?

Sounds like the new teacher needs some specific training from the SENCo about the fact that Autistic children are not “just naughty” and being strict and telling them to “just behave” is not a suitable, or indeed legal, strategy.

It can't be a coincidence that this has started since he got a new teacher. It isn't necessarily the new teachers fault, but their style of teaching, combined with a change, is likely to be the problem. Can he move to another class with a more empathetic teacher?

OP, it's definitely necessary to call an emergency annual review, not just to deal with the current situation but because of the imminence of secondary school. It may seem a way off but I started thinking about it for my daughter around that age and it wasn't a minute too soon.

Is DH contributing to the heavy paperwork and research burden? Has he made a long list of suitable alternatives and looked into practicalities such as travel, qualifications offered etc? I find a lot of dads in these situations are keen to throw out suggestions while actually having little idea of the immense amount of work any change requires.

Does DS have any insight into what's changed?

No of course not. No body wants to see any children hurt.

The OP asked for advice from the perspective of her child. That is what I gave (as did the other poster who pointed out with evidence that what the school is doing is illegal).

To jump to conclusions about wanting to see children hurt is an absolute nonsense.

Based on my experience, they will eventually permanently exclude him and he will be left with no school or alternative provision for many months or years until a place at a special school can be found. Start the process of finding one now because you won't get one without a fight.

You need to call an emergency review of the EHCP. This is exactly what happened with my daughter in primary school and we made it very clear that we wanted it recorded as an exclusion (because it is) and that we would then be talking to our local authority about her access to education. The school have clearly said they can meet need as it is the setting named in his EHCP, but this is very obviously not the reality.
Please don't leave him there, he isn't wanted and it will be affecting him in so many ways.

For what it's worth, my daughter struggled like this all through primary school. However we decided to give mainstream secondary a try, and she has blown everyone away with the change in her. She's not had a single issue in two years.

Primary schools often don't have the expertise needed for children like ours. My daughter was closely traumatised by primary school, but now loves school.

But why hasn't he got an EHCP? Has school applied? Do the parents know they can apply themselves/appeal a refuse to assess?

i don’t think she is assuming that.

But so many posters have told her her ds doesn’t belong to mainstream so she is answering that.

Sadly a chair thrown and table flipped is scary/noisy and leaves you on eggshells.
I suspect you’re more accustomed to your son’s outbursts and are somewhat desensitized as to how upsetting this can be to others.
He is only 9, still young in many ways. IF noise and class size are both big triggers and you’re spending 2K a month on therapies, would the 2K be better spent on private ed?

Have you thought about a SEN school if a regular school isn't working?

@Jacobator you have had a lot of replies from people who don't know very much about how the SEN system works, but also a lot who clearly know their stuff.

You said "The school have definitely used words like “not in a position to safely accommodate him” rather than exclusion. I have all the emails so i can check exactly what they have said." This is what I would expect an illegal exclusion to look like - a de facto exclusion without using the word - so don't get hung up on the language they used.

Call an AR immediately and take it from there. There's scope for him to get extra support and sometimes these crises are a route to better provision, whether that is a different school or not. It can be difficult to maintain the relationship with the school if they see you as being difficult so instead of saying they can't be bothered, say you are following all the steps you've researched to secure the funding and provision he needs.

Do you know what specialist provision there is in a reasonable distance from your home?

Its just your husband might be right that pursuing specialist is the way forward, but he might also not be aware of the actual options that exist or the maasive hurdles to get there and you son still needs help in the interim.

My son did very well in special school. It was much better set up for him but the path to it was not easy.

You seem to be looking at this in a totally binary way.

If this school isn’t right for DS, why are you assuming a Special School is the only option?

Another mainstream school might be a better match for him, or some form of home schooling perhaps?

The school is very likely acting unlawfully in two distinct areas: illegal exclusions and a failure to deliver statutory SEN provision.

It is completely understandable that you do not want to see the school as "evil" and that you care about the safety of other children. However, schools are bound by strict legal frameworks. Wanting to protect everyone does not give a school permission to bypass the law.

"we can't safely accommodate him today" or "it's best he comes home to calm down" are classic examples of informal and unlawful exclusion.

Every time they send him home informally:- It does not show up on official statutory attendance records, hiding the true extent of his breakdown at school.
It denies you your legal right to appeal or submit written representations to the Governing Body. It deprives your son of his legal right to education.

Throwing a chair or pushing a table when completely overwhelmed is a manifestation of his distress/disability, not calculated malice. Expecting a 9-year-old in a state of sensory overload to "learn he can't behave like this" via strict reprimands rather than providing sensory breaks and de-escalation fails to make reasonable adjustments.

There is a vast difference between placing a child in a mainstream classroom and actually including them. What your son is currently experiencing is integration, not inclusion.

Integration (What is happening now): Placing a child with additional needs into a standard mainstream environment and expecting them to adapt, conform, and cope with the exact same demands as neurotypical peers with the threat of strict discipline or being sent home if they cannot.

True Inclusion (What the law requires): Adapting the environment, teaching methods, and sensory conditions so that the child can access education safely and effectively.

Telling a 9-year-old in sensory overload that he "needs to learn he can't behave like this" misplaces the responsibility. Under the Equality Act 2010 and the SEND Code of Practice, inclusion requires the school to adapt to the child’s disability, not demand that the child mask or suppress their disability until they explode. True inclusion would mean:

Recognising his distress signals before a meltdown occurs.

Allowing him to leave a noisy classroom to go to a designated quiet area without it being treated as a disciplinary failure.

Training new staff on his specific profile rather than applying a blanket "strict" behavioral approach.

Year 5 is historically the point where mainstream primary schools drastically escalate academic pressure, pace, and formal classroom management in preparation for Year 6 Key Stage 2 SATs.

Environmental Shift: Year 5 classrooms often become much more rigid, noisy, and focused on formal table-work, past papers, and silent working time. Teachers feel immense pressure from school management to hit specific attainment targets.

Reduced Tolerance for Disruption: Because of the impending pressure of Year 6 SATs, tolerance for anything that interrupts the structured flow of the lesson drops significantly. This explains why his new teacher may be taking a strict "zero tolerance" stance.

Off-Rolling / Exclusion Push: It is a well-recognised pattern in the state education system that SEN pupils facing high levels of anxiety or dysregulation often see an increase in suspensions or informal "off-rolling" during Year 5. Schools often push for a move to a special school before Year 6 so the pupil's scores do not impact their published SATs performance data, or simply because they feel they lack the resources to support them through the SATs preparation period.

The school are pulling a fast one on you and your son. There's a word for them but I'd have to see you next tuesday to tell you it.