Have we got a starting Secondary School Support thread?

Penguins that really is not good enough! They should have informed you much sooner and not left his sister worrying :(

DH is going to ring about the nosebleed in the morning and ask if there's any possibility he could re-try the assessment. We're looking at maybe doing some extra maths tuition as well to get him up to speed by the next assessment if there is a genuine issue, but going by this assessment, he has apparently gone down more than a full level since the end of Primary, which isn't really a ringing endorsement of the school :( I'm just so fed up of it all - it was our fourth-choice school out of the five we had to apply for but we had no chance of getting into any of the others because of catchment/oversubscription and the fact that he has no older siblings already there. He desperately wanted to go there to stay with all his friends but I'm so worried about it. Need to win the lottery so we can move.

Thanks Witchend Hope your DS gets happier at school. I think DD was worried, she pretends she doesn't care but loves him a lot, if gets a bit jealous - she phoned me as soon as school was over to ask if he had been found and said they told her he was lost at 10.45am and lots of senior staff were looking for him. He told me he left lesson before 10am, they phoned us at 11.30am, no mention of him being missing. I think its bad they didn't call as he was outside and could have come home by himself. Don't think that idea has occured to him yet but the idea to run outside so you get sent home definitely has.

Sorry to hear about your DS Spider I would bet they didn't take nose bleed into account either and I would be complaining.

Oh no both of you!

Losing him for an hour is bad, Penguin Did they not contact you in case he'd gone home? I think asking his sister and not telling you is awful. Ds' sisters would have been terribly worried about him. Do you think he might have worked out that running out of school gets him sent home? I can see my ds clocking that.

Spider I bet they haven't taken the nosebleed into consideration. Probably the people sorting it have nothing to do with the people who were with him.
I don't think saying he might go up at Christmas is much help. He'll then have to go back to old classes and old teachers from this half term. That's going to make him feel so unsettled.
Nor is it fair to change things on one subject. I was top of the year in maths, but really struggled with English, so either I'd have been bored stiff in maths or totally out of my depth in English.

My ds came home once more proclaiming he'd been given the most useless and stupid homework ever. He did manage almost a smile when I pointed out he's said that nearly every day for the last scale. he tells me this is perfectly possible as they're getting worse each time.
I've let him go out with friends for an hour in the hope it cheers him up. He's still very low about school.

I am not a happy bunny. DS has come home today absolutely heartbroken because they've had a reshuffle of the sets and he's been moved down to Set 2 for all his subjects. This is on the basis of his mark in a maths assessment they did a couple of weeks ago, which he didn't finish because he had a nosebleed for the last 20 minutes of the 50-minute assessment - he was out of the classroom finding tissues and cleaning himself up, and then had to work while pinching his nose, changing tissues etc. We need to ring the school tomorrow to find out whether this has actually been taken into account, because he has absolutely flown through all his work in all his other subjects, getting 'above expectations' for homework and classwork, and he got a 5 upper for his English assessment. He's been moved away from most of his friends and is going back over work that he did and found easy weeks ago. He has to get to know all new teachers and has a completely new timetable. Don't want to be That Parent ringing up the school, but I've honestly never seen him so upset :( Apparently they'll be re-assessed at Christmas and we're telling him he just needs to work as hard as he possibly can until then, but that feels like an eternity away to him. Maths isn't his strongest suit, but he's a blooming bright lad, was on the more able and talented list throughout primary, and it seems crazy that he's being penalised in every other subject.

Thanks very much. DDs home and she said school lost him for a while too - she's thinks about an hour. She said they asked her if she knew where he was and said he was lost. School isn't secure either, kids can get out and adults walk in without anyone seeing and there's a main road and river nearby. He's sensible with roads and rivers but still.

Oh no. Penguins. Hope you manage to get some support with this

Argh school have sent him home again today unofficially due to lack of staff. He ran outside. Trying to get LEA to help and made complaint formal but not looking hopeful.

Felt like the homework ruled the weekend here. Did some yesterday am, more yesterday pm and still some left this am.
Feel like —I— DS needs a homework timetable and maybe an agreement that certain subjects are done at school to his standard, eg PSHE and that I don’t even see them to protect my sanity!

Three hours of homework ticked off yah! Feel like we are back in control again phew! Took fair amount of nagging though I’m going to back off the nagging after Xmas once she has got the hang of it and see what happens! We’ve had a couple of sporting competitions this weekend which has been good motivation to get it done. It feels hard though juggling sports clubs, family life and lots of homework.

Homework would have been manageable for ds if he hadn't had around a week of not being in a fit state to do much at all. So he's now got a huge amount and the mere thought of homework is too much.
He was being so good, doing it all on the day it was set without making any fuss at all, and now we're back to 2hrs of upset before 10 minutes of reluctant work.

He's gone to bed cheerfully saying "oh good it's Friday."

Homework is getting under control here. Some of it has been revision, so it looks worse than it is in his planner. DS2 is trying to get through his homework tonight.Though he came downstairs and told me the keyboard bit of his desk had broken. But it wasn't him, he had gone to the bathroom then come back and found it broken

I got a message on the My Ed App saying DS2 had been selected as the secret pupil in his French lesson. This wasn't quite as exciting as it sounds - it was feedback from the teacher on how he was doing. I have no idea if I should send a reply or not.

The homework feels ridiculous my daughter has at least 7hrs worth on the homework app I counted up before tea she’s done 5hrs worth already inc last Sun & tues. FFS they are 11 yrs old not studying for gcse yet!

That is good news Penguin I could do with some hiding places at work right now! The loos are only so useful.
DS appears to have something like 6 pieces of homework outstanding which means most of the weekend written off. I really want to start the week with a clear deck.

The homework has really ramped up here too. Dd has 100 spellings of terms for different subjects to learn over the weekend, plus other stuff.

We have a meeting with the LA and school about dd next week ahead of mediation to work out what needs doing. I just have to get my manager to agree to let me go!

Council called me back, head of SEND for our area, and said school does have access to resources and shouldn't be sending him home, they are speaking to school next week and getting back to me.

Apparently DS ran out when fire alarm went off to near the main road, still on school site, but there's nothing to stop a child getting onto road. He is very sensible with roads. He then went back to class later. They are letting him off all homework punishments so he can either do or not do. They also said we have to go to another two meetings with them.

Looked into other schools and there's one mainstream 15 mins drive goes through to 18 rather than 16 he's at now geared to ASD with cabins for ASD kids and 3 types of special hiding places on site plus says they have access to Ed Psych, OT etc, its full but sounds much more suitable. Will try and work things out with current school first.

We haven't had too much homework yet, although we have had a massive panic when DS's friend called for him ten minutes before they had to leave and reminded him about some history that had to be in for first lesson yesterday. He got something down - only three boxes to fill with evidence from a short text -, but by God it was a mess, and then the teacher didn't collect it in. Glad I bought Frixxion pens now because he can tidy it up over the weekend.

We are now downing in homework - 11 lots this week (and one lesson to go) so am praying nothing comes in from history.

DD being calm at the moment and plodding through it, but as quick as some gets done , more comes in.

Ds doesn't know (did to us, not to him), and I don't know how much to tell him.

I'd quite like them to apologise to him in front of his form but that's not going to happen. He's already done the (much reduced but still admitted to be way OTT punishment) so not really much they can do to really make it better.
I'm not sure whether telling him will make much difference. He still is then very aware that the school labelled him a liar and didn't protect him when he was assaulted, with basically no evidence, and that's not going to change even if they apologise. He won't see any reason why it won't happen again.
I think he'll feel "fat lot of use an apology is after what he's been through." and that might actually be worse in the long run.

The more I look at what they said the more ridiculous the whole thing was, with so many inconsistencies.
So there were a number of children that testified that he pushed others (when they were surrounding him). So he was punished because naturally they all blamed him entirely rather than admitting they were involved. However now they've admitted the children around him were acting first, they apparently can't identify any of them...
That's just one bit.

The LA don't have to provide transport if there is a nearer school they deem suitable. We had our preference named for DS1's 1st primary but we had to provide transport (was 5 miles away and not our nearest). You do have to have a good look around and see what you think, speak to SENCos etc. I knew within 5 mins DS1 wouldn't cope with our local mainstream secondary which DS2 is now at. It's a good school, but not for DS1. Fortunately the LA agreed and he got a place at the ASD base and they also agreed transport. The journey is long and it is a definite downside, but it's the only option for him.

Glad the school have apologised witchend. How is DS feeling?

Buddy not buggy!

I remember a friend having to fight for her dd. Initially the county refused to send one out, then suggested something like "giving child a buggy". School pushed and the ed psych lasted 5 minutes before they said "this child needs a 1-2-1 full time.

It sounds to me like they're trying to push him into line, whereas they'd be better to back off.
However maybe he'll explode and they can then put him at the top so he gets help? I doubt they're aiming for that, but it might be good in the long run, if very stressful in the meantime. Can't be nice for him.

"Mummy I'm not 5" made me laugh as ds would have said exactly the same.

I wouldn’t assume somewhere with an autism base is necessarily better. It is terrible that they are saying they can’t afford it but I would start the EHCP request process yourself (I think IPSEA do template letters) and then the LA pays to get assessments done.

Thanks Witchend He's doing his best to get top of the list 😂. Primary said something like they only had funding for 1 child each year for whole school, it was dreadful. Glad you got an apology at least.

Penguins my experience is that schools can only get ed psych in for a small number of pupils at a time due to expense and also there aren't enough. Which basically means that only the worst can access it. I suspect that a year 7 at this stage won't be near enough the top of the waiting list.
It's rubbish really.

On the upside we've had an apology from school, and an acknowledgement that they acted wrongly and have caused issues for the future. Bit late really, but better than nothing.

Thanks very much. That's good you get transport. He doesn't like clubs. Detentions could be an issue as could ad hoc meetings but that would be a lot easier than all the transport. No idea if there are schools with autism bases though, people said some schools were better which are around 30 minutes drive but don't know how much better. Some of staff at this school seem to really want to help but senco seems useless and they seem out of budget.

He came home cheerful and I told him well done for going to school and eating roast dinner and he laughed and said Mummy I am not 5. I said you are being like a 5 year old at school but that's OK. He then asked if he could go out as he wanted to buy me chocolate so he went out and came back with some. First lesson he avoided was English so was scared about homework.