School lateness punishments, neurodiversity and the law

Would the school let her wear headphones going to and from class? My DD had anxiety and would get overwhelmed going between classes because of the clamour, so she was allowed to play music to drown it out. She was referred to CAMHs though.

I do agree with other PP though that you need to find the coping strategies rather than expect the school to tolerate her lateness. If they make an exception for one child without diagnosis, what’s to stop others coming forward claiming it’s an issue for them too? Before you know it, everyone’s late and learning is disrupted. Also, the school may have a different view on what’s causing her lateness - disappearing outside instead of trying to cope with what she needs to be doing - to what she’s telling you and that’s why they are being strict.

Sorry that you and your daughter are having such difficulties at the moment. Support is based on need, so the school are wrong to say that without a diagnosis they cannot put accommodations in place. Can you arrange a meeting with the SEND team at the school? Try and make a list of all of the things that your daughter struggles with and if possible have examples ready to show situations where it is causing difficulties. I would also look up SENDIASS for your local area and reach out to them for some support, they could possibly come along to any meetings with the school to look at accommodations.

I would also get this moved to the SEN board - I don't think you will get the support that might help in AIBU.

Good luck.

There’s a lot of parents who thing think that we SENCos are ‘useless’ and in reality the job is incredibly tough. We need to make many decisions throughout the day, the emails continue to drop into the in-box and we are firefighting. A lot of the paperwork jobs get done at the end of the day, when everyone else has gone.

It is an impossible job. Therefore requests like this need to go through the form tutor or head of year. After all, we are all ‘teachers of SEN’

What’s the background of your child? Is she generally a rule follower who does not get into trouble?

I ask this, because the school will have more context on the situation. If this is her only challenge, and it’s having a significant impact, the school needs to look to support. However, I do know that there are plenty of young people who intentionally push boundaries and parents will use neurodiversity or suspected neurodiversity as an excuse. Our neurodiverse teens are still teenagers, and sometimes don’t make the right choices.

DD17 with AuDHD here. Go private for the diagnosis if you can afford it as the quicker you can get access to medication the better, then you can start pushing for the EHCP. And yes look to move her to a school that is smaller and quieter if possible. If she has ADHD she has no internal time clock but you need to work a way through this, a watch that silently pulses for example maybe. Yes your school sounds shit but many state schools are with SEN it’s why I put mine in the private system.

I know ADHD does not make life easy but most children with ADHD do get to school and lessons on time, most of the time. Diagnosed conditions that cause time keeping issues, are very common and it would be pretty chaotic if everyone was frequently late.

The school I work in has around 30% on the SEND register. We are accommodating and flexible about this kind of thing but we do work towards children getting to places on time because that is a life skill that they need.

In two years time your daughter will be sitting public exams. Then she will be facing post 16 education and then work. At each stage the consequences of being late or absent become much more real.

Maybe educate yourself

https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/report-of-the-independent-adhd-taskforce-part-1/

Can she buddy-up to help the corridor chaos? Has she got a group of friends who could look out for her?

The school is unreasonable to make a change mid-year. Should have been there from the start and parents be aware of this before applying to the school.

Though if only there had been a similar sanction for the daily Covid conferences which all bar one that I saw started late.

Remind them that under the Equality Act 2010, schools have an anticipatory duty to prevent discrimination, avoid substantial disadvantages, and implement reasonable adjustments. Anticipatory is an important word - they can make adjustments before a diagnosis. In practice a diagnosis would help to ensure the school do what they should. As others have said, go private if you can. It’s important to try to get help in place before GCSEs make the pressure on your DC worse.

Check the adhd charities like ADHD UK for information and advice. They are super helpful, really care and might for example direct you to letters you can use to remind the school of their duties and lists of legally acceptable reasonable adjustments (Google 101 reasonable adjustments for adhd). And ignore anyone posting who has no experience of ADHD. Good luck to you.

She should absolutely be allowed to leave the lessons early to get to the next when it’s quiet (when I was at school in the 90s this was actually on my plan-I have autism and adhd ) . It’s a small thing that will really help and in your shoes I’d be pushing for it as a reasonable adjustment.
I know how hard it is and I hope you get things sorted out

So what is the actual issue here OP? You said originally “she just can’t organise herself to get to lessons on time” which suggests she is getting lost or forgetting things. Now it is “she is overwhelmed in the corridors”. Leaving lessons early might help with the second point, as the corridor will be quiet, but then presumably she will be moving between lessons alone not with friends which increases the likelihood of her getting lost or forgetting things.

Reasonable adjustments are only reasonable if they alleviate the disadvantage caused by the disability and are operationally viable for the school. You need to work with your DD on strategies for being on time - others here have given many excellent suggestions - rather than throwing your hands up and expecting the school to organise everything around her, regardless of the impact on teachers and other pupils.

This is really common. The relative stability of primary, single class teacher etc to a complete change of up to 6 teachers a day with different routines/classrooms is where many kids fall apart.
I’ll acknowledge the school isn’t being helpful but I also note you are only engaging with posts that validate your perspective.
Talking to your daughter in more detail will help understand what she actually does in those 5mins. As other posters have suggested you can start to develop strategies with her that she can use outside of school. I assume you’ll want her to earn a living and be independent at some point?

The SEND provision in school is based on need, not diagnosis. Very good suggestion above to email the SENDCO and also the SEND governor to request reasonable adjustments.

DD has a leave-early card so she can move through the corridors before they get overwhelming. Teachers are also supposed to set homework at the start of lessons, so those leaving early aren't penalised. Having a set seat in each class is also useful, that DD chooses for each classroom at the start of the year. Loop earplugs are a reasonable adjustment, plus a discreet fidget and access to the sensory room whenever necessary.

Overall though, DD is in a smaller school because there's no way she'd cope with a massive school and the noise/bustle of thousands of people.

And your evidence for that is?

You have two issues here. The school do sound rubbish BUT your daughter does need to master this skill, otherwise you’re not preparing her for adult life. My ND 12 year old has exactly the same circumstances, the corridors are insanely busy. Her big sister taught her to make a ‘train’ with her friends (they all hold each others bags) to help the smaller kids feel safe and not get knocked.

You said

“My DS15 is diagnosed adhd and has it bad but still gets to lessons because he’s in school, everyone’s going to lessons and that’s all there is to do. “

That is pretty much expecting everybody else with adhd to be the same. They’re not. Boys with adhd can often be more disruptive in class than girls. Holding it in with zero support can have really difficult consequences.

Your son is lucky enough to have been diagnosed and will have access to medication and reasonable adjustments as a result. Others aren’t so lucky.

Lots of schools are removing this as a strategy due to the disruption in lesson time and the disruption caused on corridors.

To add my DD has just worn loop ear plugs Quiet2 version in an external exam sitting. We got this agreed as access arrangements as part of taking some GCSE’s early now she’s home Ed and not in mainstream school. She played around with the ear bud sizes and found some she liked.

Squish toys make no difference.
i'm surprised they don't let her leave early

So she can't control her attendance or punctuality. Have you ever flipped it around and wondered what she can control?

Have you thought about moving her? I wouldn’t normally jump to that but you say the school are useless, the SENCo is useless and you don’t agree with the punishments… I’m not sure where that leaves you other than looking at other schools.

The leaving 1 minute early, I can understand why they said no to that because 1 minute isn’t going to leave her enough time to miss the crowds and it’ll be the same outcome. Plus it’s disruptive for the rest of the class to have one child packing up early in every lesson. What you need to focus on is stopping the punishments - or get that time allowance extended for her so if it’s 5 minutes for NT kids, trying to get an allowance of 10 minutes for her (although it doesn’t sound that they will allow this, hence the advice to move altogether).

Get her to put the loops in herself and if challenged, deal with it later. Most staff know what they are.

A squish toy in her pocket is a good idea too.

She does need to take some responsibility for being in the right place at the right time.