My twins have been offered places at our third choice of specialist school from September.
We’ve been to visit this morning, and tomorrow they have an assessment at our second choice school (the first choice can’t happen - it’s very small and they are already over capacity and with a waiting list).
The school we visited today is for children with complex learning disabilities and profound disabilities. I would say that the vast majority of students have significantly higher needs than our twins. The facilities are great, the staff are great, it would be a full time space but we could decide what schedule would suit them best.
The other school is an autism specific non-maintained school and therefore vastly more expensive. They could start earlier (after Easter) for a transition period. It’s likely the LA would only fund a part time place since they aren’t due to start school until the next year. I obviously haven’t had the chance to discus things in depth with them yet.
I need to figure out what’s most important here and I have no way to know what will suit them best. We are meeting with the LA and Ed Psych on Monday because the provisions in the plan are very weak which makes it impossible to establish who can / can’t meet needs.
My concern about the maintained school is whether they’ll have an appropriate peer group - they have outcomes / provisions in their plans about improving their social skills and having peers to model appropriate pro-social behaviour.
I also think that (quite rightly) the priority at this school will be those children with more extensive needs, and whether that will mean my two get less support than they need.
I will push for the ASD specialist school if it’s better for them, I just don’t know whether its better for them to be in a place that exclusively has autistic students or a more general specialist school.
I’d love to hear from anyone who’s made a similar choice, especially if their child was pre-school age. Any words of wisdom greatly appreciated :)