Awww thank you! I'm so sorry, I hadn't seen the DM. Thank you for the cake!
My daughter (in Reception) has now been out of school for over a term. They didn't implement the support agreed with them before she started in Sept. She ended up in total burnout in Nov: panic attacks, saying she didn't want to live any more days, asking if she can be buried when she dies with the toy she takes everywhere and stims with, all her games were about death. She said she'd jump out of her bedroom window because she can't do school without quiet time. She was barely eating, waking up screaming in her sleep with nightmares, having to sleep in my bed. Regression in executive function to the extent she couldn't dress or brush her teeth without help, rejection sensitivity off the charts (just a gentle question makes her feel like she's being shouted at, couldn't be in a room alone or she feels she's been rejected).
Kept her off for two weeks I think to recover then the school agreed to implement the regular breaks twice per day to the sensory room that she needed and she was fine until Christmas. Head told me breaks would continue in Jan but they withdrew them again with no warning or explanation so from the cumulative impact of 6.5 hours per day of sensory overwhelm with no respite, her distress escalated again. All pleas to give her breaks ignored. By Feb she then had another panic attack after school, two hours before she could even communicate with us properly. She had found the courage to tell them herself she needed a break and they said they'd do it then didn't. So since then I've had to keep her off, to safeguard her. All the talk about death started again, she was in pieces. She says she doesn't belong in this world, nobody understands her. She is 5.
That was 13 weeks ago. School SENCO has refused to speak to me. I involved the Pupil Entitlement Team, ASC Team, SENDIAS, got her a private advocate who tried to reason with the Head. All emails and voicemails to SENCO ignored. I consulted the EAS and NAS and specialist solicitors. Finally this week they agreed - after 13 weeks of her being off - to have a one hour phone call with me, her advocate, SENDIAS and the ASC Team. Turned up not having read her reports. I even went and got a private up to date SALT assessment which is very clear on her significant SEN, how vulnerable she is, that she needs specialist SALT intervention daily at school plus longer weekly sessions etc but we weren't even asking them to do that atm, just provide the most basic support she needs to attend school at all because so far she hasn't had any time in Reception that wasn't either completely traumatic or impossible for her to attend at all. Her support needs have been hugely exacerbated by what they've done, undoing so much work we did at home to builld her self-esteem, emotional regulation techniques, tools to help with executive function, building up nursery hours in preparation for school so she can tolerate all the noise and people for longer periods etc and they've set all that back by two years at least.
SALT is clear she will now need a 1:1 to go back, whereas if in Sept they'd just given her the two x 15 min breaks per day she needed she prob would have coped until EHCP was in place. She needs someone there as a trusted adult because of her anxiety, she needs shorter adult supported breaks every 10-15 mins, she needs help to reitegrate socially, prompting to use ear defenders and visual tools, help interpreting complex instructions and non-literal language and social situations, a TA to identify knowledge gaps (they refused to send work home for her) and help her catch up the term she has missed, take her for her longer breaks, a named adult to be with her to rebuild her trust in school staff, to spot the subtle signs of distress becauase she masks so well, etc. SALT said how vulnerable she is and how significant her needs are.
Advocate and I are submitting EHCP application (school was meant to do this but halted it with no explanation: literally had no contact from SENCO for 7 months except this one hour call last Friday).
At the meeting all agreed they need to put a plan in place to enable her to return after half term. As predicted they left it until just before they closed and sent through a proposal saying they'll give her no additional support at all. The class TA may help her ad hoc as before. And if she is distressed she can go and sit under a table in the corridor with a blanket thrown over it like a dog. Sent off alone to feel rejected and scared, and not able to reset from hypervigilance either because staff walk past, children walk past to go to the toilets etc.
It's so cruel. Her "crime" is not being disruptive, and being very clever so still meeting minimum academic targets therefore her needs are dismissed as her autism isn't creating a problem for staff. Story as old as time, classic discrimination against autistic women and girls. She made a superhuman effort to fit in, do what they wanted, and is now being punished for it. A few times they even saw her have a meltdown in the playground at collection when she couldn't hold it in until home, as soon as she saw a safe person (me or her nanny). Their response? I must need some parenting classes, to "manage" her behaviour. Doctors have written to them telling them she isn't like this in school hols or when at nursery (with the support) therefore not a parenting issue: the issue is school. They interrogated her daily with leading questions trying to get her to say something bad about home but she kept telling them school is the problem, she loves home.
I've involved MP, local Counsillor. Nobody is doing anything. The impact on her has been catastrophic, crying herself to sleep about watching her brother go to school in the sunshine (he is allowed these breaks) and not understanding why they are doing this to her.
I offered to take some annual leave and go into school as her TA myself (I am fully DBS checked) to help pave the way back. Refused: no explanation. I have made enquiries with other schools but no luck finding anywhere with spaces so far, and my son is distraught at the prospect of having to leave his friends who he has known since he was a baby: he finds change extremely difficult. I've tried everything I can think of to resolve it. The Head reported her absences as unauthorised against the Dept for Education Guidance and asked the Council to prosecute me for not sending her. He has also made 4 malicious referrals to social services now telling them I'm mentally ill and neglecting my child and not sending her for no reason. They have rejected these and told him to stop doing it, but how disgusting. They are in clear breach of their own SEN policy, the statutory SEND Code of Practice, the Equality Act, the Children and Families Act. They have breached GDPR ("lost" her diagnosis reports?! And refused to respond to a subject access request). I have made a complaint to the Trustees but they have done nothing. There seems to be no effective enforcement mechanism so they can bully a disabled 5 year old with impunity. I've contacted the Local Authority about their legal responsibility to provide her with a full time education while unable to go to school per the Education Act 1996 and their response is "the provision at school is effectice because the Head says it is". Not sure how he is qualified to overrule all of her doctors and specialists, or how provision that left a 5 year old suicidal twice is "effective".
I have no nanny cover during termtime daytimes so I have been trying to care for a distressed 5 year old, contact all these people to try to resolve it, put her back together, and do my own full time job at night so sleeping 2-3 hrs per day. So I am now having the mother of all ME relapses. Not sure how much longer I can carry on: I had pinned all hopes on the meeting this week resulting in a solution because I couldn't see how anybody could continue to deny her needs after that SALT report, on top of the reports from her OT, Ofsted registered nannies, clinical psychologist, GP, two consultant neurodevelopmental paediatricians. But they have,
I just don't know what to do anymore tbh. I can't face watching her little face crumple when I have to tell her she still can't go back.
Sorry, mega long. But that is why I've not been around. I'm completely heartbroken seeing what they've done to her and unable to help, and my health is now collapsing as well.