Hey all, sorry if this is long but wanted to get everything down. my daughter has adhd and autism as well as sensory processing disorder. We struggle a lot with emotional outbursts, she gets very dysregulated and angry quickly. She has an EHCP and the school have put several things in place that the paediatrician thinks are fantastic but makes me feel a bit sad if this is supposed to be a high standard. She does sensory circuits in the morning, has quiet time before home time, is allowed to snack mid morning now she’s in year 3 as she struggles without one and there is a TA in the class who is supposed to work with her for the majority of the time but ends up with other children. I know schools funding has been cut to the bone and I understand it’s hard to recruit TAs but this one seems to hate people and life.
initially my daughter was happy at school, she was boisterous but never violent, loud and opinionated but the teachers were happy and said she was making good progress. She passed the phonics test in year 1, is reading at highest level in her class, loves learning etc. year 3 has been so hard however. She is picked on quite a lot as I think her differences are more pronounced now. She has a meltdown quite frequently, gets upset if she feels ignored or left out. There was a nasty bout of bullying and I had countless meetings with the school and other parents and whose there is still low level meanness going on, the more horrible stuff has seemingly stopped for now. I’m obviously not happy with any nastiness directed at her, I’m hustling trying to point out that the school have tried to handle it.
she just to love school but now I’m worried she is just surviving and it’s only going to get worse. The school have said she is hard to manage and her emotions are much bigger and more volatile now. Still never violent but louder and more distracting and she’s not got many friends. My husband are I are trying to figure out what is the best thing to do. Do we move her to a different primary and hope that helps? There are several near us, all Good and have similar ish SEN provision. Our county is a middle school system so she will be going to a middle school in just over a year and a term; do we move her then instead of going to feeder middle that her class will be? Do we consider private? Will her EHCP help cover that cost? I know we’d need to state why mainstream can’t support vs why the private could etc. Do we hope things iron themselves out and she finds some friends? My worry is that the school treat her like a time bomb and constantly hawk watch her meaning that the slightest outburst is met with big reactions from them. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy really as I see terrible behaviour from others (on school trips or open dats etc) that go unchallenged but when my daughter makes the slightest noise or fidgets, she is jumped upon and it is used as evidence of how difficult she is.
I think we are struggling because the choices are endless and vague. Stick it out, move her, if so, where? How? When? It’s all so horribly important and I don’t want to get it wrong but I also don’t want to risk moving her and then that being worse and her being isolated and miserable somewhere new! There are several middle schools around that aren’t great, is it better to send her to one where she at least knows people even if some of those people aren’t very nice?! I’m hoping one of you might be able to explain what choices you made for your SEN children? Thanks so much