Meeting with both sencos to talk about year 6 child moving up to secondary

[elliejjtiny]

Having a last minute wobble trying to remember if I've thought of everything. My youngest is starting mainstream secondary school in September. He has autism, pica and his emotional development is 8 years behind his actual age according to the thrive tests.

He has an ehcp with band 4 funding. He is really looking forward to starting secondary school which has to be a good thing. He has met the senco from the secondary school at the open evening and he really liked the special needs department, especially the sensory room.

It sounds as though there’s plenty of communication between the SENCos, which is good news.

What sort of things are you concerned about?

I used to invite some of our new Year 7 pupils for extra induction time. They took photos of spaces like the entrance, my department, key areas of the school. We were careful not to include people, who may not be there in September.

Thankyou. My biggest concern is that when he is in a school with children much older than him he will see/hear things that he is not emotionally mature enough to understand. Or that he won't make friends because they are all much more grown up than him. He is already struggling with this in primary school. He loves going down to the ks1 playground to "help" with the little ones.

Also the school tend to put the children with ehcp's in the same tutor group so that those children who don't qualify for a TA of their own can share a TA with other children. This has worked amazingly well with my older child who has learning disabilities but I find that my youngest really annoys sensory avoiding autistic children without meaning to because he struggles with personal space and he stims a lot.

My son is an adult now, but when he transitioned to secondary school some of the things that helped were: social story showing the difference between primary and secondary, ie going to different classrooms for lessons etc. Knowing where the student support room for his year was and that if he struggled he could go there and speak to someone. Having several trips to look round the school so that he became familiar with the layout.

At his school they had a lot of after school clubs which catered for different interests so it may be worth asking about these to see if there's anything that your son would enjoy doing. His school also had a separate building where children who struggled at lunch/break time could go to. This was always supervised by a teacher.

I found at secondary my son didn't stand out so much as it was a much bigger school which meant more pupils with their own "quirks", whereas at primary my son's sometimes "odd" behaviour was more noticeable.

Thank you. Meeting was good. The senco said there will be 6 children in his year group with an ehcp and another 8 being assessed. Don't know how that compares to other schools but in the year above there are only 2 children with an ehcp. The primary school senco kept saying that he is very academically able so he will be fine which is like saying that a wheelchair user can hear well or a blind person can run really fast. They are still trying to get more funding for him but they have a back up plan as well.

I would also ask questions about the curriculum if he’s working at the emotional maturity level of a 3 year old.

I am a secondary RE teacher and, in the 5 years of secondary RE we will look at:

abortion
euthanasia
death penalty.
death / dying / life after death
the concept of good and evil

etc etc etc

and this will be replicated in English / PHSE / History.

If this is something he will cope with then that’s fine, but if he will struggle you might find curve balls coming from unexpected places!

Oh my goodness I hadn't even thought of that. My older child who has learning disabilities started crying in the middle of science when the teacher mentioned miscarriage and he is a lot more emotionally mature than my youngest.

Following. I have a similar meeting soon for autistic child with no ECHP as she has been high functioning until now but suddenly we have EBSA.

Our SENDIASS said to look at the choosing school section on our website to help you think of questions you may want to ask.

Has your son started transition? My DD is starting after half term but in retrospect we should have started earlier but at that time she was ‘coping’ much better.

I would definitely be mindful of the curriculum and what he'll be learning. My son is 15 and SEMH of about 10 years. He is in mainstream secondary and ok but struggles with comprehensive for example English Literature - they will do Shakespeare and books aimed at year 7 / 8 to analyse etc and also they will be expected to know about sex, making babies and periods in girls etc. My son still hasn't grasped this yet and I've given up on him doing anything on GCSE macbeth 🤣 maybe see if he can not do certain lessons like drama (if social skills poor) etc

It’s good that clear communication pathways have been established now between you and the senco.

Ds is now at the end of ywsr 10 and although we have had many obstacles because the school is working with us he is thriving.

does he echp specify any 1-1 support?