To be angry, and even a little bewildered on how to tackle this with the school?

[MaddyHatter]

DS has SN.. he has Autism, ADHD, Sensory Processing Disorder and Dyspraxia.... it makes for some very complex needs, a big one of which he CANNOT process emotion or self regulate and will go into a meltdown very suddenly.

One of the outcomes of him getting upset and frustrated and having a meltdown is that he lashes out during them, and can hurt the people near him. The school are aware of this, there are strategies in place to help him try to manage his feelings.

One of these strategies is the provision and freedom to go to a room called the Calm room, which is painted with calming colours and has cushions and bean bags...etc.

There was an incident today. Ds isnt having a good week and there is a piece of work he is flat refusing to do, and they keep trying to make him. Today they tried again and he began to get upset. The Learning Mentor tried to get him to go to her classroom to calm down, but his auditory processing issues meant he didn't understand and he thought she was going to try and make him do this work, and he lashed out.

He has been suspended, which i nominally support, even if i'm not happy, as in my eyes they're punishing him for part of his disability..

However, i asked DS why if he was getting angry, didn't he ask to use the Calm room (its right opposite his classroom) and he told me he wasnt allowed in there because some of the yr6 girls were using it as a PE changing room.

WTF?!?!

Now.. i appreciate at 10/11yo the girls may not wish to change in the classroom with the boys, and an alternative should be provided... but WHY THE FUCK are the school letting them use THE CALM ROOM which is there for children like my son to use as and when they need it?

I am so fucking angry... we spent AGES getting it through to him that he could remove himself from a situation and go to that room if he felt the need to help prevent him going into meltdown, and now, he has to check if its being used as a fucking changing room and isn't allowed in there if the girls belongings are... and has now ended up having a violent meltdown and hit a teacher and got suspended.

I just don't know how to tackle this or even where to start.

Oh OP that's awful. I'd do just that - write across it and hand it in. And as a previous poster said, make a note of all this, because it really is shabby, even if the school has the best of intentions.

Dd's HT suggested that we should remove her to a specialist school. Dd had no learning difficulties, had been identified as G&T, was a compliant child who never got into trouble, was not on the autistic spectrum, her disability was purely physical (intermittent wheelchair user with frequent medical absences). A completely different set of SN from what the specialist schools were set up for.

But it was inconvenient and to the HT's way of thinking it was clearly better if anyone should be invonvenienced that it should be other children with SN- presumably because their education doesn't matter so much.

Exclusion doesn't mean the problem goes away- it means somebody else has to deal with it.

This problem could have been dealt with much better here.

Just seen your update about the play script, OP. They really don't get it at all, do they?

I mean, i did English Literature at A Level and had to study the shakespeare texts and the Play Script for 'A Street Car Named Desire'

I've written scripts myself, and even at A level would never have just been handed a text and told 'write a script based on this' without having guidelines of what it was expected to include.

Why is it ok to do that in KS2?

That's really shit Maddy. DS also had to do that as homework (has dyspraxia, sensory processing disorder and possibly ADHD) but was given very clear instructions of what a play script looked like and how it should be formatted. And he had a page from a book to turn into a play script, not two pages from a comic strip FFS!

I'd be furious in your shoes.

Here come, you said 'Of course I can't imagine what it's like to be autistic. Can any of us?'
Actually, have you thought of asking what it's like? Plenty of autistic adults could help you there.

Wow. DS would struggle with that piece of work. We had an issue with homework the other night where the teacher had missed out a word when writing the worksheet. I was able to work out what the sentence should say but DS could not. Complete meltdown over the absence of one word, the sentence to him made no sense. That's how specific things need to be for him.

Practically, could you write some bullet points out for him to guide him along? Not that you should have to. I wonder why it is so vitally important that this one particular piece of work is completed. DS was sent home with school work the other day that he hadn't completed in class. He didn't understand what he had to do at school and he still didn't understand when he got home. I tried my best to help him through it but bar doing it for him myself there was nothing else I could do. I sent him back with it in the morning explaining that he didn't understand and I wasn't prepared for him to get distressed at home when he's struggled through school all day. Don't think they were happy with me but tough.

Maddy, the might find things such as mind mapping and goal objectives helping.

Anyhow, as you said your ds's needs are complex, sounds like school need the guidance of an EHC plan.

I know you said you have been waiting 20 weeks, whereabouts are you in the process?

Has the LA agreed to assess?

cansu Thu 21-Apr-16 07:07:36

"If loving I think you also need to think about your assertion that the OP child has more of the teachers time. My dd is currently in mainstream. She actually has none of the teachers time or teaching as she is left to be taught by the TA who has few qualifications and is not paid to do this. When you know nothing about a subject it is probably best to stay quiet."

My dd was left to work on her own during maths lessons because it was felt to be too much of a bother to move her set down to ground floor. Funnily enough, she did not reach her full potential in maths. But at least she didn't cost any extra money. So that's all right then.

Approaching the problem with my lecturer's hat on, I find it extremely frustrating. Schools ime are very fond of saying "oh, but you won't get any extra support later on, you won't be able to do that (=have that disability) when you go to uni". The truth is that we have plenty of students with various forms of SN, we are eager to broaden our intake and make our courses as accessible as we possibly can. But it doesn't help if we miss out on students with potential because they were sat in a corner with an unqualified TA.

Just seen your update, Maddy. Oh good grief. Ds would have had a lovely meltdown over that one.
I've had some success in explaining the true meltdown to people (probably wildly inaccurately) as being akin to migraine or an epileptic seizure: you can try to avoid triggers, but if one starts, you are not going to be able to snap out of it with a bit of well-meaning soothing and chivvying.

Fizzy, i've done that before. We went through a phase of them sending home a lot of work he wouldn't do in class, and i had enough and flipped at them over it. I pointed out i am not his teacher and its not my job to fill in the holes in his education when they were failing him.

When they're suspended the school do send home some work to do, but it means doing it outside of the class environment and me only having what they provide.. so i don't have the tools they would in the lesson to help him. I'm not happy with any of the work they've sent, because quite frankly, there is no bloody framework for ANY of it.

Claw They agreed to assess, that process has been going on the last couple of months.. the last part was an appt with a paediatrician which was done over the easter break. The deadline for a response coming back to the school was today.

Dammit, I shouldn't have read this thread. I have a nice day off and was going to relax and surf and play some games 'n' shit. Instead I've found myself shouting at the screen "Just fuck off!" and on one occasion "utter, utter bastards". And that's only the posts that haven't been deleted. I don't even have a dog in the fight, as it were (DC way past school age, no diagnosed SN). I'm just... aghast. They think they're being so reasonable, too. It's very depressing.

Coffee and chocolate, followed by some violent computer games, that's the ticket.

Oh and, Maddy, that homework is totally heinous. Apply the remarks above to whoever set it and thought it was a good idea for 9 year olds full stop.

for clarity.

the calm room has no windows.

the learning mentors room does, but also has full blinds. It has a sofa, cuddly toys, bright displays and her desk in it, its twice the size of the calm room. DS uses it at break times as he can't cope with the playground noise, and at lunch as he can't deal with the noise in the dining hall.

"That child with cerebral palsy was pretty unusual. Anomalies aren't helpful here. For a start, many schools simply don't have the wheelchair access necessary for some students and it would be ridiculous to suggest that this provision could be accommodated"

That's what dd's HT said. He was absolutely flabbergasted when I pointed out that it would not have cost anything or require any physical changes to the school to e.g. change the timetable so dd's maths set were the ones taught on the bottom floor and the other maths set on the top floor. In other words to engage his brain (no, I didn't say that). Or again that a simple ramp up to the hall would not cost much. Or that by not deciding to keep the disabled toilet for visitors only, he would be making reasonable adjustment.

Of course not all schools can manage everything. But what the law requires is that you should make Reasonable Adjustment. Which is another word for think.

zzzzzz are you confusing that room with a school nurse's room? I don't really understand what point you're trying to make.

MaddyHatte Are you sure there was no guidance or explanation to the children during the introduction of the work? Had they been doing similar work in the previous days or weeks? Children, sen or not, aren't always reliable when relaying what a teacher said or did with the class.

"That's what dd's HT said. He was absolutely flabbergasted when I pointed out that it would not have cost anything or require any physical changes to the school to e.g. change the timetable so dd's maths set were the ones taught on the bottom floor and the other maths set on the top floor"

At my sons and husbands school, it would mean teaching maths in either the staff room. admissions office or main foyer.

That's maths covered, but how about everything else? For example, access to the main hall is at the top of 3 flights of stairs. There are assemblies there. Drama and music studios are off it. Sometimes it simply can't be done.

here

DS is only violent during a meltdown, and only towards the person who he feels threatened by when they dont back off and leave him alone.

The violent outbursts have only been present for the last 12 months.. we actually had to wait longer for CAMH's because when he was referred we could say with confidence he'd never hurt anyone else.. then in June last year that suddenly changed, and the hitting has been part of his meltdowns since.

I have been on the end of it a couple of times. But i learned from the experience and at home i now deal with it by allowing him to run to his 'safe space' which is his bedroom to calm down, then i will go give him a hug and some comfort and tell him i love him, and then leave him alone for a bit.

I have explained this to the school OVER AND OVER again. I have TOLD them that if they keep poking him like a child poking a dog with a stick he WILL bite, and they WILL make themselves a target.

its WHY the calm room is there. The idea is, he takes himself there and is left alone (his TA just sits by the door) to calm down and then rejoins the class in his own time when he feels ready.

We have explained that he doesn't go back to a 'Green' state for about an hour afterwards, he will remain in the 'Amber' zone, and his transition to 'Red' can happen without warning once he is 'Amber'

I cannot physically give them ANY more tools to manage his meltdowns than i have, if they choose to IGNORE that advice, then i'm sorry, my sympathy when he melts down and one of them gets hit, is minimal.

And what would you do, herecome, if you'd created a special school suitable for Maddy's ds (let's say, for the sake of argument, that it's a tiny one-person school about six feet square) and then he was excluded from it because the local girls' sports team needed to use HIS special school as a sports changing room?

I'm puzzled that you seem to recognise his needs to the extent of seeing that he needs special provisions but then deny that he can possibly need the provision that has been .provided

MaddyHatte "2Are you sure there was no guidance or explanation to the children during the introduction of the work? Had they been doing similar work in the previous days or weeks? Children, sen or not, aren't always reliable when relaying what a teacher said or did with the class."

In that case, perhaps that is where reasonable adjustment should come in, making sure that the explanation is in a format that the ds can understand. Or if you realise afterwards that you have failed to do that and he is getting distressed not to insist that he sits down to do something he can't do. Just a suggestion...

Potatoes - So your answer is to segregate, with no mixing between different types of children?

Doesn't that make all children miss out on learning about the differences of everybody? Learning about how society is composed of many different needs and the fact that people need to be able to all have access to services?

What about when these children grow up, should they have different shops, doctors, transport to avoid the "mainstream" provision needing to adapt to be accessible.

Some children need a specialist provision, some children need mainstream with adjustments.

In your segregated world some students would still have considerably more spent on them than others, which was something you said you disagreed up thread.

I am not even going to go into how you seem to see it as the responsibility of the poorest in society to pay for the segregation you wish to see.

If it makes you feel any better, my NT DD is in yr4 too. We often get "half baked " homework. She just does the best she can and forgets about it. Sometimes, if it's too much, we just don't turn it in at all. I wonder if you feel pressured to jump through every hoop because of the spotlight on your son. I would feel very comfortable handing that back to the teacher and asking for something differentiated.

Potatoes are you saying your husbands school is completely inaccessible to people who can't walk?

Is it a very old building?

Sorry, just seen that you said it was.

What happens if one of the students breaks a leg or foot? That must have happened before.

How does your husbands school accommodate that?