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.

I am trying to work out how many different specialist schools each LA would need if no one can be expected to make adjustment for different needs: presumably one for high ability children with frequent meltdowns, another one for children with learning difficulties, one for non-violent children with high ability, and what about the children who are normally ultra-compliant but might have a meltdown every blue moon from some very specific trigger? If it is not fair to put NT children in with the ones who lash out, how can it be fair to do the same to children with learning difficulties? If it is vital that the intellectual needs of NT children are met, why is it less important to meet the intellectual needs of children on the autistic spectrum?

We are all capable of violence if put under enough pressure.

I've read this thread with the same horror and frustration as Anniegetyourgun. It's taken all my patience not to type something like

"Fuck off and educate your self you stupid, arrogant, heartless, vile twat" to some posters.

Oops.

Madly the legal timescales are

6 weeks to agree/refuse assessment request
6 weeks for LA to carry out assessments and issue a draft EHCP
Parents have 15 days to agree the draft
20 weeks from receiving request to parents receiving finalised EHCP

You should have received finalised EHCP by now.

You also get to name a school, do you feel this is the right school?

Do you think with guidance of ECHP the school could understand your Ds needs?

So we fund all children with disabilities to go to specialist schools (costing many millions of pounds what with all that building work for all the different special schools needed in every area). To pay for this we reduce or don't pay housing, unemployment and other benefits. Benefits which a large proportion of adults with disabilities rely on. You are really making those with disabilities suffer aren't you.

'Anomalies aren't helpful here'

Whaaaat? Do you really think that when discussing provision for children outside a narrow set of norms, we shouldn't consider anything outside the norm?

This thread is really quite telling... some posters are hell bent in their belief that children with SEN are getting more support than they deserve in school, somehow taking support away from their precious children.

The irony is that the OP has probably had to fight tooth and nail to get any support and the notion that support is flowing freely to all of our children with SEN is laughable and clearly tells me that some of you have no understanding of how the system works.

And don't even get me started on the lack of empathy displayed by some!

Thanks for that claw.

By that, we're waiting for the draft EHC to return, and it hasn't. However, i was told the Health side are dragging heels and very few in the LA are coming back on time. One of the moms who has a DS in my DD's yr2 class was waiting for one for her younger son, and it was about 3 weeks late.

Cory, I really think some posters feel that disabled children are something we decide to have as a lifestyle choice, hence this weird indignation when we want their needs to be met.

If it is not fair to put NT children in with the ones who lash out, how can it be fair to do the same to children with learning difficulties? If it is vital that the intellectual needs of NT children are met, why is it less important to meet the intellectual needs of children on the autistic spectrum?

Yep. The LEA decided a couple of years back to bung a new child in autistic DS's taxi, without warning. DS might have been just about able to cope with this, but the other child was distressed enough to cause a significant delay in getting to school, through NO fault of DS's, on the morning of a GCSE exam.

(Really pleased to see from your other posts that your DD is doing so well now, by the way!)

Of course it is possible that Potatoes' dh's building has no ground floor access at all; there are some funny Victorian buildings out there.

Dd's school did, and the teacher admitted that she could have had access to the bottom set in maths, but didn't like to make dd move from top set to bottom set. The idea of moving the able-bodied children in the two sets had not occurred. I suggested it to her and she asked if I could take it up with the HT "because I don't like to".

My experience of trawling round primary and secondary schools is that regardless of the actual outlay, the attitude of the staff varies hugely. Some are happy to think out of the box and come up with inventive solutions, others just want to push you off their hands. The representative sof one shiny new academy with a Christian ethos and great emphasis on their inclusivity stood greeting parents in the foyer on open evening; I asked if they had disabled access and they hadn't bothered to check. What's more, nobody actually made a move to go and check. Otoh I could not fault the secondary dd eventually went to: they saw every problem as an interesting challenge.

Maddy sorry draft EHC plan to return? From where?

Have you received a draft and agreed it?

she is doing great

and so much of that is due to the intelligence and creativity of the staff at her secondary school, making accessible everything that she could access and not making her feel an inconvenience

every time I come up against a challenging situation at work, I think of that and hope I can be as intelligent and creative in making learning accessible to my students

In my DCs secondary, a lot of Laboratories for example are up stairs, they have installed disabled lifts - but its not practical for every staircase (there are probably 6+).
HOWEVER I know when they had a girl with severe physical disabilities, they rejigged the timetable, so that every one of her lessons was on the ground floor/accessible. In a school of 2000, they made special accommodations (which involved the Caretaking staff as much as anyone) to provide her with an education.

Another local school (which has no spare space), rejigged things when one pupil broke their leg, it was difficult but they did it (that school is listed and dates from about 1900).

ChemistryHunt

That's a massive misinterpretation of my words. I also, at no point, suggested or implied I was against some children having more spent on them than others. I've simply suggested that some give and take is necessary and it can't be all take.

I believe in streaming, for example, and surely grammar schools etc are an extension of this?

Furiosa

If a student breaks a leg at the top floor, they have this amazing thing. Like a beanbag made of rubber and as the air's sucked out it supports a body, leg or whatever in exactly the position it's in. No idea how it works in practice. I'm not a teacher nor do I work at the school.

Maddy in the 12 months since your son began lashing out, how often has it happened and how much has this changed since the 'room method' has been used? This is just out of interest.

Lancelottie Such is life that anomalies can't be catered for all the time nor perfectly for each student. For example, a teacher won't differentiate for every student in the class when lesson planning. You need broad ideas and then try your best from there.

OP what are your son's imagination skills like?

The school have given your DS a blank comic strip and he's supposed to make up a story from the pictures, EVERY child with ASD will struggle with that one as it encompasses all 3 areas of the triad of impairments that make up ASD (for anyone who hasn't got a clue, the triad of impairments are; Social Communication, Social imagination and Social interaction) even with instructions my DS would be unable to do this and he's 15 and also considered to be academically able.

Herecome, you seem quite anxious to instruct rather than to listen.

Possibly you feel that autistic children can be reasoned out of their autism?

My DD got around "creative writing" at Primary by plagiarism - basically retelling stories she knew (mainly Simpson's plots, as that was her obsession). If it was good enough for Shakespeare it was good enough for us.

Admittedly her teachers didn't have a clue this is what she was doing.

Potatoes I mean what if a student with a broken foot or leg needs to get into the school? For classes?

Potatoes

I'm sorry you feel your words have been misinterpreted however the way you have described your three tier system (11+ passers go to one type of school, children with SEB difficulties or SEN go to another and then the middle tier for all others) does sound pretty much like segregating out children to me. Sorting them into one of the three types and never shall they all mix.

In regards to spending, your comment of: At the same time, where should all this extra funding come from and it it fair to spend so much more money on one member of society at the expense of others?" Does sound very much you do have a problem with some children receiving more, especially as it has been detailed so many times on this thread that the resources provided for children with SEND is additional funding, and does not come out of the main school budget, so isn't being taken away from NT children.

It is not being "all take" to have resources which have been specifically funded and supplied for a particular child's needs (to allow the child to access education) protected to ensure availability for when a child who needs them can have them. It is ensuring that the child's right to an education are met.

Not being able to access the calm room to get changed would not prevent the girls from attending school, however if the plans and resources in place to enable a child to access the school are not available, this can ultimately lead to this child not being to access their educational placement.

Mummytime my DS plagiarised once and the learning mentor was really impressed with the story, actually she was positively gushing about it so I told her to watch the bedtime story on nick jr at 7pm that night, DS had seen the story so many times that he had reproduced it word for word.

If I am in public and someone puts me in genuine fear by touching me or getting in my space in a threatening way the law allows me to do what is needed to stop them.

Ive seen what it looks like when many teachers 'encourage' special needs kids into a room it is not pretty.

It's not dissimerler to when you see poorly trained none licensed old fashioned security guards escalate low level hostilities to high level ones because they quite fancy a ruckus