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 don't resent it but I bet the girls who have to be stared at by adolescent boys do

Oh wow. You are a doozie aren't you.

'Stared at by adolescent boys'

You are becoming increasingly bizarre.

OP even though you took your son home you can still appeal the decision to exclude and if the appeal is upheld it will be expunged from his education record, I would get in touch with the LA and discuss it with them. Of course an exclusion can also be of benefit further down the line. The school has to realise that deliberately removing an aid or support (in this case a Sensory and calm down room) and then issuing a fixed term exclusion for the resulting behaviour is discrimination on the grounds of disability.

This issue of the girls having somewhere else to get changed should not have a detrimental effect on your child. At the very least the school should have a plan B in place and your son should know what it is and feel comfortable with the plan.

Having said all of that you need to get to the bottom of why your son couldn't do the work and what support or strategies are needed to help prevent a repeat.

The other thing that would concern me is when a child with SEN is excluded for whatever reason then the child will very quickly associate the behaviour with being sent home and it rapidly becomes a vicious circle.

OP I sympathise, I have been there.

Tbh, there is unlikely to be a special room available throughout the poor child's life

But that's totally missing the point. OP's child, like all children his age, is learning, growing and developing the skills he will need to navigate the adult world. None of them are yet equipped to do that, and that is fine. What they all need is an environment that enables them to learn the skills they will need as adults. For some DCs, they need a calm down room.

What you're saying is a bit like saying that a child learning to swim shouldn't have access to a float to aid their learning, as they won't have one available if they fall in a canal.

Truffle they can use the toilets which the boys can't go into. The OP's DS can't use the toilets to calm down in can he?

Hazey you are right actually, about it being on the main boards as part of everyday life. It's just a shame that there are a couple of either completely ignorant, or deliberately goady, complete fuckwits that always pop up.

Still, It allows us all to update the "knobhead" column in our spreadsheets. Well, until they name
Change. I actually think people who have posts deleted as disablist shouldn't be allowed to NC. That privilege should be withdrawn so we can avoid them rather than unwittingly interact again - and they have to own what they say. Maybe it would make them think twice before being utter dicks.

Truffle

threaten ???

Give over. You are just goading now

Truffle I completely agree with you that the girls not having somewhere to change isn't on. By year 6, I happen to think boys and girls are due some privacy from each other while getting changed.

However, this is a completely separate issue to the OP's son needing a calm room, especially when he has been taught that this space is available to him when he needs it.

They're two different issues, but ultimately, at least the girls changing there don't have SN (assuming) and are perfectly able to understand the situation with needing to change elsewhere, even if far from ideal. OP's son simply doesn't have that ability, certainly not once in a heightened state.

Truffle40 Wed 20-Apr-16 19:00:32

"Tbh, there is unlikely to be a special room available throughout the poor child's life"

Again, it is exactly like being back in dd's primary school: "oh there's no point in trying to help her now, because secondary school/higher education/the workplace won't be equally accommodating."

What we actually found was that the secondary school pulled out all stops, as a university teacher I know how hard we work to accommodate students with SN, and as for workplaces you can choose a job that suits you.

did anyone else notice the distinct superciliousness and lack of sincerity in the "poor child's life" thing?

I'm reporting that post too Truffle.

Am sorry your son had his safety net pulled away without warning op. The school are wrong and you are right to be angry.

Truffle, there's no reason why op's DS shouldn't have a calm down room throughout his whole life. Plenty of adults with autism have a safe space in their own homes, which cater to their sensory needs and where they can go when they need to.

Secondary schools have them too

Tbh, there is unlikely to be a special room available throughout the poor child's life

If it helps then think of it like this:
child needs to learn strategies of how to cope when they are older and in the big bad world. How do you teach these strategies when the child is highly anxious for whatever reason.

Possibly by using resources like calm rooms, ipads, time out, twiddlers etc. Then you can work with the child to develop other strategies so that over time the child will be less reliant on needing access to a calm room and by the time they enter the big bad world, they have coping strategies which enables them to function and be as independent as possible.

The first step for that child was the conversion of a store cupboard, a couple of tins of paint, a couple of cushions and a beanbag.

In terms of cost, fabulous saving and value for money I'd say, against them claiming benefits, suffering from depression and needing continual social services support in the future.

Agree, surely the point of the calm room now is to teach him coping skills so he can function well later as an adult.

Pointing out that there may not be a calm room through out his life is as silly as saying that babies won't have access to nappies when they grow up.

If the learning mentor's classroom was free then that space can be used as a changing room.

Imo a calm room/ the snug/the nest - whatever your school calls it, should be used only for the purpose to which it was intended as those who need to use that room for its designed purpose can't just predict when they might need it and force themselves to snap out of it.

The school can, however, predict when pupils will need to change for PE.

The school put your son in a position where he reacted negatively and was unable to access the space which was designed to accommodate such situations.

I accept there is a small part of me which says what if the room was being used for its designed purpose but by another child. But it wasn't so that is neither here nor there. And the school may have been slightly less reactive/ more tolerant if they had known another child in need was using it. in this instance though, I feel the girls should have been told to leave.

My dd informs me that at her school the girls get changed in the classroom and the boys use the cloakroom area. I accept its far from ideal but I would be mortified if I'd found out another pupil had been suspended because my dd had been told to use their safe space as a changing room.

Of course, I might be biased because we have blow ups at home from ds1 and he often needs space to calm down.

the calm room is a tool, just like his wobble cushion, his fidgetfeet board, his chewlery, the light balls, and ear defenders that he needs.

As he gets older, his reliance on these things will fade (hopefully) as his ability to find other self soothing methods increase along with maturity.

I try really hard to maintain a good relationship with the school, we have to work together to get DS through.. but that means i have to trust them when he is in their care..

I believe in this case, the issue with the work refusal is they're insisting he write it out and DS can't write very well because of his severe motor skill issues. His TA has assessed the work and deemed it an acceptable level/amount of handwriting, and they like him to do some so they have something to assess.

They have reached an impasse where DS has achieved a mental block over it and its become a point of anxiety for him as today was the 3rd day of refusing to do it, and the insistance again that he do it, tipped him over the edge. It will be addressed. While i appreciate DS can't be allowed to refuse to do it, after 2 days of abject refusal, i think they need to concede defeat and just leave it.

Don't threaten me just because you feel threatened by someone who thinks a group of girls have a right to use that room occasionally.

Truffle, nobody has threatened you.

I mean, I can quite see why you expected them to. But nobody has.

Truffles response does not surprise me sadly. The only place I know where people in the main seem to be really understanding and aware of autism and additional needs is on MN. In real life the majority think like Truffle, it's all just SO unfair that so many allowances are made for those SN naughty Kids, what about the rights of their precious NT darlings? They're missing out aren't they? Those people just can't seem to grasp the stress and fear that many children with autism are experiencing every minute of the day that they're out of their comfort zones, they'd rather resent and criticise instead. It's shameful and there's no excuse for it.

Maddy it's so hard. We had an atrocious relationship with DS's first school - the head of special needs for the county got involved by the end, and all I will say is that he was both sympathetic and apologetic - and the one we now have with school is for the most part excellent, which is a big relief. But that can make it harder to really push when you feel a mistake is being made, or they are underestimating a difficulty, because you are loathe to jeopardise a relationship that for the most part is functional, and often very good. You can't win for losing at times. But at this stage they sound like they took their eye off the ball really, really badly, and the current state of play was absolutely avoidable.

You sound like you're completely on top of it all, but have you started making notes for a meeting with the various staff/agencies for after his suspension? It does sound like a catalogue of oversights, and he's been penalised for a situation that other people's lack of sensitivity and provision caused.

purplevase I was at an exclusions workshop run by the NAS a few weeks ago and they said that if violence is involved, it isn't covered by disability discrimination so an exclusion is permitted and an appeal would probably fail.

That's true up to a point. However, if the violence is caused as a direct result of the failure to make reasonable adjustments, then the appeal would succeed. Adjustments include things like getting expert advice, identifying triggers and strategies to avoid incidents escalating into a meltdown, providing for sensory difficulties, and provision of things like cards to enable pupils to leave the classroom if they need to and safe spaces/calm rooms etc.