To be absolutely furious with DS's school?

[ONHmum1]

As a back story my 5yo DS is visually impaired, attends a mainstream school with on sight provisions for various disabilities/learning difficulties. He is currently on a waiting following a referral to CAMHS for an autism diagnosis. No diagnosis yet but 99% likely he is on the spectrum.

So as of lately DS hasn't been coping very well at school, hitting out, spitting, shouting, self harming etc. The same happened last year and we put it down to the changes in school this time of year, routine has gone down the pan, room changes with decorations, practicing for nativity etc etc. Day after day I have had negative comments in his home/school book to a point I have dreaded him coming home to read what he has done. They brought in a sticker chart for him to try and work towards, have been punishing him with loss of break times and dinner times until last week when I had a phone all home from his class teacher.

She began by asking me to start punishing my son at home so that it was backed up from school, then began to explain that the next form of punishment would be exclusion from the school!!

Am I being unreasonable to be furious that they are punishing my DS for their lack of knowledge/understanding/help they are giving him to be able to manage better, rather than just punishing him???

What bothers me most is we lost an absolutely amazing LSA at the end of reception when she decided to leave for another school, she worked alongside my DS's current 1-1 support and trained her up as she had no previous experience in visual impairment or SEN at all, everything the LSA had taught her seems to have vanished!
Thankfully I have kept in touch with LSA and had a long phone call with her and even she was disgusted.
DS does not understand charts, he doesn't understand that he has lost his dinner time because he had a meltdown at 9.30am because somebody touched him. He needs positive reinforcement which doesn't appear to be happening, he has 1-1 with a completely inexperienced TA, a school which prides itself on its SEN provisions and quotes on their website:

"At (removed name) Primary School we recognise that all pupils are entitled to a quality of provision that will enable them to achieve their potential. We believe in positive intervention, removing barriers to learning, raising expectations and levels of achievement and working in partnership with other agencies in order to provide a positive educational experience for all our pupils including those with a special educational need or disability."

Is failing my son!
I was beyond upset after the phone call but now I am furious. I have a meeting tomorrow straight after school with his teacher, TA, someone from the VI team, SEN coordinator and the headteacher and Im struggling to see how I'm going to keep my cool!!

So sorry for the long post!

Is there another, better school in the vicinity OP? One with some actual compassion? It must be awful having to send him there daily. :( I saw this happen to a friend in what was an "outstanding" school and she was so stressed by it that she eventually got her child into a much nicer and more inclusive school.

How do you know your son's TA is completely inexperienced? Do you know their qualifications? I am sure they are doing their best, but as you said, it is a very busy time of year in a primary school. I hope your son gets all the support he needs - the senco should be the one who is accountable for his 1:1 along with his teacher. If his behaviour is that difficult to handle, perhaps this isn't the school for him. The school has to think of all the other children in the class too. All the best for the meeting.

Oh I just can't bite my tongue any more! ummmmgogo what you are saying is breathtakingly ignorant and narrow minded.

if they can't manage him

He is there to be educated not managed. He needs support to access that education. They are failing to support him. That is down to their failings, their inadequate training, poor use of resources, and clear dismissal of the OP's strategies. They clearly cannot be arsed to do anything to help him. Autistic children re not wild animals in need of restraint and 'management'. They are children who may just need somone with a bit of understanding and expertise to put in place simple measures to alleviate his distress. That is the minimum they should be doing - let alone anything more proactive to help his development. This is not beyond the realm of expertise of mainstream schools - they have not even tried.

Fuck all to do with what "mumsnet" wants

They'll want to exclude him because it's too much like hard work to meet his needs.
And that

bialystockandbloom: Of course he is there to be educated, but that presupposes a level of staff control over him that clearly isn't there at the moment. 'Managing' his behaviour just means making sure he is safe, others are safe and he is not disrupting the classroom so that others can learn. Those are perfectly legitimate aims. The school may well not be doing that at the moment but it is not unreasonable for them to say they cannot manage a pupil, provided they do put the support in place.

But none of that applies to OP's ds. She's already said he isn't disruptive to the rest of the class, that he doesn't really interact with his peers at all, but is much more likely to self-harm. Nowhere has she said that he is a risk to any other child's safety. What she has said is that the school are failing to keep him safe, that he is having meltdowns, and is clearly distressed. And all they are doing is punishing him.

His 1-1 is clearly either inexperienced or not following strategies that have worked in the past, and that OP has suggested. If that TA is unable to 'control' him (or, more pertinently, help and support him) they need to put someone in with some expertise and training, and share learnings with his class teacher at the very least so that all adults are working consistently. This is not too much to ask for a ms school, and he has an EHCP.

Somewhere along this thread the narrative changed from 'ds being distressed and self-harming' to 'ds being out of control and disrupting the class', due to other posters comments.

If they had done everything in their power and held their hands up and said that they cannot cope/are unable to give him the access to education he needs then fine, i would be extremely understanding as it isnt fair on my DS, on the pupils or the staff.

But that isnt the case, and until it is i will fight this with all i have.

All i want is for him to be happy and to beable to cope as best he can in any environment. He is a smart child, his personality can light up a room, he has been through more medically in the last 5 years than most do in their entire lives. He doesnt deserve to be punished for something out of his control, he is a human being not a disability.

I will report back after tomorrows meeting- thankyou for all your help and advice so far, i cant tell you how much i appreciate it!

Of course, OP. Let us know how it goes.

Hope the meeting is positive OP💐

Bilyalstockandbloom Somewhere along this thread the narrative changed from 'ds being distressed and self-harming' to 'ds being out of control and disrupting the class', due to other posters comments.

That was the comments from Gin and others for whom
SEN = Disruption/violence.

And in a nutshell that's why such posters, even if they protest as being otherwise, are intrinsically disablist.

Good luck at the meeting op, you are the only one with your son's best interests at heart, so don't take any shit from them. If they are talking about exclusion and you feel that that is the best place for your son, you need to convince them otherwise. Xxx

Hope it goes well OP, you clearly know your stuff, I hope the meeting is calm and constructive

No people are not saying that Sen automatically equals disruption. But someone shouting and self harming in the corner of the classroom might draw the attention of the other children away from learning surely? And I was never intending to say the ops son was violent, I misinterpreted "hitting out and spitting" in her op to be directed at the other children not himself.

Ummmmgogo might draw the attention of the other children away from learning surely?

It might. And they might have to suck it up, because God knows every other card in life is stacked their way, and against kids with additional needs. So sometimes, in an integrated society, those with advantages may be inconvenienced.

Bialy - I think the disrupting comments were deduced from the op's original post when she states that her son was 'hitting out, spitting, shouting and self harming", although I agree that doesn't equal "out of control".

Hope you get a satisfying resolution in the meeting.

Sorry don't agree that they should suck it up! If the school can't stop him self harming then he shouldn't be there.

I genuinely don't understand how the above sentence is disabilist? Generally children who are self harming are unhappy?

Ummmgogo I genuinely can't see why you don't get that sometimes, in order for children with additional needs to be accommodated, other kids may be inconvenienced.

If he's self harming/distressed in school then school needs to do EVERYTHING they can to accommodate him, and if those adjustments and interventions (which his mother says they're not even doing) fail, then, and only then, consider a move. The temporary distraction of kids who don't the adjustments, is of secondary importance.

It's the equality vs equity picture isn't it?

porridge yes, exactly. And not a million miles away from 'keeping them away from normal society' attitudes. Out of sight, out of mind, someone else's problem.

if they bloody well managed his needs properly and adhered to the law he proabaly would not be so stressed that he was biting kicking spitting and self harming in the bloody classroom. It is probably schools mismanagement of his disability that is failing all the children in the class, but especially him.

Sorry don't agree that they should suck it up! If the school can't stop him self harming then he shouldn't be there.

Why is it an either/or? How about the school going out and getting professional advice on how to keep his stress levels within manageable limits, rather than increasing those stress levels by punishing him in a manner which he can't understand or learn from?

Yes.

Rather than the fit in or fuck off approach.

Ok unpopular but I'm going to be honest about my experience as being a parent in the other side who's child is one of many who has been on receiving end of the (in this case it would be your) child's outbursts-
The school has a duty of care to all its children
Your child is disruptive and not responded to measures implemented
Support isn't there as it has been and the new strategies aren't working
In the meantime the other children are disrupted and harmed by your child
It's hard to complain about a child who clearly has additional needs
My child then starts questioning why some children aren't told off in same way when they're naughty or hurt people
My child continues to be on receiving end of the less than ideal behaviour
In the experience I have I question whether mainstream school will ever be suitable for the child, who's needs are simply more complex than a busy classroom environment is set up for

Op, does the class teacher have a TA? Or is it just her?

NewBallsPlease as a parent who has been on that side of the coin as well as having a child in special school who constantly asks why her friends do x,y,z, it's quite simple:

You explain to your child that what is natural and easy for them is quite a lot harder for the other child and that even when they're doing their best, they might not behave as well as the other children. Then you tell them to focus on their own behaviour and let the grown ups deal with the other child's behaviour, because that is their job.

DD3 (NT) has coped very well with that strategy. Perhaps it helps having a sister with SN, but she cheerily announced one day (in front of a teacher) that it had been a great day because X (the boy that most people avoided because he was free with his fists, being assessed for SN, but DD3 really liked) had 'only hit her once today!'

Children can cope with the inequality if we help them to see that the playing field wasn't level to begin with. If Tabitha behaves beautifully with ease and Lucy has to make extreme efforts to even make it through a lesson without an outburst of some sort, let alone 'good' behaviour, but manages it, why should we award Tabitha with a star/point/praise for doing what has come so easily? Shouldn't we reward the effort that has produced the behaviour, in which case Lucy should get at least 3 stars for resisting the outburst.

Marinated schools have to get better at dealing with SN. There simply aren't enough SN provisions and the children that would have been given places in years gone by won't now, because the level of severe SN is rising so the places will be given to those children.