To be furious at ds school?

[weneednopants]

This is going to be a long post. Sorry
So backstory is ds (6) has sn. With various extra conditions. One of which is bowel issues. He either can't go or is very much the other way (sorry tmi). Anyway just before Christmas he was going through a lets say loose episode. Not contagious just his normal movements. Now he struggles with coordination and finds cleaning himself after toileting very difficult. Added to this he has asd and will have a complete meltdown if he gets poo on his hands. So in light of this I rang school to advise that he may need assistance when he uses the toilet just while he was going through this episode. His allocated 1:1 ta phones back to say in no uncertain terms she wasn't willing to help him and because he was likely to have a meltdown she didn't want him to come in until his bowel movements had firmed up.
So to the aibu part.
Today I received from the school an attendance warning letter. Telling me we are on a monitored 6 week period. If attendance doesn't improve we will be put before the attendance panel and face possible prosecution. His attendance dropped because the school wouldn't allow him to attend and now I'm put on warning!! I wanted him to go to school during that period not be at home perfectly well and bored but because his ta wouldn't wipe his arse when it needed it he had to stay home. Am I wrong in thinking this is totally unfair and in fact the school should be taking responsibility for his absence. Sorry for the long post

Of course this would be part of the TAS job and wouldn't be a safeguarding risk. An intimate care plan should be in place which safeguards both adult and ahold and states exactly what the adult should and should not do ( whether this is changing a nappy, helping wipe or verbal instructions. )
His needs should be met by the school, who at the moment are failing him.
It should also be in his EHCP .

I would bat it right back to the attendance officer and say that he was not allowed to attend school because they refused to help with his disability.

School should have an intimate care policy and he should have an intimate care plan. Being told not to come in because school ta is unwilling to provide intimate care would be an illegal exclusion where I am, or very close as they are not making adjustments for him.

I can email you examples of both if you need them and you should be asking your SENCO for these documents.

I can see why you're so frustrated but it would come under a CQC heading of personal care and if they're not registered for it then they would be breaking the law. I really do sympathise as I was a teacher in an ASD unit and we had similar issues.

I can see you have it covered now with the new TAs, but in your formal letter to the headteacher you do need to say 'he was excluded from education due to continence issues which was obviously discriminatory'. Onley better worded, rushing. Put the discrimination in writing!

Bubblysqueak: It may not be a safeguarding risk for the child, but what about the adult? I wouldn't put myself in a position where a child could say I assaulted them and there were, by the nature of the situation, no witnesses. This goes against everything I have been trained to do - classroom doors open, avoid physic contact with students, make sure there is a witness if you have to touch a student etc. I really do feel it is unreasonable to expect TAs to provide intimate care, especially with no back-up.

Is school nursing involved? They would likely hand this TA ( no pun intended) their arse. Had a friend who had similar trouble and school nursing helped sort out this discrimination issue.

The intimate care plan nearly always states 2 adults.

The left hand hasn't spoken to the right; the attendance letter will have been automatically generated. I would absolutely respond to the HT, howevrer, ensuring that this has not been recorded as an unauthorised absence.

How have you been educating your DS while he has been at home? Has the school supported you at all with this? They really should.

trifle there are loads of safeguards that can be built into it and if TAs are unhappy doing it alone then individual intimate care plans can state that two adults can be present. It is ok for one though and is the default position of my local authority unless we as a school want to say differently. Some tas do, some don't but as I said, there are things in place to support tas.

Bubblysqueak: As well it should, but clearly not in this case so I think the TA was spot on to refuse.

No, fair enough but the school shouldn't have allowed him to be off for this reason and should have provided support from someone else.

CheckpointCharlie2: I wouldn't be happy doing it in the circumstances described. Obviously the family need an intimate care plan in place so if that wasn't in place, the TA was right to refuse.

We did all have quite a debate about it though in my school! It took a while for us to get everyone's opinions and therefore the policy right for our school and our TAs.

If the TA refused, the school should have found someone else ( or 2 someone else's) to do it.

Trifle has aired her views on disabled children elsewhere, and refuses to help them in any situation. I think she craves attention and we should stop giving it to her.

Soz trifle x posts all over the shop! Yes I totally understand where you are coming from, some of the TAs in my school felt the same way too so we built that in to the policy.

Surely if the TA refuses then the school needs to sort an alternative? If he has a care plan and intimate care needs then the school has to facilitate that. By replacing the TA with one who is willing to carry out that part of the role as one option.

You need to get it added into the EHCP and then if a TA prefers not to provide intimate care they can be asked at interview stage and the school can appoint accordingly. Ds's care was written into his statement and the person who would change him and a relief (in case his TA was absent) were named. Each change was documented as well there were never two TAs and ds was changed in an area specific to him and that afforded him the privacy he needed.

LucklessMonster: That's a bit much, Luckless. This is a tricky situation and people are entitled to protect themselves. I would seek Union advice but I don't think I could be obliged to do this.

The head has let the school down here as she seems to have just shrugged and gone 'oh well' when the TA refused to do this. And even if the TA doesn't know what the legal position is, the head certainly should.

I would email the head with what you've said in your op and request a meeting. The letter they've sent is clearly ridiculous!

TA's wiping children's bottoms is not common practice in mainstream schools, and I don't blame the TA at all for refusing to do it.

These aggressive attendance letters do happen fairly automatically, and in our area social services get involved very quickly too. My Dd had a painful condition which kept her off school for days here and there for about 6 months while it was resolved; the doctor was very happy to write to the school explaining that this was unavoidable, sometimes she was too unwell to be at school.

I still got unpleasant threatening letters, and a call from SS (no previous involvement with them). Each time I mentioned the doctors letter and it was dropped immediately (SS didn't even want a copy...). I think they all must have a rule that they have to show they took action over absence...

As other posters have said, write down the facts clearly (and politely, even if you don't feel like it!), State that there seems to be a misunderstanding, and that you'd like a meeting to ensure there is no repetition of this sequence of events.

Thank you everyone for all your advice. I will write a letter to ht asking for the absences to be recorded as authorised as it was due to their decision not ours. I'm confident that this won't arise again as his new TA's are amazing. And they like working with ds. Unfortunately the school had a few issues before Christmas with ds being intentionally segregated from his peers by both his 1:1 and form tutor. Fortunately both positions are now filled by new staff. And they are working very hard to reintegrate him into the classroom. It's looking very positive now. Which is why I think I was so outraged that after things seemed to be going down the right path. The attendance letter felt like a step backwards in acceptance of ds needs

Trifle, the point is that if the TA chooses to refuse, she should refuse to her head teacher or line manager, not to the parent. Instead of apparently taking it upon herself to illegally exclude the child. Which is absolutely not her right or her responsibility.