To feel really bloody cheated that ds has to be home educated?

[witchesbroth]

Ds8 has HFA, sensory issues, anxiety - all of which results in exploding behaviour and exclusions from school. His self esteem and confidence is very low, he has no friends and has been made to be away from the class with a TA for so long now. We've been fighting the system for over a year for all the relevant assessments, help, EHCP but it's all come too little too late. The school placement has broken down and he's at home with no school to go to. He's under the LEA still but apart from another mainstream support (rinse and repeat) or a school for mod-severe LD (he's profoundly academically gifted).

He wants to be at school - he can't. There's none for him
He wants friends - he's got none
He wants to be part of shared experiences at school - residential, projects, discos, trips - he can't
He wanted to go to the grammar school for secondary -no idea....they don't like EHCPs apparently

Instead he's at home. Alone. Learning off websites and feeling shit about himself.

What I'm most annoyed about is how the system has let him down. If the help, support and funding went in when he first went into crisis, we wouldn't be in this mess but he was left to get worse and worse.

Waving at you from Australia. Exactly the fecking same here. My DD is having to do remote, online school for Year 7 for exactly the same reasons as your son. She's so lonely it breaks my heart.

My friend's son is just about to finish Year 12 (also ASD) and we were taking to him about how University will be better, that he would find friends and he looked at us and said people kept telling me all through school it would get better and it never did.

What I find so horrifying is that LAs can fine parents for their child missing a couple of days’ schooling for a wedding in Aberdeen because they deem every school day so vitally important, yet sit by watching children like your son miss months and months of school because they won’t find appropriate places. Why is his education not as important to them as everyone else’s?

The sheer hypocrisy.

They should pay you their fine of £60 per day per parent for every day they don’t provide a place.

Just keep on fighting OP, I got my daughters EHCP plan put in place when she was 8.

None of it would have happened if I had not become a pain in their backsides, I called every single day, I wrote letters, I got the Director of RNIB involved which finally got them to sit up and take notice.

If there is a society for your sons conditions get help from them, get the doctors involved, get school involved one thing I have learnt is that once school gets involved your local SEND will have to take note. Find out about special schools who can help him with his needs and go and see them.

No doubt you have but it is worth just nagging and nagging and nagging, if anything also put a complaint in. We had to with our local SEND team as they were messing me about. Trust me they sit up and take notice. It took me 8 months of nagging, whinning, harrassing and getting everyone involved. Just be a pain in their backside, I had a notepad with every conversation written down, dates, times, tel numbers, names, what was discussed etc. So that they could not backtrack.

Good luck it is hard work but you can do it.

If you do move come to n.e.lincs, we actually have several units off mainstream schools for HFA, including primary schools. My DS is at one. Particularly Humberstone academy is specifically geared towards academic kids with special needs

@witchesbroth
I am local(ish) to you and have sent you a PM? I’ve previously been a teacher and now work in semh. Can you confirm you’ve recieved:) xxx

I am terrified we're going to end up in the same position with our HFA daughter. Secondary - the local "outstanding" secondary clearly couldn't give a shit about sen kids and pretty much said this. Luckily we have another mainstream option where their sen team seem much more on the ball and inclusive. However, I don't know whether she will cope with the size of the classes and the overwhelming feeling of being in such a big school (1100 kids). There is a private option available if the mainstream doesn't work, but she has no echp and we would be bankrupting ourselves to send her there, with 2 other children to consider. The alternative is home ed but then one of us will have to give up work. We may have to do this in any case as the amount of time we need to spend with her reassuring and supporting seems to be growing, and I am worried that the gap between her and her peers is growing. I am wondering about setting up a free school specifically to meet hfa children's needs, but whether I can get it in place in time for secondary I don't know, I'm not sure I have the energy at the moment. Xx

Hi hear you OP and sympathise completely. We have been in a very similar position. There is just no provision for these children. It’s so sad, infact it’s more than sad it’s a national disgrace. 😢

This is an example of how autistic people fall between services. Ds1 needs occupational therapy, but they aren't commissioned to work with people who have sensory integration difficulties. Which is one of the reasons we need OT.
Have you been referred to CAMHS?
I feel your pain. It's so hard.

There is a huge missing link. We have had an inclusive policy since the 60’s but yet still there is not the right provision for our children and as schools become more like factories even more challenging for our children

I'm so sad for you that the school system has let your son down so badly - and you too. As PP have said, it's not surprising under the current regime because they don't give a flying fuck about people with disabilities for starters (obviously), and they are paring the state education system down to the bare bones, probably to further enable the plutocracy that they're putting in place at the moment.

If you can't find anywhere to take him, which seems the most likely outcome, are there no provisions whereby you can get free entry to things because of homeschooling? I'm sure I've heard from some home-schooling groups that they can get discounted or free entry to certain venues because it's for school purposes. I don't know enough about it, I'm sorry, but if you join (or have already joined) local home-schooling groups on Facebook, it might be something to ask about.

He either goes to a special school and sacrifices the learning and won't fulfil his potential and he will be bored and miserable to not be learning a mainstream curriculum and to be with peers who don't have the same level of intellect or he stays in mainstream and lives in the corridor never being included in case he kicks off in an anxious panic which leaves him depressed and suicidal at the isolation.

OP, I’m sorry you’re having such difficulties but it sounds as though there is a special school place on offer so wouldn’t it be worth taking?

Then he can have friends and class trips and discos, and be included. The school may well be able to provide extra learning for gifted and talented.

And it sounds a bit elitist to say he wouldn’t make friends with peers who aren’t at his intellectual level. Can’t they make friends over their love of football or Pokemon?

You’ve tried mainstream and it hasn’t worked out. Try the special school and see what happens there. It could be much better than you fear.

Our appeal to Tribunal was adjourned last week but I am appealing for a specialist school placement that can provide dd with the autism support she needs alongside the mainstream education she is capable of (IQ in superior range)
Our LA want to place her in a special school for children with MLD and SLD. The school accept they can't meet her educational needs and so the LA propose to fund tutors to teach dd in isolation. They also accept that there isn't a peer group for her and so they propose to import one from the mainstream school that shares the site.
Dd has been out of school for ten months now she missed the majority of year ten we are now into year eleven and still the LA maintain that a school that can provide neither the education or peer group is the right school for dd.
Schools to look at would be schools within the SENAD, Priory and Hesley group who will all have experience of children with similar profiles. You probably need to consider residential if you have nothing in your area. You definitely need to call an emergence review of the EHCP if your child is no longer attending the school named in part I so that you can lodge an appeal to Tribunal.

I'm a little that you think SEN schools won't meet his intellect.
Have a look at Birtenshaw School. There's one in Bolton and one in Liverpool. My severely autistic DS has just started there (4) and they're pushing him like you wouldn't believe. Everyday I get emails about what he's done in literacy, numeracy, food tech etc
It's classes of 5 or 6 and an absolutely incredible environment. They're not just for children with learning difficulties, they are considered private as they are charity run. You would have to fight your local council like mad, but if you're sure there's nowhere else to go, then they'd literally have to allocate you a place and pay the funding.

witches, it's crap, it really is, but this is the way things are at present and while I understand your rage you may have to just accept that there is no workable solution for your son in the current school system. Perhaps if you look at home education as a positive opportunity for your family you may feel less angry about it. I home educated my son from age nine right up to college (deregistered under similar circumstances to yours) and my only regret is that I didn't do it sooner.

Get involved in the local HE community and your son will find friends and other opportunities that probably won't have been available to him at school. It's definitely different, but in so many ways it's better than school because you have control, and that means you can limit your child's stress and work with him on developing life skills and independence. You call the shots and that's very empowering.

You might want to look at the Ed Yourself website. Fiona, who runs it, has a lot of experience of home educating with SEN and there's a lot of good advice on her pages, including help with securing an EHCP whilst home educating.

There are loads of resources out there, and tons of support and advice. I totally get your frustration at being forced into something you didn't want, but try to look at it as a positive change and you might surprise yourself.

Best of luck .

At Dominic's in godalming have boarding I believe and sounds suitable

St. Dominics

Thanks all for the messages. It's very sad that so many people are living the same thing.

The mainstream he was in is actually very inclusive and dealt with ASD and behaviours over and over pretty well. But he was massively struggling with the volume of children, the noise, the unpredictability of everyone and the exclusion from all the other children. I kept saying, he deserves better than sometimes just about managing or massively struggling. He deserves better than being severely anxious all the time. The school did what they could but it got worse and worse.

I only say about special schools not meeting his intellectual needs because that's what everyone has told us. He's profoundly gifted and capable of working at secondary level (he's 7 - doesn't work at this level obviously but his potential is there) and EP has said that a huge part of his anxiety is not having academic needs met as this fuels his self esteem the most and keeps him happy and calm.

At his mainstream school he was regularly put in a separate area with all the SN together (all autism but varying degrees) and school said it was the wrong peer group for him and he got nothing from it. They said he needed a mainstream peer group in small groups with support on his social skills. He's incredibly social and wants friends he can discuss coding and minecraft and play chess and make intricate Lego models with who are also a bit understanding of his differences.

There is a priory school here in Yelverton but that is about 1hr15 away - more in summer months with the holiday traffic. It's not appropriate either as we were told it's not right for him. There's a Cambian locally but only for 25 secondary students only. We've been told there isn't a SS suitable.

I know the type of school he needs by piecing together all the bits he needs and avoiding bits he struggles with, we can design that theoretical school but there definitely isn't one in Devon. He would have to compromise massively and possibly not then cope as result and why the bloody hell should he have to? Why are his educational needs less important the other people's?

We will embrace home ed for now (and to ds, he knows nothing of this rage) and get out and about. I'm cross that we have to fund everything as there's thousands of pounds attached to his EHCP but getting ETOAS and getting a personal budget is like the holy grail and takes time so that money just sits there. I'm also worried that if dh can't get back to work within a year or two we will be up financial shit creek. We claim everything we can (DLA, CA) and we are still £100 short every month as I'm the only on earning now. It keeps me awake at night.

Try Ellen tinkham school in Exeter. Very very child led special school.

This all gives me the absolute rage.

I used to organise the appeal panels for SEN back in the '90s, and while it wasn't a perfect system, it was much better than the way it is now. I'm horrified at the things that go on.

A friend has a child with a slight sensory impairment, suspected ASD and MH issues (extreme anxiety, possible PTSD). He's a school refuser, because he hates being away from his mother. He started secondary this term and there have been a few occasions when he has had total meltdowns and my friend hasn't been able to get him to school. Friend went to meet with the SENCO, and practically the first thing she said was "Have you considered home education?" No discussion about support in school, reducing hours or anything.

It seems they care more about their attendance figures than educating her child.

Another friend home educated her boys, one has AS, the other more severe ASD. They did well in GCSE's, despite being educated at home, both went on to college and both got places at uni. Sadly, I lost touch with her when she moved, so don't know how uni went for them. She had support from local home ed groups and NAS.

The system for children who need help is fucked imo and they're being written off.

Also a bit you won’t consider sending him to a SEN school as the other children won’t be intelligent enough for him.

I know it’s harsh, but ultimatley he’s got a big gap in his ability to function. Being academically able isn’t the only skill children need to succeed to live independently, or get any job, let alone a ‘good’ job via university etc. Rote learning lots of subjects will not help him maintain his own flat, make friends etc.He needs to learn social skills and coping, and SEN schooling could help him with this. Why not give it a try.

I take ‘High functioning’ autism to mean children with autism that have a high level of social functioning (I.e they can mask successfully), rather than a high academic ability

I would look to school to provide his educational needs in a supportive environment. And look to satisfy his social needs outside of school. Not ideal but Ellen tinkham would see his potential

Hi OP, I know your plight, it's so hard and so unfair. I know lots of children with your son's profile due to my job and family situation and the tree places I know they have thrived are St. Dominic's www.stdominicsschool.org.uk/ and Unstead Park, which is part of the Priory group of schools. www.priorychildrensservices.co.uk/find-a-location/unsted-park-school-surrey The Priory have a number of different schools so may have one closer to you but they all have slightly different focuses.

As long as he has an EHCP you should be able to get in. Not without a fight but as he's out of education that helps. Was he excluded or did you 'choose' to home ed? If excluded you've got a better chance...

Good luck, it is completely rubbish and very common with able children With SEN.

Our local special school (Somerset) has a provision in the comprehensive. The students are on roll in the Sen School but attend mainstream. They have their own base - low arousal, safe space to return to for transitions and can be educated there if they are unable to stay within the mainstream class. They have specialist support staff and teachers who work with them. The aim is for the young people to work with their peers in a mainstream environment with the additional social and emotional support that they need to access it.

It's very successful. The Special school also has many young people following the national curriculum and getting good grades, who are unable to be in mainstream due to their anxieties and behaviours, not academic reasons. They have small class sizes 6-10 support staff, quiet rooms attached to each class, a huge outside area with a wooded area, trampolines and equipment and a swimming pool.

My neighbours recently moved from Cardiff in order to access it for their daughter with HFA. They considered using the 4 night residential provision - Mon-Fri at school home every weekend. Which could be a possibility from Devon.