Please help, school exclusion.

[Blossomplease6]

I’m aware this is the wrong board but I need advice quickly and the sen boards are slow and quieter.
My son, 8, is I think on the verge of being expelled from school. I’m so scared, he would be devastated. I’m terrified of him having to go to a bee school who don’t understand him and he would be heartbroken and scared.
He has no diagnosis, we’re waiting for camhs at the moment. He’s having meltdowns at school, which can be quite violent and are aimed at teachers. Never students. We can’t work out why, there are triggers but normally small things that shouldn’t cause such a breakdown.
Where do I stand legally? I have a meeting coming up and I just think they’re going to say they can’t cope with him anymore. He wasn’t like this before. There’s always been issues, and meltdowns at school but he was never violent until his first stint in keyworker school last year. That then stopped when he returned to normal school in September. But has restarted again after Xmas and the latest lockdown.

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@Mumofsend thanks will look now

@Blossomplease6 there are videos on the Lives In Balance website and the Facebook page that basically outline the all techniques, there's less emphasis on needing to write the lagging skills down too now.

Apologies for my ignorance but can I ask OP why you (and others in your situation) are reluctant to look at a specislist school? Why the desire to stay in mainstream education? TIA

@Logoplanter Because he is happy (for the most part) there and has friends. He’s been there 5 years and everyone knows him really well and understands him. He keeps telling me how much he loves his new class.
For me it’s not about mainstream or specialist. It’s just wanting him to stay where it is. He would be absolutely devastated if he had to move schools. I honestly don’t think he’d recover from it, it’d have a lasting impact on his self esteem and he’d obviously struggle with such a change.

@Logoplanter it is exceedingly hard to get a place in specialist school. Even if specialist is agreed by the LA actually finding a suitable one is a whole new challenge.

Without a diagnosis not all schools are available particularly for autism

Often specialist schools can have extremely challenging behaviour which se children cope even less well with

In lots of areas academically capable children aren't catered for in specialists.

In an ideal world specialist school should be available to all who need it but reality is really bleak in comparison

My worry would also be that he would struggle socially m, to build friendships with children with higher needs than his and social difficulties. He has friends now.
He is also academically able.
Yes he has needs but on the whole, if he has support and stays in class like he used to then he will be ok.

@Logoplanter

Apologies for my ignorance but can I ask OP why you (and others in your situation) are reluctant to look at a specislist school? Why the desire to stay in mainstream education? TIA

For a large group of children with additional needs specialist is even less suitable for them than mainstream. In a lot of areas there is a forgotten section of children who don’t fit in anywhere.

Within an hours drive from me there is one specialist school that can offer a wide range of GCSEs, that school when I visited wasn’t a good match for DS at all.

Ds will be moving to a mainstream secondary with a full support package in September. This is the only school where they can realistically meet his complex needs. If that placement doesn’t work then we are stuffed.

It’s not as simple as mainstream or specialist it’s about finding the best option for the individual child.

@Blossomplease6 he sounds so anxious to me. Dd has autism and anxiety , amongst other things. If anyone touched her during meltdown it would have been a disaster. She needs space and quiet without input.
Dd had a good SENCO in primary and her EHCP was issued in Y7 after she disintegrated. She's still in Mainstream and predicted good grades.
The EHCP and the EP input was a game changer.

@Logoplanter

Apologies for my ignorance but can I ask OP why you (and others in your situation) are reluctant to look at a specislist school? Why the desire to stay in mainstream education? TIA

Its a good question and until you start looking at specialist schools it seems a good solution. But specialist schools have specialisms. Most are for learning difficulties and dont offer qualifications, which isnt any good if your child could do GCSEs, some are for speech and language issues in particular which not all children have, some are for physical needs and set up with hoists or for braille. There are some that are for behavioural issues which seems like a good fit on face value but behaviour has many causes so for a lot of children with autism the behaviour techniques used are not the right ones so cause problems. Eg the way you tackle attachment issues is different than autism. Finally there simply arent places. So children dont have a choice of mainstream or special. They have a choice of mainstream or sit at home witbout a placement at all. There are 1000s of children with no school place.

Specialist schools are limited for academically able children with sen. I would really push push and push some more for the EHCP and then ask for a second opinion for ASD once the adhd assessment has been completed. Some children seem to be not neurotypical and just under the threshold for a number of things which is very difficult in terms of getting support. If he is able to you could look at the window of tolerance work and help him recognise when he is finding things difficult or similarly the zones of regulation programme is often used in schools and can help him identify triggers and strategies to help him feel supported and calm down.

If you do get an EHCP then considering something specialist for secondary might be appropriate depending on your location.

Sorry he’s having such a tricky time at school. I do completely understand your desire to keep him at school where he know people, has friends etc. I do think that early ks2 is where a lot of issues which can be explained away by immaturity start to be recognised as something more.

I hope your meetings are useful. In your shoes I would apply for the EHCP myself and tell the SENCO to expect a request for information. You don’t need a diagnosis for an EHCP, but lots of people have already covered that.

Visual time tables, a sensory assessment, part time time tables are all things that you and the school can consider. When DS was first diagnosed, I did a course where they talked about LAST - Listen, acknowledge, solve together. I have found this approach very helpful.

Like you, I would want to avoid a PRU, but there are other alternatives. As I said before, I totally understand your wanting to keep him where he is, but what you want to avoid is him being PE. You’d think it would speed up the LA in helping to find an alternative placement, but it doesn’t seem to. Locally we have a primary alternative provision panel, which helps in these sorts of situations - Google grow Essex if you want to have a look. We haven’t used it personally, but I know families who have and have found it helpful. Good luck.

One thing to bear in mind is that a paediatrician can’t say whether or not a child should have an EHCP. He or she can offer advice and opinion, which will be taken into account, along with all the evidence that your child needs something additional to or different from others in the class.

Any request for an EHCP needs to be accompanied by evidence from everyone involved and the panel will expect to be able to identify what the school has done to make a difference, what support has been put in place, whether other professionals have been involved, their reports and recommendations and whether their input has made a difference. It has to be measurable, so that the panel see whether or not anything has worked, for how long and what the plan for next steps will be.

Thank you for the responses and the helpful information from everyone. I understand a lot better now and can see the difficulty people are in. I really hope you get the help you need for you DS OP. Good luck.

They should be addressing the behaviours and providing support with or without a diagnosis so this is very poor of the school.

Not being excluded. At least not yet. Have a battle ahead though I think.

You like the school?
Respect the teachers?
Respect the head

Presumably if you are committed to your son staying there.

So I’m struggling to see why you wouldn’t trust them now?

I don’t think I said I didn’t trust them? Although today’s conversation has put some doubts in my mind.

I think with most decent schools, they will be very supportive in the first instance and try lots of things. As time goes on, they start to become more realistic about the long term abilities to support and start becoming a bit more honest....usually in the hope you will recognise without them having to spell it out to you that it's not the right placement.

I remember getting angry at school for not doing enough, not trying hard enough, for blaming me or ds or anyone else. When in reality, in a different placement, it was SO easy. There's no fighting. No battles. Needs met without having to spell anything out. I think the MS schools often know this but are stuck between a rock and a hard place because there are so few specialist placements around.

@Salarymallory

You like the school? Respect the teachers? Respect the head

Presumably if you are committed to your son staying there.

So I’m struggling to see why you wouldn’t trust them now?

I must say, I'd struggle to trust a school that had delayed so long in getting an EHCP when it was so blatantly necessary.

@Foxyloxy1plus1

One thing to bear in mind is that a paediatrician can’t say whether or not a child should have an EHCP. He or she can offer advice and opinion, which will be taken into account, along with all the evidence that your child needs something additional to or different from others in the class.

Any request for an EHCP needs to be accompanied by evidence from everyone involved and the panel will expect to be able to identify what the school has done to make a difference, what support has been put in place, whether other professionals have been involved, their reports and recommendations and whether their input has made a difference. It has to be measurable, so that the panel see whether or not anything has worked, for how long and what the plan for next steps will be.

That goes way beyond what the law requires, and would build in wholly unnecessary delay. The legal criteria for carrying out an assessment are that (a) the child has or may have SEN and (b) they may need provision via an EHCP. It should not be necessary for the school to sort out professionals' reports because that is what the local authority is supposed to arrange as part of the assessment process. It doesn't have to be measurable - how on earth do you measure the sort of distress that is caused by massive sensory sensitivity, or a child's anxiety that is keeping them out of school?

I appreciate that that may be what some local authority panels ask for, but if they do they do not understand their legal duty.

@Blossomplease6

I don’t think I said I didn’t trust them? Although today’s conversation has put some doubts in my mind.

My point is They clearly think the school isn’t the right environment for your son

So you presumably really rate the school highly if you are so desperate for your son to stay there
And yet you don’t respect their professional view
And you don’t seem to rate how they have handled the current situation situation

Hence why I’m confused why you’re so keen for your son to stay there?!

I would get into the habit of following up meetings with an email just give a paper trail so just a “following this mornings meeting I would like to confirm that we agreed x y and z”