... to feel worried about not keeping DD in mainstream?

[Jourdain11]

A bit hypothetical, as we're not yet even sure what options are going to be on the table, but this seems to be the way things are moving at the moment.

I'm worried that her options will be so limited further down the line and I'm actually unsure whether the environment will even be helpful to her (she gets very stressed and overwhelmed by noise, change of routine, etc. etc.).

I'm worried that I'm being a pushy mother, however, and allowing my wish for my child to "achieve" to outweigh what is good for her!

Thanks for all this! It has been really helpful and positive to read. I guess I was just worrying too much about it being kind of "irreversible" and I can see now that this is obviously not the case. She's just turned 9 (sorry if I forgot to say earlier) and will be going into Y5 next year, so it is still early in a way and there's even still going to be a bit of breathing room for thinking about secondary. She is academically quite able in a lot of ways, but to be truthful, I don't think she has got anything out of school this year because the environment is just so overwhelming for her...

There is a wide variety of specialist placements. You can shop arou d and fi d whatever may suit your dd better than other options - then play the game and argue why the. Others are shit.

I remember the day when I had the final meeting with DD’s mainstream school in year 9, when it was finally universally agreed that she could no longer cope there. A TA who had worked closely with her and had been in the meeting took me aside and said “I shouldn’t really say this, but off the record, you’ve done exactly the right thing. I see so many kids here who are like your dd and are struggling so much every day, but their parents just keep sending them in”. That meant the world to me. I had no idea what the next step would be, didn’t have an EHCP at that point.

She ended up at an amazing specialist school where her mental health improved in leaps and bounds. She’s much happier and comfortable with herself. That’s all I care about really. She’s very bright but only ended up taking 3 GCSEs, which I could see as being a shame, but on the other hand the cost to her mental health of keeping her at mainstream would not have been worth 9 GCSEs.

She’s a happy, lovely, funny girl and she’ll be fine, it might just take a bit longer with her.

@blissfulllife could you say a bit about why your daughter isn't in school (or DM me)? My DS (also 6) is also out of school and I'm having a nightmare of a time trying to get him a place :(

@UmamiMammy

Local authorities don't suggest specialist provision unless they really think it is needed.............bottom line is keeping a child in mainstream is far cheaper. Keep in mind that it is far easier to move from specialist provision in the future rather than the other way around.

@UmamiMammy even if in Mainstream they have to have a full 1:1? I know here while I was getting my eldest's first EHCP (when he was in nursery) it was starting to become clear that in mainstream he would need a full time 1:1 and there was a lot of pressure for me to send him to the local general special school (where apparently they never did 1:1s and so the LA wrote EHCPs in a way that never actually said 1:1 ). I later found out the local state school was 'place funded' at £10,000 so a full time TA's wage in a mainstream school would have been more than that. I also found out they'd been doing the same to many other families in a similar position. So while I tend to agree with your statement, LAs don't always only suggest specialist in the best interests of the child.

It may depend on where you live. In Hertfordshire the special schools are all MLD or SLD so all the kids have to have a learning disability primarily and most have ASD, ADHD, Downs Syndrome alongside.

Unless there is quite a significant element of intellectual impairment the County Council will want them to stay in MS.

My son has never been MS schooled - we thought we were 'choosing' SS and for a long time I worried that I had made him 'more disabled' than he would have been if we'd chosen MS. Which was ridiculous of course, but these decisions are exceptionally hard to make ime.

DS is yr 6 now and doing wonderfully. He has a purpose-built world which flexes to his individual needs.

Dd starts in a MLD school in September. I'm very excited for her. Primary school has been very supportive and done their best - but she's drifted away from her peers and is often taught in 1-2-1. I didn't want that for her in secondary. Also she's visited the MS secondary and found it overwhelming on a sensory level. I can't imagine her there.

I have had to ditch worrying about academics and focus on how best to support her mental well-being.

I laughed when a poster wrote about worrying about making them more disabled- that was exactly my worry too! It's taken me a long time to really recognise that what I wanted for her and what she needs are quite different.

@LadyOfLittleLeisure

In my area, a special school place is much more expensive than 1-1 provision in a mainstream school. My dc would require 1-1 in mainstream but attends a special school where he is in a class of 8 with 5 staff ........1-1 is not required for him in that setting but there are some in his school who require 2:1 support.

I have been a governor in a special school for 10 years and know the system here and how it is funded, I have helped fellow parents to access specialist provision. In my experience, it is much easier to move down a level of specialist provision than up.

@UmamiMammy I do think our area is a bit odd in that it seems to push their local special school on quite a few parents (I've heard far more experiences like yours). I am just deeply suspicious of whatever any LA suggests. Completely bitter about the system and we've only been in it a handful of years :(

Is it Michel Charles (sp) specialised solicitor who helps families fight the local authority over ehcp and provision and so on.

Local authorities seem more agaisnt families with these needs than for. Secondly I've known 1:1 actually used for many other dc and infact many dc who need support don't get it because they don't know their dc needs it, for a range of reasons, they don't know how to get it and so on. You may have a class with 1 child who may seem quite academic competent, and 3 dc who really struggle to read and write and desperately need support, so teachers use the ehcp support for them.

Op private school? Smaller classes?

Puttingouthefirewithgasoline if the EHCP is specific and quantified the parents can enforce the EHCP if it states 1:1 but it isn't given. 1:1's should not be used to support other pupils.

LadyofLittleLeisure whilst you find another placement the LA should be providing the provision in the EHCP. For example, via home tutoring.

My Ds is 16 nearly 17 and has been in mainstream all the way through. 10green is right, functioning is far more important. Ds can't cope with anything independently, barely eats and has significant mental health difficulties. I'm struggling to think of what he has gained from mainstream education, apart from his GCSES. He has no friends, no self esteem and feels like he has no future.

We are for the first time looking at a specialist college next week. I don't care about academics or anything like that anymore....I just want my child to feel happy again and be able to function (he's been struggling since year 5). Academic achievements and a mainstream education mean absolutely nothing, when your child can barely leave their own bedroom.

@LadyOfLittleLeisure my daughter was diagnosed ASD aged 8. Her primary was small and she'd been there since nursery. Very little problems coping with school, a little anxiety in the morning but nothing serious. So when secondary school was looming I approached school about an ehcp. I know my daughter and I knew she would not cope in our huge ms secondary. They told me I wouldn't get one. They got the Ed psych in too and they also said I had no chance as she didn't have much additional needs in school. What they weren't seeing is that apart from school my daughter didn't leave our house, couldn't cope with supermarkets or noisy environments. Was socially mute. Couldn't cope with change. So we started the process of visiting our local secondary's, and we couldn't even get her through the doors of most. We were then offered the largest and worst out of them all. I was assured they'd help her transition. But the pandemic hit and it didn't happen. What actually happened was they did an induction day and truly ballsed it up by losing her in the school, she was found screaming, scared and self harming. We never did manage to get her back into that school for longer than 30 mins.

Her mental health spiralled and she tried to take her own life twice. I grabbed at any support I could and Barnardos came up trumps. Camhs waiting list for help us over a year long where I am. Barnardos got her some online therapy through autism West Midlands. They also then put me in touch with sendias who talked me through the process of a parent lead ehcp. I applied in November and it was accepted!. Last month I had my draft ehcp which recommended specialist ASD provision. I'm thrilled especially after so many people said She wouldn't get it. They recommend 2 schools. One for children with social and emotional problems which means they can't cope in ms school and the second is an ASD specialist school. Very small school, very small class sizes and lots of trained lovely staff. The only downside I felt at the time was the smaller amount of GCSEs she'd be doing but I also know she won't cope with doing as many as my other children have done. They also carry on support through college. She chose this one as she liked the other children and it felt right for her.

Next induction day tomorrow and instead of being an emotional wreck she planning her day phew x

@blissfulllife I'm so sorry to hear how badly you and your daughter were failed :( Did you deregister her to home educate or just not send her? I deregistered my son when he had awful school refusal (similarly with screaming and self harming) but even though he had an EHCP it's been very difficult to get him back into the system.

I’m in a job where I visit mainstream and specialist schools and one thing I always notice is how much better the independent children of equivalent ability in a special school are able to be. They are in an environment which is aimed at their ability and therefore are able to access lessons and social activities without a huge amount of adult support. The same children in mainstream are likely to have an adult sitting next to them almost the entire time to allow them to access mainstream education which leaves them more dependant on adult support.

The children in special schools are also more likely to access opportunities to boost their confident as they are not unfairly competing against children who are much higher ability.

@Jourdain11

Thanks for all this! It has been really helpful and positive to read. I guess I was just worrying too much about it being kind of "irreversible" and I can see now that this is obviously not the case. She's just turned 9 (sorry if I forgot to say earlier) and will be going into Y5 next year, so it is still early in a way and there's even still going to be a bit of breathing room for thinking about secondary. She is academically quite able in a lot of ways, but to be truthful, I don't think she has got anything out of school this year because the environment is just so overwhelming for her...

Hey op although your daughter is just 9 I would advise doing research right now - visiting schools if you can, finding out what schools are available (not all of them are LA and they are surprising hard to discover sometimes - also you can go out of county as well), ensuring that the EHCP is leading towards her secondary requirements. I did this with DD and it helped a lot. I visited all kinds of school and was quite blunt about DD's needs and behaviour and even the autism hub school said that a SS would be best for her. It was v. useful to be able to pass this on to the LA when the time came to decide provision.

So for us SS was the only option and there are lots of benefits for DD- animals to look after, connections with a local stables, small classes, plenty of outside space, OT and EdPsych on site. But there are inevitable downsides too... the academic record is very poor (and they recently received a bad Ofsted because of this), there is a massive majority of boys to girls, and it's about 40 minutes away. Because it's a school that includes pupils with no LD but behavioural issues, many of the pupils are a bit shouty/sweary/violent. (Of course, DD is shouty/sweary/violent too, that's why she's there!). But DD is able to go every day and is relaxed there most of the time, which absolutely was not the case with mainstream, so fundamentally I'm a fan.

@LadyOfLittleLeisure I insisted they kept her on their register and gave them a sick note for her so I didn't get any fines. As she was still registered,and I started a parent lead ehcp, that triggered the school and ea contacting the educational psychiatrist to come out and assess her.

Best of luck everything is so confusing isn't it x

@10brokengreenbottles

Puttingouthefirewithgasoline if the EHCP is specific and quantified the parents can enforce the EHCP if it states 1:1 but it isn't given. 1:1's should not be used to support other pupils.

LadyofLittleLeisure whilst you find another placement the LA should be providing the provision in the EHCP. For example, via home tutoring.

@10brokengreenbottles unfortunately it was all taking so long while he was deteriorating and so I deregistered him to "electively" home educate. This was great for a few months because it was immediate and no welfare officers pressuring us but it's now a nightmare of our own making.

LadyofLittleLeisure You didn't need to EHE, by EHE you relieve the LA of their duties. As you have found deregistering often complicates matters and makes it even harder to get support. Bluntly, if DC are still on a school's roll, even if not attending, they are someone's 'problem', whereas it is all too easy to forget about and brush off those who are EHE.

If DS couldn't attend due to medical reasons you wouldn't have been fined. The LA have a statutory duty to provide education, and any other provision in EHCPs, to pupils who can't attend school due to medical reasons - including because of their mental health. Once you have provided evidence the statutory guidance is clear you should not be continually hounded for further evidence.

If you don't wish to continue EHE the LA must make arrangements to provide the provision in section F. If finding a suitable placement is taking time then they must do this via an EOTAS package.

@10brokengreenbottles yes we knew we were taking a risk by just deregistering but we were finding it difficult to get evidence as DS was minimally verbal and school were saying "he's fine here, must be a home problem" even though DS was screaming "no school" and "school bad" when he was with us. They kept saying they would ask an ed psych to see him but we found out they weren't requesting this as they thought it was our fault. We couldn't even get him to the doctor (we got asked to leave a GPs because he grabbed all their equipment and threw it all over the room) and he didn't have the capacity to answer a doctor's questions. It was a living hell and we had no idea what was going on. We also weren't allowed to see him in school to confirm if he really was "fine". This was at a special school so they're by no means a panacea.

I am really considering just saying I'm no longer home educating so he gets a tutor before we find a school (which is what my other DC gets). The LA now just completely ignore me so all deadlines keep getting missed. It's so difficult to negotiate or work with a LA who won't even respond.

The GP practice should be ashamed of themselves.

If the LA are ignoring you and missing statutory deadlines threaten Judicial Review. It usually makes them take notice, but if not a pre-action letter will. SOSSEN can help with pre-action letters.

DS1 has an EOTAS package with home tutors and therapies because there isn't a suitable school.