To want my autistic DC to start reception in mainstream?

[Ambern7]

DC gets on well at mainstream nursery but is developmentally behind peers. I am not happy with the special needs provisions in our area so have opted for mainstream with good support in place through EHCP, which we fought hard for.
However, professionals involved keep asking me if we are sure we don’t want to go with the special provisions, they have listed lots of things they think are great about the school, however I don’t think the facilities will benefit my DC personally.
These unwanted opinions have got me second guessing something I was so sure of previously. I just don’t see the problem of starting off in mainstream and seeing how it goes, AIBU?

The school may not close in the short term. However, if the total number in R+1+2 falls below 30, class merger with a single teacher is definitely on the cards, and staffing to separate 1 and 2 is very unlikely to be maintained over the coming couple of years. Even full schools are generally going to a ‘1 teacher for 30 children, TAs only for 1:1’ model for the next academic year to avoid catastrophic budget deficits.

Are you somewhere pretty rural then OP? If so, that for me would be another reason not to go for the mainstream local school. Reason being that it sounds like your DC's experience is going to be incredibly contingent on getting the right one to one in place, and even in the best case scenario that you ended up with the LA offering a raised salary, there still just aren't going to be that many people in the realistically commutable vicinity. It's a lot of eggs to put in the basket of a small local labour market at the moment.

I live semi-rurally and DS3's school is 50 miles away. It's incredibly tiring for him. There are nearer SEN schools but they are not suitable. Even so though schools the children living here have a minimum journey of an hour. This just isn't feasible for reception age DC who may also have high medical needs, and so it's not unsual to have DC with 2:1 support in mainstream here.

I wouldn't touch our local school with a bargepole though!

A village school simply couldn't provide any of this.

This depends on the school. There are a minority of village schools that can offer some or most of what you describe.

For example, this school has an excellent reputation for SEND. I am not local but aware of the school via a friend of a friend. The school was saved by joining a MAT after a campaign which included highlighting their SEND provision. The school offer forest school and lots of outdoor education including at the beach. The have outside play equipment, cooking, art, music, assembly, space to withdraw from lessons. The “intensive 1:1 learning” could be written into the EHCP as could weekly swimming. I don’t know about sensory garden. However I suspect they don’t have a giant trampoline or soft play rooms.

The trampoline could be arranged if necessary. DS3’s MS has a mini indoor trampoline he uses.

@Ambern7 A positivr staff attitude really does make a difference.
And whilst i feel getting into specialist early is good, it does have to be the right one and if there genuinley are more at year 3 its an option.

Neither do they have a building designed with the needs of SEN kids in mind. Or specialised staff with years of experience.

I agree with you though. I should have said 'A village school can't provide all of this'. They can maybe provide some. Some just isn't enough in the case of my DC.

Our best experience was in a tiny village school. It was life changing for ds and for me and his siblings and I will feel a deep gratitude to them forever. Ds was not the only child with additional needs but he certainly had the highest needs. I have never felt so cared for or supported and he blossomed in their beautiful caring environment. In my experience everything is down to the attitude of the head and staff and how much they want it to work.

Not everything. The most caring, committed headteachers and staff can work wonders but they can't magic resources out of fresh air. I cannot stress enough how incredibly financially vulnerable a small school with a falling roll is right now.

@ThanksItHasPockets i can’t stress enough how the attitude that some children don’t have a place in school is damaging our society and limiting the lives of the most vulnerable. Disabled educators is NOT a “nice to have”. Take a deep breath and ask yourself how you have arrived at the attitudes you have.

There are no disposable children.

Apologies,
Disabled education is NOT a “nice to have”. Take a deep breath and ask yourself how you have arrived at the attitudes you have.

This isn't about saying children with SEN, pretty significant SEN like OP's, don't have a place in mainstream schools or society.

In an ideal world schools would be resourced to support all children. There would be integration across the board and opportunities for all children to learn in a way that suits them. Flying angels would sprinkle dust over the kids as they ate and all would be happy.

We live in shitfest Britain. Nobody is going to undertake integration on that scale.

By putting my child in a special school I am not hiding them away from society. I am helping them to access it.

This school do forest school and a lot of outdoor learning which is great for DC. I wouldn’t say soft play and sensory rooms were a must for DC (at the moment, I know needs may change over time) because currently finds these type of things too over stimulating. Although they are a sensory seeker not avoider, it can be confusing for some.
Decision still not made however, this is just what the mainstream option is.

How dare you. I have said absolutely nothing which justifies this post. For what it is worth I have a disabled child in mainstream reception and need absolutely no lectures about the importance of inclusion. Re-read my posts. I made a point about the perilous situation of school funding at the moment, not a philosophical one about the place of children like my own son in a mainstream school.

You owe me an apology.

This isn't about saying children with SEN, pretty significant SEN like OP's, don't have a place in mainstream schools or society.
that’s pretty much what you went on to say though. Your “reason” for putting children in SS was because you felt we couldn’t afford to educate them in ms. Many children need to be educated in SS but on the whole it is fairly expensive not the cheaper option.

@ThanksItHasPockets why do you think all the children without disabilities education should be funded automatically but the disabled child’s education is an add on in financial terms? Schools don’t run for the able and allow the disabled to attend if they can afford it. Mainstream includes everyone.

I really can’t see what @ThanksItHasPockets has posted that has deserved such vitriol. I would advise nobody - of any ability or disability - to join a small school with falling rolls without a very detailed an thorough discussion of their finances. Primary school funding is largely predicated on 30 children per teacher. Where schools are larger, then ‘whole school services’ - buildings, headteacher, finance/ administration, SENCo, kitchen - are spread over a larger number of children so the cost per capita is somewhat lower (and hence you see eg federations where a head is shared across 2 or 3 small schools).

Where a school is both small AND undersubscribed, along with a class structure like having 15 in Reception that brings the average number of children per adult right down, the school is financially vulnerable. It would always have been, but it is increasingly do in a climate where the vast majority of schools face deficit budgets and thus the beed to reduce costs dramatically next year. This is not a ‘disability education’ issue. It’s an ‘underfunded education for all’ issue.

I genuinely have no idea where you have taken your inferences @Itisbetter and I can only conclude that you have conflated me with someone else. My purpose in posting was to warn OP about the potential risk of sending her child to a school which may be at risk of serious financial difficulties which could put the whole institution at risk of closure. Having now done so I am going to hide the thread. You clearly have no intention of apologising for your gross misreading and misrepresentation of my views. You have upset me deeply and I will not engage with you further.

Thatsnotmycar
You can read whatever you like into my posts. I don't have a tone. I am however entitled to have a different opinion to you. I think that refusing to consider the wider implications of what we want or need is ridiculous.

The infrastructure isn't there to integrate fully.

They can barely afford to pay teachers as it is.

Don't know where you're headed talking about how much money each setting costs but you're clearly spoiling for a fight. Not biting.

The mainstream option does sound really lovely. I would ask them about TAs- do they have an experienced TA they could redeploy as 1:1? If not, how have they found recruitment of TAs in the last 18 months? (I would argue anything before that is not relevant to the current situation schools are in now). Some smaller schools (And 15 in a year group is small but not absolutely tiny) can support some SEN well, I don't think it's fair to tar them all with one brush.

It sounds like there is hopefully a plan for 7+, and you're aware you may need to start working on that now (not that you should have to).

I think the issue is to consider how he would cope in the Y1 and 2 mixed class- I'm not sure how long them spending lots of time separately will be sustainable for at most schools. Is part of the time they spend separately away from the class teacher?

You'll also need a way of checking that he does actually get appropriate support once in the school- especially as he is pre-verbal. If his TA ends up doing whole class support, or supporting another child with additional needs part of the day, would you have a way of finding that out? (Someone will come along and say this isn't legal, of course, but it does happen, and generally you can only rectify it if you know about it).

Listen to the professionals. If your child will require 1 to 1 support from a ta to access mainstream education you can send them of course, but I think it probably isn't in your child's best interests and certainly deprives the other children in their class of the extra support which will be absent as your child will take all the attention and time of the ta.

I’m not interested in fighting at all. (Do you mean “inclusion”, integration is not a term usually embraced these days?)

What I am interested in is challenging the idea that disabled children should be educated in ss (activities particularly in primary school) because it’s too much money/effort to educate them in their local primary school.

That’s not how it works. If a child has a 1:1 funded via their EHCP then that adult is an additional resource in the classroom. It takes nothing away from the other children.

That's probably on paper what should happen but not my personal experience

Given the wider societal context, I'd advise anyone who's making big life choices based on the availability of people with skills in a specific physical location to give strong consideration to what happens if those people are not available. Particularly if the workplace is outside the most populous areas.

We have not really, as a society, yet fully understood what happens when legal entitlements and obligations run up against we simply cannot get anyone who wants the job. Roles in schools are particularly vulnerable to this, because they don't offer a remote option and because a lot of the people who previously wanted them due to being term time only now have more options for flexible working. Your experience is potentially going to be very different even to those of us whose DC are just a few years older than yours, because the world has changed so much in a couple of years.

OP I'd also apply your local knowledge here: you of course will know much more about your area than we do. Why is the school roll shrinking? If it's the sort of scenic area popular with wealthy retirees where nobody born after 1980 can afford to buy any more, the problem is liable to continue. Whereas if there's a new housing estate 2 miles down the road just being finished, the school's future is probably more secure. That type of thing. I don't mean answer those questions here, but give some thought to that context when you make your decision.