School Christmas Card

[PreciousParent]

There is context here... My son is severely disabled and just started a new special school. This was forced through a tribunal and he had nowhere else to go. It is very clear the school are incredibly angry about this. My son is not violent or trashing classrooms - he is kind and funny but very language delayed. He needed to be on a part time timetable to be phased in, however there were disagreements about how long he should be in school (with me wanting more hours).

There have been multiple incidents with the school singling him out and not allowing him to join in stuff. The latest has really upset me though. My younger son (same school) came home with a little order form where you order Christmas cards and magnets with a design they've made - so I ordered some. I didn't receive my eldest's form so emailed the school to ask if they could put it in his bag. They said he didn't have one because the whole class did it in the afternoon when my son was scheduled not to be there.

There are 7 children in the class and up to 7 staff members. There were whole slots every week where my son was in the classroom not doing the scheduled activity (e.g. swimming in case he 'might' suddenly and randomly become violent - no history of this, even though swimming is on his EHCP) where he could have made the Christmas card. Or they could have all done it in the morning - it's a therapeutic class so the timetable is incredibly flexible. From early October he was attending until 2.30pm so they must have scheduled the Christmas card activity in the last half an hour of school, knowing he was the only one not going to be there.

This is the first year he's understood and excited for Christmas :(

AIBU to think this was a deliberate choice to exclude him and that they don't really see him as part of the school?

i think you’re overthinking the Christmas card issue but the rest of it sounds shit

I'm sorry to hear you feel your son is being unfairly singled out. From years of running a similar Christmas Card design task in a mainstream school I just wanted to let you know that ours would always have been done earlier than 20th October to allow for turnaround time with the company in getting everything processed and the order details back to parents.

I don't know if that's helpful as you've pointed out there were many other occasions when he could have done the card if he wasn't in for the initial session

Very possible - I've been under a lot of pressure.

The relationship with my the school has nosedived since my eldest joined. I have never had a single problem with them in the four years my youngest has attended.

Thank you for pointing this out.

I do think it's probably a lot harder to coordinate for 30 kids a class compared to 7. I teach in a special school and there's no way I would let this happen for one of my 5 pupils.

Can this school actually meet his needs? It sounds like they have been named but are still in disagreement about this.

Anyway that is sad they didn't manage to get him to do anything, would he be cooperative with this kind of activity? Does the company let parents upload their own images at all? My children's school have used a few companies and one did let you add a new image if you didn't like the one your child had done, so wondered if there was some way of adding his name and then you doing one with him at home.

If they can't meet his needs, no one can :(

My youngest son is less likely to engage with the cards activity and he managed to do some dots on the Christmas tree :D My eldest, I mean it might have come back with a very strange design :D but they almost certainly could have got something from him. We've had his pumpkin drawing from his school.

I will look into getting our own one for him - thanks.

on the specific issue of the Xmas card. This sort of happened to one of my DC last year when he was off sick.(obvs not the schools fault) at home he drew on on paper and I took a photo and got magnets and cards printed from ‘funky pigeon’

I know this doesn’t help the wider issue but though it might help so you still had one x

I’m sorry the school don’t seem to be welcoming your child and managing his needs well.

I echo another poster though in saying that the cards were probably completed before the 20th of October. We needed to have them finished before the October week this year.

I think the early deadline is distracting from the issue. Assuming he started in school early October, they surely could have got him to do something in the morning in his first couple of weeks. Perhaps used it as a mark making exercise. Not sure how old he is or what level the OP would expect but surely a few marks on a bit of paper would have been better than nothing (and maybe explaining that was what he did at the time) or giving a template for him to add to? Considering it's a Sen school with what sounds like staff 1:1 with each child at times it does seem pretty poor not one of them thought ahead of the cards and mentioned that this boy would need to do his at a different time.

Yes, he started in September. My youngest son also goes there and his Christmas card design is some dots on a pre-drawn Xmas tree, and - like you say - I love it!

My eldest child would almost certainly be able to get something down. In fact, he draws all day long so come to think of it, they could have just picked any drawing and submitted it.

It all felt so mean. If I didn't source one myself he would see his little brother's cards and magnets on our fridge and sent to family - this year is the first (he's 11) that he would understand that. I'll do my own for him.

Why don’t you draw the picture and give it school with your own order form???

It's too late, they have a system

It's too late, they have a system and they never told me until it was too late.

I agree that the deadline would have now passed but the fact they didnt just do it the following day he was in baffles me. Thats what we did in our mainstream school with 30 children per 1.5 adults and rigid timetable!

I work in a special School for pupils with sld and pmld.

Our pupils have all sorts of timetables and therapies and may not be present at certain activities - however - we would absolutely make sure for something like this time was found for them to do the activity even if it was 1:1 at a different time and place in the day.

I’m Sorry your experience is so different.

Thank you

Yes, it's for sld and pmld too. Thank you.

I work in a special school for SEMH and would have made sure everyone could do it. It's actually not that hard.

I had a similar issue a couple of years ago with my autistic child who was on a part-time timetable. I contacted the company directly and explained the situation. They emailed me the template so I could do it at home.

@sunshine244 did you find it was part of a general pattern from the school?

I think this is careless of the school because with an individualised timetable. of course he could have done it another time. However schools are stressful places - they've messed up, it happens. I doubt it was deliberate.

Unfortunately I think his current teacher doesn't accept his needs (mainstream school, high masking). They don't in any way try to make sure he's included in important things he's missed. If he's off it's just seen as tough luck / his fault.

Why would they single out your child though? If the younger one is there and they are fine with him, then it’s very odd that they are picking on the older one for no reason?

This sounds rubbish. If you wanted to do it yourself, my children’s school uses a company called My Child’s Art, and the products are good quality. I’m sure you can upload your own artwork rather than having it done through school.

They really, really did not want my older one. The younger child was accepted through normal EHCP process, my eldest it was forced through a (very aggressive) tribunal. They have never felt they could meet my eldest's needs.

Thanks for the tip :)