To not even bother sending my child to school?

[MotherOfSEN]

DD is in Year 6 at a local primary school. She is neurodiverse (autistic and ADHD) academically capable with no EHCP. I have asked a couple of times about applying for an EHCP, but the school has said she needs very little support and therefore she is unlikely to get one. I appreciate I could apply for one myself, but I’d need some sort of reason, which I currently do not have. She doesn’t have friends as such, she sort of floats around with everyone and makes herself busy at school lunch times doing clubs or reading. She has started to find Year 6 trickier, with the expectations and the work load, as well as preparation for SATS. At home, she is little trouble, but does need to be repeatedly reminded about tasks eg putting clothes on the right way, washing hands etc. Her conversation skills also aren’t great; she mainly spends time reading, drawing or creating animations on her tablet.

Monday is secondary school allocation day. I don’t want her going to either of the local secondary schools. For context, I work in SEN and year after year I encounter many students who have had to leave these schools because the schools weren’t making reasonable adjustments, didn’t understand SEN, they were bullied etc. Many students describe the experience as traumatic and it takes a long time for them to recover.

I am very concerned about bullying and the busyness of the environment. She struggles to follow instructions and I think she will get lost in big classes, navigating a large school, the sheer amount of pupils (both over 1,000). She gets overwhelmed in stressful environments and other people need to be sensitive to this. She gets mortified when being told off by a teacher, or even if a teacher shouts and tells the class off, she is an absolute people pleaser.

When I spoke to her current teacher, they expressed that they didn’t think either secondary school would be ideal for her. Equally, the tutor she has to support her schoolwork also feels the local schools would be detrimental for her. Several extended family members that I have discussed this with feel that a large comprehensive would not be the correct choice.

I’m at the point of just thinking ‘sod it’ and home educating her. We have a fair amount of local home education groups and I would employ tutors for various subjects. I work flexibly so I can easily accommodate this for her.

My main barrier is her father who thinks she should at least try the local schools. He thinks she should go and then we remove her if she’s struggling. I think that would be an error as she is very compliant and sensitive, she would feel as though she has failed at school or should keep going until breaking point. I want to remove this issue altogether. My opinion is that it may be possible for her to rejoin school, perhaps in Year 9 or Year 10, maybe at that point we could fund private school for her or she will be older and more suited / capable for the big secondaries.

For context, her father only sees her every other weekend and has very little input into her life in any meaningful way. He has never even been to her primary school, so I don’t think his opinion is informed at all if I’m honest.

WIBU to just home educate her and not even try with the local schools?

@Needlenardlenoo my DD doesn't have an EHCP but she still got an extra transition day, if you find a good school they will - like many primaries do - sort things out that children need without one.

School would also need to support an EHCNA

This is completely incorrect. A myth LAs and some schools like to perpetuate. You can get an EHCP even if the school is not supportive.

SARs can be very helpful to EHCNAs (or subsequent appeals). It isn’t about mistrusting the school, the school hiding information or a ‘gotcha’.

No I don’t have an autistic child and I’m sorry if I’m making naive assumptions. I guess I just believe in giving every child the chance at mainstream and only intervening if the setting is inappropriate rather than never letting them try. But I fully accept that might be a totally tone deaf view coming from someone without experience of an autistic child so I’m sorry if that’s the case

I think school is busy and overwhelming for most people. I think that’s a bit the point of it.. I’ll get flamed but I think it’s sort of designed to gradually expose kids to those things with the aim being to make those things more tolerable as you grow up. That is not to say your child will excel at the particular schools in question. I thought when I read you post that many parents would have the same concerns about bullying. You could use your experience to advantage here and speak to the school beforehand to ensure she does not get bullied and things are as adapted as possible for her. I don’t think a blanket no-school approach is sensible. It is a huge change for children to start secondary.
YANBU to ignore her father’s minimal input btw, he sounds quite useless.
best of luck whatever you choose do

In my LA if the school responds and says they don’t have the evidence that the pupil needs any provision over and above Wave 1, or needs a bit of Wave 2 but it’s covered by the nominal budgets, it results in a ‘no’ decision.

I’m with your DH on this. Some ND children actually find the very clear work expectations and timetabling of secondary easier to adjust to than the whole class/every subject/random topics each day approach in primary. Give it a go and see how she gets on. She might surprise you.

Your LA is acting unlawfully if it has such a blanket policy. Parents may have to appeal, but they don’t have to accept unlawful behaviour.

I think if she has a diagnosis and will struggle with secondary in the way you describe, you should apply for an EHCP. An EHCNA is supposed to be forward looking, so you can make the case that she coped (sort of) in primary with adjustments that aren't possible in secondary.

You likely wouldn't get one in time for September now, though - because you'll almost certainly need to appeal at some stage.

I think you're B a little bit U if you're only just considering this now if it's been obvious for a while that your DD is unlikely to cope in mainstream secondary. And I say that as a parent to a similarly academically able autistic DC.

Regret sending my autistic DS (17) to secondary. Primary was bad enough, but I listened to the whole 'he'll find his tribe' tripe that teachers said would happen when he was in a larger setting. He's just about still in 6th form (year 13) but experiencing burnout right now, and with just 8 weeks until exams wanted to throw it all away and quit.

Wish I had quit while we were ahead in Year 11 after he'd got his GCSE's, but I was stupidly ambitious for him, thought it would be the right thing and try to give him 'the best chance' in life by him doing 6th form.

If I could go back in time and home-school, I would. Wanted to in Year 9, but his Dad didn't agree and by the time he got to Year 10 he'd changed his mind and agreed with me - but by then DS was so far along into GCSEs at that point, I thought it was a stupid thing to pull him out at that stage.

Don't make the same mistake I have OP. Its cost my DS so much being in secondary, damaged him I would say - and me too.

Masking alot. Holding it all, painting a fake smile on her face for all but close family.

Primary school refusing to accept her NHS autism diagnosis. Saying she was just fine. She began trying to delay going in for the start of school by year 4. Struggled with fitting in and friendships.

She didn't always understand what she was meant to be doing in class and the teacher told her friends off for telling her what page she was meant to be on.

Zoning out as she had undiagnosed ADHD but then became anxious when she was asked a question as she'd lost concentration.

Not understanding social norms and was a target for bullies. One time when she was 10, three 6 years old surrounded her after school. I saw something was up by the look on her face. I went over and she said to me "I don't understand Mummy, these boys said they're going to hit me".

School wouldn't allow her transition object that she used to cope.

Tonnes and tonnes of little things throughout primary school. Things that NTs wouldn't think twice about but they're things that cause distress, anxiety and confusion to ND people.

So, years of that and then the ramp up to secondary when she forgot her book and was petrified of getting a detention or being seen to be badly behaved because of it. The busy-ness of the environment, not being able to find her way around and being late because of it. On top of all of the other things that she struggled with in Primary school.

She even had alot of support from a TA in the SEND team and was carefully managed and protected in a small group of SEND kids. Even that wasn't enough to stop her from finally breaking. I warned the SENCO in the September but the primary school had convinced her that it was me being anxious and my girl was just fine and doing well. I could see that were things were spiralling but the SENCO by early October.

Then I got a call from the SENCO in early November telling me that she was rocking back and forth in class and doing vocal tics with a glazed expression on her face. It was so tempting to say to the SENCO, "so do you still think that my child is fine and that it's just me being an anxious mother or do you think it's because, as her mother, I know her best?"

I just wanted to reach out to say I see you.

I had the same with my eldest, after a bad experience, and multiple failings, my daughter stopped eating, drinking, talking. It was horrendous, there were nights I would sit on the threshold of her bedroom with 999 ready to dial on my phone. She was very close to being hospitalised. It took a bloody long time for her to recover to a functional level.

OP it sounds like actually the school have noticed there is difficulties especially if she has support with her school work.

Have you spoke to the SENDco? You can ask for an EP assessment, and other interventions, such as ELSA/THRIVE.

SENDco will talk to her teacher. Ask class teacher to submit a "cause for concern" form to SENDco.

Its quite likely that the reason the school doesnt want to start the EHCP procedure is because it will highlight the schools failing to put things in place. Schools are obliged to put interventions in place and by asking for an EHCP they are opening them self open to criticism and perhaps more.

FOLLOW YOUR GUT INSTINCT I wish I had. And now even years later, we are going through something similar (luckily no where near as bad)

The SEN code of practice says that they ‘must’ seek educational advice and information from the school when considering whether to carry out an EHCNA. How is that schools and LAs perpetuating a myth or being unlawful?

I’m really sorry if you’ve had a bad experience with schools before, but we really aren’t all like that.

I didn’t say the LA shouldn’t seek advice from the school. I said they didn’t need the school to support an EHCNA. Not the same.

I haven’t had bad experiences personally. I have supported many parents. Some of whom have had bad experiences. I didn’t say all schools were bad. Some do perpetuate unlawful myths, though.

Work is usually a much more pleasant social environment than highschool!

I’m a senco and have successfully submitted and got through 2 EHCPs for year 6 pupils this year. Last year I got 3 through.

We follow the graduated response and produce IEPs. Parents have copies of these. Most pupils will never show up on our behaviour records and attendance isn't a suprise to parents. Outside support is incredibly limited now but again parents would be aware of that anyway. Communication would be little more than a report from an agency, which parents would get a copy of, and acknowledgement we'd received it. I don't think it's unusual at all for primary schools to sort out many things verbally. Even when EPs or SALTs come in, they want to discuss children in person. We don't even know if the OP's daughter was on the SEND register. I maintain for many children, next to no data would be brought to the surface. I'd be massively surprised if my children's teachers had any emails or other records that were even vaguely interesting about them.

I think you are underestimating how isolating being at school as a neurodivergent young person with no friends and little support from the school.

There is a reason so many ND children did really well when schools shut down during covid.

It would be a very poor school if OP’s DD wasn’t coded as K.

Just because there are things a parent may have received previously doesn’t mean they still have them or that they haven’t forgotten about. I support parents through the EHCP process, I have not come across a SAR yet which didn’t provide some evidence in some way that the parent didn’t already have. It might be one sentence. It might be more. It is helpful either way. It is a poor school if they don’t have any written records.

I think for me the big question is WHAT would you do for home ed? I don't home ed, but I have seen a number of families do it very successfully. You need to arm yourself with knowledge about lots of aspects:

• What would a typical day look like?
• What subjects would she study?
• How would you find resources for those subjects?
• What is in the community for home ed parents that you could access?
• How would she meet and form friendships with other children? (These could be a mixture of other home ed children and school ed children outside school times.)
• How would she get to point of being able to get a number of GCSEs especially Maths and English?
• Even if you can work flexibly, how much work would you have to do and what would your daughter be doing while you were working?

I think you have good reasons why secondary school might be hard for your daughter, and I agree that home ed could be better, but it also could be 100 times worse. You need to reason through the details of home education and then work out whether it would be better or worse than school for your child.

How could a child with ASD not be on a register? That would be a safeguarding thing.

Ive never known anything not be written down. How can you go back and check or keep paper trails? Or defend or protect yourself or someone else with no written proof? It’s crazy. We used to send loads of emails. All incidents, contact with parents, any other issues were recorded. Kids on report, or any minor interventions all recorded.

If you have time to home educate and it feels like the right thing to do, then you should go for it.

When the school gets that EHCNA request, the LA asks them for evidence. The school either supports the EHCNA by sending the evidence or says ‘we don’t have enough evidence.’

What myths are being perpetuated there and what laws are being broken? Why do you think schools and LAs ‘like’ to perpetuate myths? Do they get a kick out of denying pupils the provision they need?

I’m trying to drill down because I’ve recently noticed an uptick in parents at my work who come to me accusing me of discrimination and raring for a fight, rather than just talking to me like a normal person, and I wonder where it comes from.

Councils are going bust and it’s public money that’s being spent on these EHCPs. Of course we have to be robust about how they are allocated.

I think it’s difficult to picture for those with NT kids, but you could put my child in that scenario 24 hours a day and she’s still very unlikely to be invited and even less likely to want to attend any of those things.

Oh absolutely.

My school would also add new year 7s to enhanced transition where the paperwork from primary suggests they need one and those who are somewhere in the EHCP process but don't have one yet.

That's why I picked them for DD too.

Not all schools are like that. I'm a teacher and of course teachers and schools want to do the best by children, but there are some really severe clashes with what the government require us to do, at times. So what the "best" is, is really contested. I mean you know that. You've had to put enormous effort in to advocate for your children.

If you work in SEN you probably understand how difficult EHCPs are to get so the school weren’t being unreasonable in not requesting one if she needs next to no support. They applied for one recently for my 5 yo and basically had to fabricate how severe his SEN is to desperately access funding.

I also agree the schools don’t sound suitable for her. I went to a school that size and it was hideous for me as a NT person, just so overwhelming with daily fights, a lot of bullying and overstretched exasperated teachers. So yeah, I would recommend giving homeschooling a go with the tutors and lots of extra clubs so she isn’t isolated.