School are revoking my autistic son's five minute early pass and he's full of anxiety. Please help.

[Sweetchildofmine123]

Hi,

I'm looking for some advice please.

My son is 13, and autistic.
He's a very young 13, not anywhere near the same maturity as most of his peers.

My son's school are taking away all five minute early passes to all children who have them, and replacing with five minute LATE passes.
This has had a huge impact on my son, he's not coping at all.

He used to be able to leave lessons and school five minutes early to avoid crowded corridors, and the crowds at the beginning and end of each day, and it's the only thing school have ever offered that's actually helped him.

They've replaced this with a five minute late pass.
Which means he has to wait behind in lessons, potentially leading him to be late to the next lesson.
Furthermore, and more crucially, they've taken away the leave early pass, so now he leaves school in the crush along with 1,900 other children.

It isn't working for him, he's in a high state of anxiety and is not sleeping well.

I've begged school to keep the early pass for him, as all children are different, and what works for one child may not work for another, autistic or not.
They point black refuse this.
So he's lost the one and only aid that really helped him.

I've contacted CAMHS, WMIM, and SENDIASS, asking for urgent intervention, but nothing is fast as they've all overloaded with work.

So I've requested a slight adjustment to his timetable with the school's SENDCo, and I don't think it's unreasonable.

I've asked if he can get in to school early (which he already does) and to be able to leave at the end of the school day five minutes early to avoid the crowds, which he cannot cope with.

After speaking with my son, I've agreed to the five minute late during transition between lessons, but I've asked school for this one little adjustment at the end of the school to help my son.

He masks at school, so they don't see his meltdowns, he saves them for when he's home.
They have no idea how badly he suffers, though I've tried to tell them.

Am I being unreasonable in asking for this small adjustment to help my son's mental health?
I'm not asking for a reduced timetable, just for him to be able to leave before the crowds start.

So far, school have failed to reply.
Also, when I spoke to the SENDCo yesterday, who has never even met my son, she suggested some ridiculous ideas, and she was having none of him keeping his early pass.
She even mentioned him leaving mainstream school, when there's no need for this - he is a perfect student who gets good grades and never causes any trouble.
That's really upset me - Can they push him out even though he's a model student?

And by law, can I ask for this tiny amendment to his timetable to help him with his anxiety please?

Sorry to waffle on, I didn't want to drip feed.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me, as waiting for replies is a nightmare, and I need this sorting before the new school year starts in September.

Thanks so much.

I agree with you, the 'late' wording feels very much like it's trying to shame them into not being late. As a teacher I would be far happier with children leaving early rather than late arrivals so this makes no sense to me at all.

I would go straight to formal complaint. They need to make reasonable adjustments. They cannot remove a reasonable adjustment just because they think too many students have reasonable adjustments .

I would also add that joining a lesson late is very disruptive for everyone and may mean instructions need to be repeated . leaving early is much less disruptive.

"...as all children are different, and what works for one child may not work for another, autistic or not."

I guess this will be exactly the school's point. Autistic or not, all children who are capable of going to a mainstream school have to learn that their individual quirks can't and won't be catered to in every conceivable situation. You'd be better off helping him to find coping strategies to fit in with the new system, as this is something he's going to have to get used to in life if he's going to function.

You say your son gets to school early. Where does he go and how does he cope with all the crowds then? Could it be that pupils with early passes are wandering around the school ( not saying your son is) and this is a safeguarding issue?

Tell them to give it back to you'll start a disability discrimination case with SENDIST, then do it.

Schools really can't accommodate every single pupil's individual needs. However, if the early pass worked it's annoying that they are withdrawing it. Maybe some folk prefer the late passes. But I can see why the late pass makes more sense.

This makes no sense from a learning point of view. Coming to a class late means the class has started before you are ready to start. Leaving a class early when you’ve already covered the topic and can complete the last pieces of work in your own time if you need to makes much more sense.

I just asked my 16 year old autistic daughter and she was very clear, this was totally the wrong way to do it and had a list of reasons why! Sometimes she has to be late because she needs someone to accompany her and they don’t always show up. She definitely agrees those times are far worse than when she leaves a class late. Those of you saying “just explain” really have no clue. If we could just explain everything to our autistic children, life would be so much easier.

I would be first speaking to the head of SEN, then to the head teacher, and I would have a list of people who are affected, who I had spoken to, pointing out this puts your children at a massive disadvantage.

The equality advisory support service can give you free advice or coram child law advice.

If 1/3 of all pupils have/had this pass then it’s still a very large number of pupils milling about - likely the same number as a smaller school.
I can understand the frustrations of teachers trying to teach when 1/3 of the class leave early.

Except if it's a reasonable adjustment it MUST be done by law.

edited to add it MUST also be done if it's in their EHCP and EVERY child is ENTITLED to mainstream education regardless of their needs or 'capabilities'

They absolutely can and should accommodate pupil’s individual needs. In Scotland we call it Getting It Right For Every Child.

What you actually mean is “it’s just too difficult to include all children, and mine is doing ok, so why should they bother”

It really isn't. All students leave at the same time, they NEVER arrive at the same time. It's always a drip drip approach. One student being 5 minutes after the Bell wouldn't be noticed. Students leaving 5 mins early are noticed by everyone.

As well as the duty to make reasonable adjustments that others have mentioned, the school also has a duty under section 66 of the Children and Families Act 2014 to make their best endeavours to provide the special educational provision DS requires to meet his SEN. Moving between lessons 5 mins early and leaving school 5 mins early at the end of the day both fall under that.

If the SENCO mentioned leaving mainstream (a ridiculous suggestion when the trigger is minor adjustments like you mention), does DS have an EHCP? If so, is it written in there?

Wonderful advice.

OP isnt worried about the transitions during the school day, she says she has agreed to that and if the school thinks that is what will work best for them then I’d be inclined to believe them. The problem for OP and her son is wanting to leave school early at the end of the day when the school would prefer to offer him time to wait.

Specialist SEN provision is so woefully inadequate that children who previously would have had a place are not being forced into mainstream schools.

Our local authority will only agree to children classed as stage 4 (severe and complex learning disabilities) being in a specialist enhanced provision setting. Children classed as stage 3 (substantial barriers to learning, requiring a high level of support beyond classroom assistance) are deemed capable of attending a mainstream school.

Autism isn’t about “individual quirks” which need to be forced out so kids can function in an adult world, FFS. As an autistic adult you can shape your life and your world in a way that the barriers are far less problematic. Stop pretending as adults we have no agency to pick and choose how we live and where we go. I’m not autistic, but I hate crowds. I can easily avoid them without someone else telling me how I must do that. I can go shopping late at night or online, I can turn up early to the gig and leave early if I want. I can choose to book a 5pm table for dinner. But for some reason we think it is entirely ok for disabled children to just suck it up when they are at school, even though it will impact negatively on their education.

Anyone who thinks we don’t need to make adjustments for disabled children in schools should be utterly ashamed of themselves and look deep inwards to work out where they went wrong in life.

That's correct yes.

And with the bill for children with EHCPs at already astronomical levels, and growing, the Government are rightly looking into alternatives. If a child can't manage with moving through large crowds, mainstream provision is probably not the right place for them, since general schooling by nature includes crowds of children.

As I said, OP, as her child's parent, would be better spending time helping her child devise coping mechanisms. Schools can't realistically cater to every child's idiosyncrasies, whether they're a result of autism or not.

It's not a minor adjustment though. That's the issue, the adjustment has become unreasonable due to the lost learning time. By altering the adjustment, it becomes reasonable again. There's currently no real legal test of what is "reasonable" and the word does a lot of heavy lifting. What is reasonable for one child, soon becomes unreasonable when it's an expectation for many. I've had complaints from parents about the disruption caused by students who leave early. What can schools do? It sounds like they're trying to balance the needs of all students and a 5 minute late pass takes away the busy corridors and causes less disruption at the start of a lesson than the end.

Your problem is ‘he sees leaving late as a punishment.’
honestly - come off it.
it is fairly obvious that a third of the class leaving early has a detrimental effect on all the others. That isn’t fair.

him not being able to cope in a crowd is an accepted thing with autism.

so, him leaving school 5 mins after everyone else, is the best solution for BOTH him and the others. They count too.

‘I see that as a punishment’ pushes over in to ‘only my needs matter.’

in a school, you obviously can’t have bespoke wants for a third of the pupils - too many would be in conflict. It isn’t logistically possible,

This.

My daughter is physically disabled and is at risk of being knocked over if she moves about in crowded corridors. She is on course to get over 80% in the 8 subjects she is studying. Where exactly do you think she should go to school if not a mainstream setting?

The child is able to avoid crowds through the late pass.

Why did you delete your response to this ? They weren’t talking about your family…

I suggested this in the school I work in.

Using food tech as an example, off the 5 minute early's trot, leaving their mess and washing up to the other children. They don't pace themselves to be done early.
They swan off without a bye or leave.

Then there's the ones who dick about in the corridors, rather than waiting quietly outside the class.

I think changing it to a late pass is better all round for everyone.

What are these children going to do when they come to use public transport? Expect everyone to form an orderly queue behind them?

Life is busy, there will always be crowds, getting used to this in the controlled environment of school isn't a bad thing.