Thanks to everyone who gave advice to removal all identification, this kind of positing is new to me.
Also thank you to the kind mums who shared their particular stories, our heart goes out to you and the difficulties you face.
There is a current SEN Green paper on-going with Sarah Teather, requiring feedback and we all need to get our voices clearly heard.
The current approach clearly does not work, we hope in the future, people and local authorities start to really understand.
Kind Regards
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing this email to you as a grandmother who is so desperately concerned for her grandson,
he has ASD. He is coming up nine years old and for the past six years my poor son and daughter-in-law have fought every corner possible to try and get the best possible schooling establishment that would suit his needs.
Each day is a different day for him and his family; some days he feels terrible in his own skin, scared
to go to school (self-harms at times and thoroughly frightened at what lays ahead of him). He went
to a pre-school when he was quite small and there the teacher noticed the "difference with him".
She advised his parents that he needed sensitive caring and worried about him going to "proper school".
He started at a local primary school, where in a very short time; his parents knew he could not cope.
Within two terms, he had a full mental and physical breakdown.
Some days, he refuses to leave the house in the knowledge of going to school and, therefore, his
little sister cannot go. My son is a professional who works sometimes abroad and, therefore, has to be away for days but has managed, thanks to his employers to work flexible hours.
Once removed he was out of school for 18 months and not once did the school get in touch to see
how he was even though he was on the school role. Files and diaries with important meetings
where his sensitivities were highlighted went mysteriously missing and key local authority figures
cover their backs. They spent the time he was at home paying for numerous private assessments
and taking him through multi-faceted assessments with the NHS. He was diagnosed with ASD in
early 2009.
Then came the fight for a Statutory Assessment with the Local Authority. Despite all the evidence
his parents presented, they would not grant the Statutory Assessment needed for him to return to
school with the required provision. The chair-person SEN Statutory panel stated ?We know he?s autistic, now let?s just send him to school? His parents lodged an appeal with the SEN Tribunal Service and they eventually backed down and gave the assessment, but it took a further appeal with the SEN Tribunal Service to actually get a statement granted which provided him with a 32.5 hrs of support and another local primary school was suggested with his own LSA helping him. The LSA had no previous experience dealing with a child with Autism and it became aware that neither she could
cope nor he was not at all coping.
It has since come to light the LSA has resigned with no notice and he was supposed to have a
rolling number of helpers instead. This would be catastrophic for a child like him. He would say to his
Mum, "Just kill me, i want to die", "there is something missing in my brain"," I cannot do what
they ask me", and he would hit out at his Mother and we noticed that a mild form of Tourette?s was
appearing as well. Life for them is a nightmare.
What we want for him is just a plain, small thing what a lot of parents can take for granted
- a school where will flourish, where he will feel safe in the knowledge that he is not that "different" boy at school but all the same, he is just a little boy who wants to go to school but he
needs a special school!
My son and daughter-in-law recorded a tape one morning recently trying to convince him to go
to school and they sent it in to the headmaster and they were shocked. The head teacher said he
now understood and realised they could not meet him needs and regardless what the LEA said, he
would do whatever he could to enable him to get a managed move to a more appropriate provision,
that meets his complex needs, i.e a special school
A very short time later, my son has a meeting with the head-teacher again and he retracts what he
had previously said that they can meet his needs! My son feels desolate and I can see how him
and his wife feel - so alone and banging their heads against a brick wall. They don?t want him to be
at home and isolated and they have been by the threatened with the truant officer and a fixed penalty notice! They live in fear of more self-harm and statistics show that not only do relationships fail when there is an ASD child, but the child itself can not only self-harm but actually commit suicide.
They have found a special needs school where there would be a place for him this September but they cannot afford it and need the help of the LEA (but as their local MP stated), it is all about money
and budgets. The headmaster at the local school has "been got at". He is not thinking of my grandson, but just the "budget" and the standing of his school.
We don't want it to be too late for him or any other child like him. My son spoke to a parent who went to this "Special School" and was told, after a year at this school, I got my son back! I feel close to tears just writing this, but I don't know what else to do.
I have to do something. The only time they get any relief from the situation is when the two grandmothers go down to help.
Where the LEA is stating that his needs are met at the local primary school is nothing short of legalised child abuse.
He is now off ill (although still on the books of the school) as he is too poorly to attend. All I can say is please print this article please, in the hope there is someone out there that can read it and understand what my family is going through and perhaps shame the LEA into doing something for him before it is too late.
Yours sincerely,
SH
Kent