School sen discrimination

[Hellobee]

I had doubts that my Autistic son was being left outside to play with his TA through out the school day and this was confirmed to.me by 3 members of staff. I'm extremely upset that the school has never contacted us to say this was happening. My son was taken to A&E last week due croup and he still has a chesty cough from when he started the school. My son is calm boy who is academically able to learn but this school has shown us dishonest from the start due to his Autism diagnosis. We were told by the head and senco that they are an inclusive school with sen qualified teacher but we have experienced so many problems. My son has an ehcp and LA are saying they agreed to meet needs and can meet needs. This is the second mainstream that has attempted off-rolling by not teaching my son and making life difficult for us. Both schools prejudged my son before they knew him and upset us with hurtful comments like 'your son is one of the most severist' 'he will find our setting challenging etc. I have extreme depression due to this and English isnt my mother tongue which is why they don't take me serious. Local authority will not let us choose a new school and i have no idea what to do. My son is being denied education due to his Autism

If the school cannot accommodate his needs in the classroom the local authority has a duty of care to find him another school that can educate him. Do you have a friend that can support you in this process, or there's support orgs locally that can help. I doubt you are local to me so I can't help more specifically

Have you formally requested an early review of the EHCP? Do you have a school in mind you would like to move to?

Is the school providing the provision in section F of the EHCP? Have you spoken to the SENCO? How old is DS?

You might find it helpful if you ask MNHQ to move this to the SN boards.

How old is your son? What are his needs?

Meeting a child's needs doesn't always mean having them doing the same learning as everyone else.

But you definitely should find out what his experience at school is like. Ask to have a meeting.

What makes you think they are attempting to off roll him? Nothing you’ve said here indicates that.

They will not have your son outside the classroom for no reason. It might be some reward time after he’s done work, it might be that he needed some space to regulate, it could be that he wasn’t calm and coping in the classroom so he was removed for his own benefit.

You need to ask them and find out why your son has been outside the classroom sometimes, without accusing them of doing something wrong when you don’t know.

A few things here in terms of things you can do:

1. You need to find out exactly what is happening with your son on a day by day basis.

When is he part of lessons? What do his adjustments look like? Why is he given additional time outside etc. There may be perfectly valid reasons: having support in place does not mean that his education will look like everyone elses'. Usually, there will be differences to take account of needs.

2. Identify another specific school (ideally one with an RP)

If, after everything above, you don't think the school are supporting him, you need to look at other schools with better SEN provision, such as those with an RP unit attached. You need to know where you want him to be rather than asking the LA for a general move.

3. Request an early review of his EHCP.

Use this to demonstrate that the school is not (and can not) meet his needs as outlined in the EHCP and request that the named school be changed to the one you identified earlier.

However, you also need to know a few things, moving forward so that you can effectively judge the provision in place for your child:

• the local authority will always say that the mainstream school can meet a child's needs until they are forced to change their stance. This is because it's cheaper for them.
• when the school says that your son's needs are some of the most severe that they have dealt with, this isn't to upset you. It's simply a statement of fact so that you understand more about how your son can or can't function as part of mainstream education.
• off-rolling is the act of kicking your son out of school in order to get him off their register. Being outside the classroom is not off-rolling.
• education for autistic children (or any child with additional needs) may look different. That doesn't mean inclusion isn't happening as long as his needs are being met.

I think you need to meet with the senco to discuss. Extra time outside could very much be a case of they are meeting his needs by providing him extra sensory/movement breaks.

Like i said were told he spends most of the day in the playground not to disturb other children. I have heard many other people saying same happened to their child so not sure why you think this is impossible. I do have sufficient evidence and the school have confirmed the same reasons. I came for support not to be attacked.

Agreed. It is also quite possible he was learning outside in an appropriate way while playing.

I am angry they have made zero effort to meet his needs from the start and i have not got the LA involved. Its a shame they are not confirming they can't meet needs to the LA and just oppressing us. I have now named another school so we will see. Its shocking this is happening in the uk 2022 but i can see we are not alone

Thanks for the helpful information.

When the senco said my son is one of the severist she had not even met him and other professionals have told us the school has way more severe children then my son. She has always exaggerated his needs so she can build a case to put in a sen school. Unfortunately, some schools just don't want sen children and understand or care about the law.

Call your local SENDIASS service for free advice x

What does his ehcp say? Especially in section F? What do you feel they aren’t meeting in it?

if the school can’t meet his needs then you need to call an emergency review and look at different provision.

Does your son have an ehcp? If not you need to apply for one.

I have a son with complex autism who attends specialist school. If you want to move your child to a different school you need to approach your ehcp coordinator, ask for an emergency review and put in a request for a change of placement. You can make direct contact yourself with any schools you wish to consider and ask for a visit.

Before you do that try and engage with the current school to find out what they’re doing to support your child- it may be, for example, that your child is actually happier outside and alone with the TA than in the class. I wouldn’t jump to conclusions that they’re being horrible or excluding him. For example, my son eats his lunch with a TA at their desk but he hates eating lunch with the other child so although some would look at that and think “how dreadful” he’s actually happy!

Sorry, I missed this when I just posted.

Can I just check OP, DS has an EHCP, you haven’t got the LA involved but you have named another school?

If that’s correct, I think you might have misunderstood. In order to get another school named in the EHCP you need to ask the LA for an early review.

Thank you

I will try again to help. What are your son's needs? How do you think they should be met? How old is he?

If the school thought that your son should be in a special school, they would have said they can't meet needs. However, if he is really in the playground without peers all day, it sounds unlikely that they are meeting his needs.

If the school thought that your son should be in a special school, they would have said they can't meet needs

Unfortunately that isn’t always the case.

Can I just ask if it is your choice to keep your child in a mainstream setting?

Why would a school say they could meet needs if they thought they couldn't? I can't see what any school would get out of that, but perhaps I'm wrong.

Mostly, yes. Most councils have a policy of inclusion. This means that mainstream schools should attempt to meet the needs of all children with sen whose parents wish them to be there- the child’s ehcp should mean they get the appropriate support. However, in practice - usually for severely disruptive behaviour (which can often be the child displaying distress at unmet needs) the school can exclude so much the council has no other option but to consider a specialist placement.

My son has always been in specialist school. I would not want him in mainstream. He is not disruptive or violent or anything like that, he just has severe sensory needs and cannot cope with large class sizes and his autism means he does better with lots of support (he is one of 4 in a class with 3 teachers). But - every child and parent is different. Parents requests should always be taken into account. Getting a place at specialist school is incredibly difficult, they are usually very over subscribed.

Pride? Lots of schools won’t admit they’re failing when they are. It makes them look bad.

You are wrong, you only have to read the SN boards on here to see mainstream schools often say they can meet a pupil’s needs when they can’t, and officially say they can meet a pupil’s needs while informally saying they can’t. It happens for lots of reasons, one being pressure from the LA.

@Afterfire I totally agree with mainstream schools being inclusive, however, they are not always the best place for some children and therefore they are unable to thrive!
I asked the question as from experience from my job that if the parents insist on their child remaining in mainstream then there is nothing that the school can do! This is only from my experience.

They are forced into it by the LA. They are given no choice.