Son not allowed to continue to second year at uni

[PocketSand]

DS2 has just completed his first year in an engineering degree. His results are all over the place from 1st in maths to 2:2 to required resits. He exceeded the A level grade requirements for MEng. He is autistic and has ADHD. He was un medicated prior to and during most of his first year due to shortages followed by referral to cardiology.

His DSA support didn't start til the spring term and one support worker provided 1 hour support when 30 hours was approved. He constantly tells the one he has seen that everything is fine and they believe him.

He always says everything is fine and doesn't ask for help. He has never been to the library and relies totally on lecture notes. He doesn't know what independent study is. I have always been his advocate but now he is expected to advocate for himself. No one at the uni knows these issues - he has not even contacted his personal tutor let alone disability services and just thinks he needs to work harder.

He found out today that he has failed his third submission of a lab report he initially submitted in February. He did not have DSA agreed support at that time so he didn’t have his own laptop. He borrowed another student’s at the time but when he had to resubmit no longer had access to his results and so he tried to cobble together a report using specimen (and maybe someone else’s results - not clear). He had previously received an email saying he couldn’t proceed unless he passed resubmission. I assume that’s where we are at now.

His feedback is harsh - shouldn’t study for a degree if not prepared to use feedback to improve his work. Trouble is he often doesn’t understand the feedback and he is unwilling to ask for clarification as he fears tutor’s anger. He says he doesn’t know who marked the work so doesn’t know who to talk to and seems generally clueless about most administrative issues.

I feel completely in the dark and don’t know where to go from here. Obviously I don’t want to just give up and accept his journey ends here as it seems very unfair but don’t know what I can do to try and enable him to fix this or if it can be fixed.

Can anyone who knows the system provide advice on next steps please?

Can he transfer to somewhere which has much better support and where he can speak to them upfront about his requirements before the course even begins?

Can he authorise you to talk to student support on his behalf?

You need to go and speak to the people who help disabled students (who he will know how to contact if he has DSA and an enabler). Ask for their help.

Would he consider swapping to Maths if that is his strength? The whole point of a degree is to show you can study independently so maybe this course isn't for him.

Sorry, why didn’t he have his own laptop? That’s sort of your job to provide. Everyone else has one, either parent funded or funded by working. Why would you send your kid off to uni with no laptop? DSA isn’t an excuse. You set him up to fail there.

If he hasn’t even informed the uni of his extra needs, and won’t engage with the help then what do you expect his uni to do?

I’m so sorry to read this. The support is likely to be there but unless he reaches out to someone he is going to face the same problems going forward, even at a different university. I would suggest his first port of call would be his personal tutor.

Time to get a letter from GP and any trusted friends you know familiar with the profession and school reports
submit an appeal even if it means retaking the year .

DSA tutors are paid by the hour, so it’s likely that if only one hour of support is provided it’s because the student didn’t engage with support.

All your son's needs should have been made clear to the University from the very start. Your son needs much more guidance and help to navigate studying. Unfortunately, he's not been honest with those adults around him at University. A small amount of help has been offered but it's not enough. I'm not sure how you now try and help him. I guess his main Tutor at University, or the disability department might be a start. You are going to need to be much more involved going forward. This is something that your son needs to try and understand. There is no point in him trying to muddle through, he's done that, and it's not worked. Perhaps he feels embarrassed he can't deal with perceived 'normal' things that his peers manage?

Maybe this is a time for him to re-evaluate his strengths and look at what is most likely to be a successful path for him going forwards including in his future career.

He might need support to work on areas such as receiving and understanding feedback, approaching tutors/managers/colleagues for support and guidance before he looks for a more suitable course or employment. Regardless of where he ends up, these kind of basic skills are universally needed.

He will be entitled to a DSA mentor and a DSA study skills tutor. If he has failed the year he will need to resit it.

Sounds like he needs to start again with appropriate support in place. Is he registered with the student disability service? Has he given them written permission to discuss with you? I would start there.

I work in Disability and Inclusion at a university. It seems as if he has fallen between two stools in regard to support. If I were you I would engage with Student Services yourself alongside him since the issue here is communication of need and then reasonable adjustments. Academic staff may be completely unaware of his disability if not communicated hence the issue of harsh feedback- most universities have excellent support services and reasonable adjustments are a lawful requirement but it sounds as if he has not communicated his need. Obviously he is an adult at +18, but he clearly needs some parental guidance.

Contact the team in Student Services that support disabled students, each institute will give them a different name. They will have received a copy of his Needs Assessment that sets out the support/hours/equipment he is entitled to, Do not be discouraged from contacting them by thinking he’s now an adult, they should be willing to speak with you both.
The team should already be liaising with his personal tutor, but if they’re not they should approach them to see if there’s a way to move forward. I wouldn’t contact the tutor yourself, it should be standard practice for the team to do that.
It does sound as though he has told his NMH that he is ‘fine’, a lot of support is provided by external agencies and they may not have reported back that he is not accessing his full support to the relevant team. Good luck.

He needs to highlight what's happened and speak to support. If it were me I'd recommend he went somewhere with better support. I worked at Wolverhampton University and they had a great support team for disabled students. Some transferrred from Birmingham universities as they lacked sufficient support.

He needs to highlight what's happened and speak to support. If it were me I'd recommend he went somewhere with better support. I worked at Wolverhampton University and they had a great support team for disabled students. Some transferrred from Birmingham universities as they lacked sufficient support.

@PocketSand

"Obviously I don’t want to just give up"

what does he want? is the important thing here, surely?

eta;
"He says he doesn’t know who marked the work"
doesn't he have to submit with a cover sheet stating the name of the lecturer?

Are you getting the full story, do you think @PocketSand?

This is so typical of first year students: its a real step up, and not just academically, but in terms of managing all these additional bits and pieces. Not stepping foot in the library is so common - and a real shame.

It may well be better for him to start over somewhere else. And if he does, he needs to understand that he HAS to engage with the support services. And that there are always services designed to help student pass, even without a diagnosis or reasonable adjustments, but you have to seek them out and engage fully with them. And of course, then the layer of disability support that he needs to engage with too. It can seem like a lot!

Does he enjoy uni?

What does he want to do?

@Arlanymorhe attends the local university so he csn live at home so can’t transfer.

I’m not sure what you expect the uni to do to support him if he won’t engage and he did not have basic resources available. He could have used library pcs and his work would have been saved to an online account. He could have accessed his previous submissions to learn from the feedback and reuse the results. Did he ask for further mentor sessions or perhaps not show up. Are they offering him to retake year 1 , during which time he needs to attend all the study skills sessions the uni offers for freshers and learn to ask for help. Uni is by nature demands independent study beyond lectures, seminars and labs. It might feel brutal but that is the case even with support on hand.

@Tippertapperfeet I have told him he needs to give authorisation for me to communicate on his behalf.

Wouldn’t the uni library have lent him a laptop?

@TomeTomeI intend to contact disability support tomorrow.

@Michele09He didn’t even revise maths but got a 1st. I thought he should study maths but his choice was engineering.

What does he want? Time for a proper chat with him.

I imagine he'd be able to redo the year. I'd be very surprised if he is passed to the second year given that they set a particular criteria and he didn't meet it.

He might prefer to start again somewhere else, or at the same institution but a different course.

I really don't think you should be chasing support for him. HE needs to engage with it. University is in many ways a halfway house between school and "real life". It's his chance to practice advocating for himself. You can help him with it e.g. looking up phone numbers and what support is available, but HE needs to make phone calls/write emails. Otherwise you are not helping him learn to support himself. Hopefully this year will act as some motivation. Don't try to remove all consequences of his inaction.