So Many Questions...

[IWantTheOneICantHave]

Ok, my 14 year old DS is in year 10 (15 in August, baby of year), he's Autistic and also has severe Dyspraxia and is having a HORRIBLE time in school. Not from other kids...he's 6ft tall so I think this helps in him being left alone, but the teachers, especially the SENCO are doing nothing at all to help him. I've had so many false promises and still nothing gets done. Some of them are quite awful to him. It's an Academy so County Hall can't do anything and Ofsted won't get involved for one pupil. They don't deal with SEN either.

So I'm seriously thinking about HE for his last year. My Mother thinks it's the worst idea ever. Apparently I'm too stupid to teach him anything and how will he ever get into college or get a job with no qualifications, and he's gone through all this for this long, surely he can put up with it for another year...

So, what kind of things would I need to teach him? What about exams? How do I go about the whole thing? I know absolutely nothing! Please help! My son and I are both very stressed!

Your responsibility is to make sure he gets an education that's suitable to him - his interests, his abilities, his aims for the future. That doesn't have to contain exams, it doesn't have to contain any specific subjects. What you do and how you do it is something that is for the two of you to decide.

One thing you could consider, if you thought it would suit him, would be to find out if your local FE college would let him do a course there - some will, even at 14/15.

Whether or not you like that as an idea, what do you think would suit him from 16? Something academic? A more vocational college course? Getting a job, or an apprenticeship? And, are there particular things he's either good at and could be focusing on, or struggles with and he could do with some help on?

If you can picture what would be right for him in a year or two, then work back from that to think how to help him get there. If there are practical things he needs to get right first, then you could spend the year working at those. If he's bright and academic, you could think towards what he needs to get into the kind of college or university course that would suit - from 16 he could go to college anyway and do an Access course, or GCSEs or A levels if that's a good route for him.

Don't worry about what he would have done in school, start from what is likely to be of use in the future and work back from there.

Thanks for the reply, for next September when he would have left school I've actually applied to a special Autism college (ESPA). Just hoping he gets the place...funding and places are limited! Though I did apply early enough.

He is bright with the right encouragement, he gets a bit stressed and frustrated if things aren't explained clearly, but once he's got it he's really bright. Especially in Maths!

His interests are computers and computer games, he's also taking photography, art and graphics at school... he is a real computer geek and does things on it I didn't even knew you could and can type faster than I can talk...

Also check out Interhigh - quite a few kids with AS use it. If he loves being with the computer it might really work for him.

www.interhigh.co.uk/