This is way longer than I expected sorry! Very grateful for any advice.
DS is 8 years old and autistic. He currently has a place in a mainstream school and has an action plan drawn up by the school outlining his additional needs. He is in primary 5 (Scotland).
Ds has been bullied repeatedly since starting school (this is his fourth school, but first within this local authority), he struggles immensely with the social aspects of school such as making friends and is so literal about following rules that he can't apply much common sense to them (if told not to interrupt he will not even interrupt for an emergency situation).
While all of this is difficult we have been told several times that he can cope with mainstream education. We were lead to believe that he had misinterpreted bullying situations and that he does in fact have friends, and has no trouble following rules etc. Each issue has always been brushed aside.
His last report card basically shows that he has made no progress academically over the last year. Every area was marked as little or no progress made. This was a shock because despite his extra needs he has always had a passion to learn and enjoyed learning.
No meetings available to discuss as reports were given two days before the end of the school year.
Over the last week me and his dad have witnessed two separate instances of bullying behaviour. The first involved Ds being roughly shoved and having rocks thrown at him (and me) at pick up time, the second a boy approached Ds dad at pick up time and told him to "warn Ds to watch his back cause we're gonna batter him". Both incidents reported immediately to deputy head. Who assures she will sort it but has no meetings available for "a long time".
Kept Ds off school on Friday as we'd heard nothing back from school and we're worried for Ds safety.
Have been speaking to Ds over the weekend and it's become apparent that there's nothing at school benefiting him at all. He sits alone at playtime, doesn't choose lunches he likes as others pick on him for his choices, doesn't enjoy any of the classes or work (he did last year, and all previous years), and frankly school makes him miserable.
I can see it at home too, during school holidays he is lovely and happy and full of life, but during term time he just seems so depressed.
So what do I do next? We can try and push the school, but I'm not sure what else they can do, they can't force friendships or academic progress, and speaking from experience not many schools have a grasp on bullying at all.
We can look at other mainstream schools but I can't see how they'd be much different.
There is a local specialist school for ASD but I have no idea how it differs from mainstream or if Ds would be entitled to a place.
And there is home education, which while I'm sure I'm capable of I'm not sure of the practicalities as I also have DS2 (age 2.5) and DC3 on the way very soon.
DP and I have decided not to send Ds back to school until we can have a meeting to at least address the bullying and guarantee Ds safety, but what's next? School is sucking the life out of him.
Any advice?