Anyone had child with ASD/asperger's at weekly boarding school?

[ChocolateHoneycomb]

Hi,
I'm going to ignore any general nasty comments about how evil boarding schools are, so please don't bother. I am just playing around with ideas at the moment.

I have a ds with asperger's, who thrives on strict routines and hates travelling to and from school due to major concerns about timing. Academically his performance does not match his ability due to various ASD related things, but he is achieving within age expected ranges and is ahead in some areas. Behaviour can be rigid but he has always been fine in a normal class and doesn't require special help but benefits from teachers who are very aware of his ASD. He HATES doing work outside school - is willing to stay for homework club some days as that is 'at school' but causes tension about doing it at home. A few people have said this isn't unusual in ASD.

I came across another boy with ASD who has loved weekly boarding, as the week is totally structured and homework done so the weekend is 'time at home'. I wondered if this might suit ds, especially in a much smaller school than he would be at locally otherwise. It would be from year 9 and somewhere between 30-60mins drive from home.

I didn't board myself but ds' dad did and he has always raved about how wonderful it was, but he doesn't have a diagnosis of ASD!

Just wondered if this approach has worked for anyone else, or if you tried it but it didn't work why that was?

Many thanks for any constructive comments or suggestions.

Hi @deeman77 it sounds like mainstream boarding could actually work if you can find the right school in your area. The structure of boarding can really be great and it does tend to hinge on having consistent rules for every student in a given year and for a lot of ND kids that creates needed predictability. I'm not an expert on PDA by any means but I know some kids will do better when rules/expectations are de-individualized and some struggle even more with it (because they'll be asked to do/not do more things that don't necessarily make sense for them on an individual level), so I wanted to mention it. If your DD has never had any incidents of physical aggression at school or similar settings I would carefully leave out that word when speaking with schools.

In Scotland... Lathallan School is definitely worth a look if it isn't too far - it's remote but they don't have Saturday lessons so a somewhat longer drive might be worth it. It's mainstream but intentionally looks to be a school for kids who have struggled elsewhere. I'm not sure how Lomond School is doing in recent years and I know they do IB at S6 now, but it might be worth looking around for current info. Loretto, Glenalmond and Strathallan are probably too intense/traditional and not small enough, and probably the same goes for St. Leonard's. Fettes and Dollar are massive and wouldn't be on my radar.

North of England... I mentioned Fyling Hall and it still sticks in my mind as a great one to investigate but unfortunately it would be a very long trek for weekly boarding even if you're south of Edinburgh (though as with Lathallan they don't have Saturday lessons so weekends would be Friday PM-Sunday PM). Depending on your location The Mount in York is all-girls and could actually be a feasible distance via train (please don't be scared off by the Quaker aspect - Quaker schools will feel less religious than almost any other independent with a "Christian-ethos" or similar).

Hopefully that gives you some leads to at least explore. Good luck to both you and your DD 💐

thank you so much @FlockofSquirrels . very kind of you. we are in ayrshire so Lomond isnt too far. we will try and explore the various options over the next few months while seeing how dd does in current school