School choices!

[ellieboolou]

Hi I wondered if I can ask seasoned secondary parents for a bit of advice about my daughters secondary school choices!

Dd has ASD but apart from really disliking school she's good academically but very socially awkward. She prefers one to one friendships and suffers high anxiety.

School 1. 10 mins walk, very high achieving and best school in the borough for results and behaviour. It also has a reputation for focusing on attainment rather than pastoral care. It's a very large school with 1300 students and has recently had a 2.5 million refurbishment. I was very impressed at the open evening but the head came across as quite unfriendly, runs the school like a business and her talk only briefly touched on care / nurturing. The 6th form student doing the show round said the head is strict but the school is "good".

School 2. 30 -40 mins walk or one bus around 15 mins, very passionate head teachers talk about seeing the child as a whole and a high focus on children's emotional and social health. Looked a bit run down but very friendly and had an informal feel to it. Results wise it "requires improvement" and I was shown round by year 7 who'd only been there for a few weeks so difficult to get a student perspective. Apparently has an amazing senco.

Dd wants school 1 as she can walk in 10 minutes, that's the only reason she's given.

I'm torn as feel school 2 offers better pastoral support but lacks attainment and dd wouldn't get the bus due to her ASD / anxiety, so I'd change my working hours so I could take / collect her.

School 2 looks amazing and results speak for themselves, but.... very little pastoral care.

Any insights would be much appreciated and thanks for reading!

Why is pastoral care important for you? How often do you think your daughter would engage with it? Is it worth adding an extra five hours, so basically another working day onto your daughters load? Plus, what’s the behaviour like at school two, will it have a lot of anti-social behaviour your daughter has to manage?

Im autistic and went to the more academically focused school, I didn’t need any extra support and just gone on with it. I’d have hated going to the rougher school and would have preferred the more business like attitude to learning.

A strict school might have better behaviour in and out of lessons, and therefore be more relaxing /calming environment or the strictness & fear of detentions might send her anxiety into a tailspin.

My DD used pastoral care a lot at secondary, and we picked her school based partly on that, and on general ethos (sounds similar to your school 2, but was 'good').

Have you read the Ofsted and looked at the results data for higher achievers? A RI result may be for things you aren't bothered about. Did you get a chance to talk with the SENCOs? if not, then can you before submitting the application.

You maybe won't know until you try. Might be easier to transfer from 1 to 2 than the other way around?

I would put pastoral care ahead of results personally.

can you meet with both sencos and ask them the questions important for your daughter?

@JSDLS good points regarding her actually engaging with the pastoral care, it's important to me to know the school value the emotional needs of children. Behaviour at school 2 is worse from what I've heard. Thank you for your insight, it's nice to hear from an adult who has autism. Thank you

@TeenDivided Ofsted for school 1 is good overall and school 2 requires improvement across the board all apart from Senco / pastoral carewhich is rated good.

@Sirzy yes, I've made appointments for both schools to visit with daughter as felt the open days don't always reflect a normal day at school.

Thanks for the replies

I think you need to talk to the schools more about what your daughter needs, and see how happy you are with the support they say they can provide.

Talk to the SENCOs, explain any adjustments or support you'll need, and decide how you feel about what they say. Don't base it on how the Head comes across, you probably won't speak to them much. If School 1 is quite strict, for some autistic kids that might actually be welcome as they'll always know what's expected of them. For others it will be an utter disaster. That's why you need to have the very specific chats with them as needs are so different.

If she goes to school 1 and it's a disaster then a move to school 2 I suspect will be far easier than than vice versa.

We are trying to make a very similar decision, in fact I have a thread going at the moment about it!

We haven't decided yet, but one thing to consider is that it will probably be easier to transfer out of a high performing school to a lower one, if your DD is unhappy there, than the reverse. I also think their "buy in" is very important - we don't want our kids starting secondary thinking "but I didn't even want to go to this school"!

Cross posted with RandomMess!

I would start her on the strict local school. She may find that she is happy knowing what is expected of her, and that all pupils are expected to follow the same rules and that there are clearly defined consequences for breaches.

We had a similar choice, DS is not diagnosed with ASD but has traits and has other diagnosed learning differences. Local school is high achieving but strict, school 20mins away is more easy going, better reputation for pastoral care but on visits came across as a bit disorganised. We went for the local school, DS wouldn't have had high enough needs to get much support at school 2 as one of the problems of being labeled good at SEND/pastoral care is that you then attract far more than your share of children with additional needs without necessarily getting any additional funding. DS also really likes clear structure which the local school does better, plus he can be independent and get himself there and back. He had also been there quite a few times for events etc so was quite fixed that that was where he was going for secondary. He is year 7 so only there a few weeks but doing well so far.

@ellieboolou I don’t have ‘autism’ just like you don’t have ‘neurotypicalism’ 😉

For most autistic individuals being autistic simply means their social, communication and emotional needs are in a minority. Everyone in my household is autistic and most of our extended family are. My husband’s managed teams over over 30 staff from his early 30s and I teach.

People are already starting to try and negatively label our 3yo’s needs, such as telling her she’s quiet simply because she doesn’t like the company of little girls. Her whole demeanour changes when you challenge these labels and provide her with alternative evidence, such as pointing out the many times she is chatty and loud. Her cousin (who doesn’t know he’s autistic) has been labelled as anxious and now carries an emotional Octopus with him so he can have the legs up or down to let everyone know he’s feeling. He’s a mess as his natural and healthy reactions to growing up as minority in an unsupportive environment have been medicalised and he’s told his instincts are wrong and a mental health condition.

You talk about SENCO and pastoral support but does your daughter really need this? Would it be better for your daughter to be singled out and treated as ‘special’ or does she need a school that will have high aspirations for her and treat her as one of the pack?

I would be careful of going in with the “well it will be easier to move from this one” approach because the wrong school can cause a lot of damage and make things harder.

i would meet with the senco without her first so you can ask the questions then take her

I've spent years second guessing choices. Sometimes you can't tell in advance what will be best. You make the best decision with information available, and then adapt as new information appears.

Local has huge advances, and if that's her preference, go with it. As others have said, if it turns out to be the wrong place for her, it will be more likely that you can transfer to the less prestigious school.

It's very difficult to judge pastoral care on what is said at the open evening. It can be a bit variable anyway, depending on the exact nature of the needs, and how well the school understands what will help a particular pupil. A school which doesn't promote its wonderful pastoral care system might nevertheless have form tutors who are very good at looking out for the needs of their charges and finding ways to meet their needs. The amazing SenCo may be brilliant with some needs but not others. School 1 is probably keen to attract the parents of very able kids, so may put their academic side and results first and foremost at the open evenings. School 2 knows it won't pull people in on the academics so will be selling their other advantages.

@JSDLS ah sorry I hope I've not offended you in how I've explained it! I'm never sure If I say is autistic or has autism.

I'm actually really reassured by your post as it's made me really stop and think about the type of support she needs via school, when I think about it, everything that's been put in place so far hadn't worked! You're right - she definitely doesn't need singling out! It's like a lightbulb moment, thank you. With my dd (she's 10) she desperately wants to fit in but very rigid with her emotional and communication. The labelling is also something I'm going to really focus on, she's constantly told at school she's so quiet and doesn't communicate her needs, I think this has had a negative impact on her! They gave her a communication book but she was horrified at the thought of using it, the tea gets gave it to her in a room full of pupils who asked "what's that for" which made her go inside herself more!

Thank you all for your replies, it has really helped me, it's been difficult as dd doesn't have any friends so talking to other parents hasn't really been an option.

How old is your DD? I have a Year 10 DD and she's only just finding a social group now.

She was also painfully awkward and very quiet (diagnosed ASD) all her short life.

You could have a look at www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100044510616450 Spectrumy which is the profile of a autistic woman who is such an advocate for taking care of autistic people and allowing them to be who they are.

Like your DD, my DD doesn't want to be single out, has struggled the ENTIRE way through school with no friends at all. Not one single one. During Year 7 things were challenging, she went off to the library to read. Year 8 she started to speak a little more but still library. Year 9 was still a challenge but slowly coming out of her shell and speaking to more people, still going to the library at breaktime and lunchtimes.

She has been rejected her entire life so it's been nothing short of a miracle to see her finally being included on a group whatsapp chat, managing to sit with a group at lunch etc. And she's so much happier.

It will come I'm sure but it takes time.

In the meantime yes, be wary of labels.

The school sounds big and impersonal but what I realised after moving my DS who also has traits of ASD is that it's him, not the school.

I thought it was the school at primary so moved him, but he still struggles badly with friendships (younger than DD).

When I've tried interventions with DD she said all it did was make her more confused or more embarrassed. These days I try to support her with whatever is going on but I don't try to change her.

When things go badly I say well it's OK for you to feel like that but it's not your fault, it's just your brain is wired a bit differently and sometimes people don't understand that.

She's never told anyone at school she has a diagnosis. The school know but we have said it's her choice to share it. And at the moment she doesn't want to.

Listen to your DD. If she likes a 10 min walk, maybe go with that? As parents we constantly get in the way I sometimes think (well, with hindsight). It's well-intentioned but it doesn't always help!

Good luck and you have all my sympathies. It's very very hard at times.

Ds2 has a similar profile to your dd (maybe a little more flexible on friendships). He needs a calm school ie one with high levels of good behaviour. Hates it when teachers shout and kids mess about.

@LizCrust thank you for that post, was really helpful and I can relate to so much of what you said.
My dd is 10, summer born so she'll be just 11 when she starts year 7 next September.

It's really comforting to hear that your dd is finally finding herself friendship wise.

Good points my dd very similar in that she hates shouting

What schools say about pastoral care and what actually happens is very different. Ask the schools in advance privately but in reality you aren’t going to know til you get there. There is a lot to be said about a good close school.