6 year old DS referred to senco. What should i expect?

[Moresleepandwine]

I am hoping for some reassurance here. My 6 year old DS has had a couple of incidents involving being rude to teachers and getting angry when he shouldn't have. We had a call with his teacher who suggested that DS lacks an understanding of social situations and is unable to read other people. She is going to refer him to the SENCO to get him some support with his social development. His teacher is right about DS' lack of social awareness which can sometimes lead to awkward situations. DS is an extremely bright child who loves maths, with a very high reading level but who has poor handwriting and only writes to an average level (also according to his teachers). He has friends and is otherwise social so we never really worried about him until now.

Now that he is being referred to the senco, we have started to worry if this is the first sign of a larger issue around asd. Are we being paranoid and worrying too much? DS is our first born so we have no experience of how the sen system works in schools.

Really can't say from that.

There could be signs of other things, but equally, it could be a great, proactive school that realises everything about child development isn't about academics, and is prepared to invest time and skill in developing 'the whole child' and has groups - or is prepared to set up a group - to work on social skills. Or it might be there is a social skills group running anyway that has space and is easy to slot him in to so it is a case of 'we'll give that a try' to start with and see how that develops.

Thank you! His school is very proactive and on the ball. They focus on taking action quickly rather than a wait and watch, so what you are saying makes a lot of sense.