Useless secondary school

[Cheeseontoastt]

Hey!
my ds 11, is suspected adhd, we are waiting on camhs 🙄 and for ehcp. This should of been done by primary but wasn’t. Since his transition to h/s 6 weeks ago he’s severely struggling. In and out of classrooms, wandering, aggressive behaviors. He’s had play therapists and child psychologists at primary but the h/s do not have the facilities to support him at all. Blaming it on safeguarding issues. Within 3 weeks he was put on a reduced timetable of 1 hour a day, but is still struggling and not actually getting any education at all. They suggested sending him back full time and going down a normal punishment route of exclusion. I said no, because I feel like I’m setting him up to fail. He’s currently at home as they cannot deal with him or his behaviors. I’m desperate to help him get some form of education but I’m clueless. He has 0 interest in traditional topics, and as such can’t focus, gets stressed then the behaviors occur. Where the hell do I start 🤣 do I have to follow a curriculum?

Please be aware that the local authority has an absolute duty to provide your son with full time (or equivalent) education. Reduced timetables are supposed to be short term measures to put support in place. If this isn’t happening call SEND Operations for your area and ask them what their plans are to educate your son.

Do not allow the school to off roll him, this will be considered as you taking on the obligation to educate personally and the local authority can wash their hands of you.

Call and email everyone you can and ask them how they intend to fulfil their obligation. Don’t let them push it back on you, ask for a list of options to choose from and keep pushing.

I’m in the middle of something similar and have just sent the details to my county councillor because I’m getting annoyed and it’s his job to help.

What would you like school to do? Secondary is very different to primary and there are lots of different issues. Some things get better, some things get worse.
What sort of transition was done?
Why is he struggling to stay in lessons - is it the workload or sensory issues or other kids? Is he articulate enough to explain what he is finding so hard?

Some schools are great, others not so much. But students who wander out of class are much harder to manage at secondary than at primary so it is important to get to the bottom of why that is happening. Then you can make a judgement call as to whether it is a fixable problem with support or whether school is the wrong environment no matter what is put in place...