To home ed daughter on pathway for autism

[Molly4200]

I am posting this in SEN and home ed as it falls under both and I’d like advise please. Sorry new to mumsnet so unsure on rules!

my daughter is 4 due to start school sept 25 ( uk)
my eldest boy is diagnosed born Asd n adhd and has an EHCP. Both have very different needs. My daughter masks hugely, real struggled in nursery with other children and noises etc and begged me not to send her and cried everyday. So I took her out in the end after countless meeting with nursery. She know attend childminders with only 5 kids.

she copes a lot better in the smaller environment but still hugely struggled she’s on the pathway for a diagnoses as she shows lots of traits of autism alongside anxiety. The main thing that sways my school decision is she struggles with other children she masks and holds it in but when too many children she stands back tow at h everyone panics about what they are doing, if they will be loud or not nice to her etc sits up all night anxious about the unknown of the kids the next day, struggles to let smaller things go like if someone’s taken a toy, she won’t ever say anything to another child and does let them walk all over her if they are bigger personality unfortunately to, but she will panic about every single thing c she repeats and repeats the same sentences to me on the way there and she has huge meltdowns from holding in at the childminders. she does massively enjoy it more than she did nursery however, but still struggles. There is loads more I could write but don’t want to make it too long to read .

I’ve been deciding about home ed come September as I know she will not cope in school with 30 children, most school near me are under staffed and over run, so she wouldn’t get much support and with her masking I feel she will be panicking internally all day and nobody will notice.
she’s not disowned yet and only on the start of her journey to be disgnosed she’s not her been seen by main professionals or assessed and it’s a 3 year waiting list in my area. So went be any time soon.

i feel keeping her back until she’s been seen and has more evidence and support in place is the best option for her but then i also worry that setting a school in the future would be even worse for her as other children have there own friendship groups by then and have been there the full time. It would be slot harder than all starting together.

I don’t really no what am wanting from mumsnet but just really would like advise on whether you’d keep back or start and see how she’d get on??

She went to nursery from 2 years old there was 15-20 children and she really struggles as I said, she wouldn’t sleep she panicked all the time and on every photo they took of her I could see the panic in her face. It broke my heart, although nursery kept telling me she’s fine, there was an incident with a boy not being nice to her to and then that made it worse, she does have lots of autism signs aside from this hand flapping spinning sensory issues food issues etc etc but as I said her masking was making so it’s hard for people to see her struggles. so as I said removed her and she now attended childminders with 5 kids, enjoys it a lot better and her childminder did me a great report and can see she’s autistic to, but she does still struggle even with only 5 children.

thank you for any advice

Personally, no, I wouldn’t. I would request an EHCNA and pursue support via an EHCP. Appealing if necessary. A diagnosis isn’t required for an EHCP. An EHCP can fund far more support, including therapies, that the vast majority of parents can afford to fund themselves.

I totally get your worries, I worry myself for my DD 4 who has recently been diagnosed with asd with a profile of pda, she is starting school in September hopefully with a ehcp in place 🤞 but i am going into her school journey with a opened mind of possible having to home school her at some point, we are going to give foundation years a try and go from there, the reason I’ve decided to try foundation is because it’s a smaller class and more play. She definitely needs a 1-1 to be able to cope and to keep her safe so if her ehcp doesn’t come back stating that then I don’t think she will be starting school until the right support is available. I would start an application for a EHCNA straight away.

@Cinnamoncupcake if school doesn’t work, rather than EHE you could look at EOTAS/EOTIS.

Thank you, I didn’t know anything about EOTAS so I will have a read up on it, do you know if they need to have a ehcp in place to do that?

@Cinnamoncupcake an EHCP is necessary for an EOTAS/EOTIS package via an EHCP.

Once compulsory school age, if DC can’t attend school, there is a duty under section 19 of the Education Act 1996 to ensure DC still receive a suitable full-time education. This is separate from an EHCP. Some LAs call this EOTAS, but it is not the same as EOTAS/EOTIS via an EHCP.

For diagnosis, contact your GP and request that she is referred via Right to Choose to a private psychiatrist. You can Google which Right to Choose providers in your area accept new patients and their waiting times. I've used Clinical Partners.
In the meantime, you should request an EHCP..I must admit I couldn't see my dcs suffer much longer in school, they became suicidal and stopped eating, so I took them out of school before applying for an EHCP. I know that now makes it hard to prove that it is not 'elective' home education. We are using Minerva Virtual Academy to help with secondary schooling and exams, and King's Interhigh for primary. It has been a true life saver and both dc are incredible happy and are doing very well academically. No more tears, meltdowns and suicidal anxiety. I wouldn't want them having to go into school everyday, even with 1:1 support, as this doesn't stop the noise, smells and unpredictability of social interactions etc. Dh is ASD and works mainly from home, he gets very quickly autustic burn out from being in an office, so if a grown man can't do it, it's unjustifiable imo to expect a young child to do something even harder (schools are much louder and chaotic than any office my dh has ever worked in).

Remaining in the system (.i.e. not EHEing) doesn’t have to equate to DD attending school if that isn’t suitable.