Autistic shutdown over GCSE mocks

[amr78]

DS15 was diagnosed with AuDHD earlier this year. He is high-masking in school so tends to be very dysregulated at home. He attends a mainstream school and dropped a GCSE in year 10 to facilitate time with the SEND lead. Year 11 has been extremely tough so far - we’ve had a couple of days of emotionally based school avoidance for the first time, with the last episode resulting in him dropping another GCSE (now down to 8) because his grades had been slipping in this subject and he’d got himself into a total state of overwhelm about an end of term test. He’d been OK with school tests up until this point, although has often struggled to put in the work as he’s so exhausted. He wants to stay in the sixth form and go to Uni, although he’s unsure what to do.

We are now at the start of the Xmas holidays with the prospects of mocks as soon as he returns to school in January. Yesterday, he refused to come out of his room for the entire day, wouldn’t take his ADHD meds and barely communicated other than via text. He messaged to say he was going to fail his GCSEs as he couldn’t revise. I suspect today is likely to be similar as there didn’t appear to have been any shift by the end of yesterday.
We’re really worried as we have no support over the holidays (we’ve offered it to DS - he’s steadfastly refused) and fear that we won’t even be able to get him into school at the start of term. If he can’t attempt the mocks, I don’t know where this leaves things over reasonable adjustments for the exams proper (assuming he can manage them) as the SEND lead needs to evidence the need for it.

Apologies for the long message - my mind is spiralling right now. Just looking for some advice or to hear from others who have experienced similar.

I didn’t want to read & not post. This sounds really tough.

Two thoughts - would you feel confident to help him with his work? And can you help him to get out of the vicious cycle of worrying and stressing without actually doing anything helpful ?

what about breaking up the holidays into smaller chunks?
go to the cinema tomorrow morning/have a walk/go out for breakfast but do an hour of something school work-y in the afternoon?

if you can’t help him to calm down the worry/dysregulation he won’t really be able to achieve much and he’ll be shattered by the time school goes back in Jan

with his work is there any way of breaking it down into ds-size bite sized chunks?

My ex dp totally went to pieces before some big professional exams but his dm helped him get to a stage where he had chunks of work (probably topics/sub-topics) on post-it notes

he’d go to his room to study one post-it’s worth of work then she’d go in after the agreed time and take it away then he had a break & did the next post-it

it really worked for him when he couldn’t see a way out/see the wood for the trees

it would take a lot of effort and patience from you but as it’s going to be hard either way, is it worth a try? You’ll need to find what works for him obviously!

I’ll always remember a client saying to me how do you eat an elephant 1izzyb? Cut it into bite sized chunks! Reckon i’ve eaten a few elephants since then…

I wish you and ds luck with things xx

The school should already have a picture of need for exam access arrangements. The upcoming mocks can be part of the picture, but for someone whose difficulties aren’t new, the school should already have enough evidence.

Would dropping more GCSEs be enough to reduce the pressure on DS? Focusing on the essentials for the next steps. Is the unsure what to do element for university or does it apply to what to study at sixth form too?

What support is DS receiving with organisation, study skills, coaching? Does DS know how to revise and what works for him? Or is that part of his difficulties?

Does DS have an EHCP? If not, I would request an EHCNA.

@Iizzyb thank you so much for this. We’ve made progress today in that he’s up, dressed, taken his meds, done some revision and has come for an hour long walk with me. He’s having his lunch and then is planning to do a bit more. We’re actually away in a holiday cottage this week so it is easier to break up the day with walks, little trips out etc.
We do offer to help him with revising but he’s very reluctant to accept help. We’ve also offered him support with a neurodivergence coach who has also been a secondary school teacher but it’s been a no to that too.
His SEND teacher helped him devise a revision timetable for the holidays which seems realistic and does take into account Xmas etc.
I think part of the problem is that he’s measuring himself against his non-neurodivergent friends who can sit and revise for more hours (or so they say!) than DS is able to concentrate for.
I like the bite size chunks approach and will see if we can help him approach things in this way.

Rather than sat down revising, would revising while being active work better for DS? For example, on a trampoline or exercise bike or sat on an exercise ball.

@2x4greenbrick thank you for your post.
DS has 3 lessons per week with the SEND lead where the focus is very much on study skills and support with approaching homework tasks they are finding tricky. This will increase to 6 lessons per week next term now he’s dropped another subject. This should be a great asset in terms of revision time. It’s been tricky to ensure he’s receiving enough support in school as he masks heavily so they don’t see the dysregulation that we do. Whenever we speak to school, it’s very much a case of ‘nothing to see here’. I’m also not sure outside his SEND sessions how proactive individual subject teachers are being in ensuing his learning needs are being met. His school report suggests not very.

I think 8 GCSEs should be managable as one of those is music which he really excels in so it’s not a lot of extra work for him and he’s done 40% already due to coursework. He certainly struggles with getting started and sustained periods of concentration. I‘m also not sure he’s figured out what revision techniques work for him best.

He’s selected his A-levels and seems quite happy with his choices. He has quite a spiky profile in terms of subjects he excels at so the decision-making process around what to study was quite easy. Uni is a whole different ballgame as there is too much choice!

DS doesn’t have an EHCP in place - we were hoping he wouldn’t need one as in the grand scheme of things, his needs are relatively low level.

I think helping DS find whatever revision strategy works for him will help.

I would request an EHCP. Not least because that level of study skills support is unlikely to continue at A level despite there being more independent study expected and a greater demand on executive functioning skills.