Sen transport to school stressing me saying ds is not eligible

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We live 2.2 miles away from the Sen high school ds is starting this September. The threshold for transport is 3 miles, if you live in this you may not be eligible for transport. They now want evidence of why ds cannot walk the 1 hour journey to and from school, other than his diagnosis of autism and not being able to walk this journey alone what else am I meant to provide ?!
He already receives transport to his Sen primary in which we live just under the 2 miles threshold.

I don’t drive so am not able to take ds to school, ds dad works and cannot be available twice a day to take ds and pick him up. We also have 2 toddlers who need to be in nursery for 9am.

I am so so stressed out, also I cannot get in touch with anyone from the send team, they still haven’t told me ds has got a place at the high school, I emailed and rang numerous time, all ignored, in the end I had to phone the actual high school and ask if ds was on the list. Please help.

He is going to a specialist provision, he isn’t neurotypical.

Tell me you don’t understand SEND kids without telling me you don’t understand SEND kids. I think OP has made their difficulties crystal clear. It’s not as easy as “oh, he’s 11, he should be able to manage a bus on his own”. He clearly can’t.

However, PP is correct that OP should be amassing all the evidence on this and sending it to the council. Do they hold regular school transport panels that you can appeal to, or is the issue that they’ve been ridiculously slow in responding in the first place?

Some of the replies on this thread are awful ive been in OP position this year and my little boy has asd, a bunch of learning disabilities and really bad anxiety getting transport means he would of been late as i have another child that gets transport to another provision, an that would add to his amxiety he would be very over stimulated going in after getting busy public transport. He wouldnt be physically to go himself and other people saying its life skills theyve got to learn, we know that about our children we arent stupid, do you not think we'd love thwm to be a bit more independent and be able to do stuff orher children their age can do? But when it puts them in danger like absolute ridiculous comment. Ignorant people.

I’m not ignorant of disabilities, at no point have I said OP’s child should get himself to school on public transport alone.

I have merely challenged the idea (and expense) of almost half a million children (5% of the school population) having a disability which requires them to have individual taxi transport to and from school each day vs their parents taking them.

But (and I have already said), that is a political discussion and not relevant to OP’s question.

Hmm Uber drivers are DBS checked or a local taxi company often provides the same driver daily.

Lots of disabled people learn to use public transport. Its a really important life skill and SEN schools will often build in practising this, looking at timetables etc, paying, checking routes.

Ah thank you, some common sense at last. I think the general public needs urgent training on SEN to actually fully comprehend the differences between a ND and NT child. OP’s son would NOT be given a place in a special school if he had low needs. Please listen to OP when she has clearly stated he cannot safely navigate to school because he has autism (which is a complete explanation by the way) before you comment ignorant bullshit like “teach him then”.

Then put your disabled child in one.

Thank you. I’m so upset now I wish I never started this thread. My own fault posting on aibu but needed the traffic and didn’t expect such ignorant answers.

It seriously worries me that some people think this way

You're banging your head against a brick wall here OP.

Mine is fairly non verbal. What if something happens?

Please ignore all of the ableists on this thread. Other SEN parents such as myself completely know where you are coming from and sympathise.

It’s ok. AIBU is full of venomous ignorant twats, pay no heed. I think this is something you only understand when you have a child or someone close to you who is ND. I get it completely OP and I hope you can help them understand. Do you have any details from his primary school about his lack of a sense of danger at all for example? That may help your case.

I’ve been given this morning 5 different numbers (that I was given previously might I add) and not one of them rings, you couldn’t make it up.

Some very unfair comments...I would have been very cautious letting my NT DC walk an hour to school in year 7...it's a long way and they can encounter all sorts of issues on the way. Yes it's an important skill but if the ops DC isn't ready for it then that's perfectly understandable.

That's exactly why a relative of mine got transport ( from age 4 ) totally non verbal. What do u imagine will happen?

No I guess they are not but are a relevent fact that I will still make them aware of. The main point is obviously it’s not safe for ds to travel alone. Safety comes first surely ? He is a vulnerable child.

edit - typo

Yep to this. No idea if OP’s son is able to use a mobile for example, some ND children (including teens) can’t so wouldn’t even be able to text/phone if something happened. I think people should watch a few videos by James Hunt on his YouTube channel Stories About Autism.

Do you think parents are making up their child's disabilities? The DLA has improved the financial situation but I would swap it for a child who was NT.

They still haven’t told me ds has a confirmed place at high school
This school is named in his EHCP

If the school is named in the EHCP, the place is confirmed.

If you currently live just under 2 miles from DS’s current primary school, and therefore you life closer than the statutory walking distance of 3 miles for over 8s, the LA must accept DS can’t reasonably be expected to walk to school (and therefore the statutory walking distance doesn’t apply). Point this out to them after term has ended. Not before because they may decide to try to remove it for the rest of the academic year.

Evidence will depend on what you have. Examples include from people such as paed, CAMHS, OT, Ed psych, current school, children’s services. If the EHCP is written correctly, that should also provide evidence.

It isn’t uncommon for LAs to have unlawful transport policies so read your LA’s transport policy carefully. Also read the government transport guidance. It was updated in May. Alongside these, read the legislation. Because the transport guidance is somewhat at odds with the legislation. It is worth reading some of the articles that were written when the previous transport guidance came in a few years ago.

Be careful with SENDIASS. Some are good but too many repeat the LA’s unlawful policies.

The LA cannot require you to use DLA instead if they have a transport duty. Not that DLA would be able to fund taxis everyday and in some areas you wouldn’t find a taxi firm with availability at that time.

I have two children in special schools. Home to School transport is the worst service I have had to deal with. They took forever to deal with my application, offered an inappropriate service based on my application, didn't deal with my appeal within the timeframe, or my complaint about the appeal. When I had a transport solution which was working really well, they changed it with no warning to make it unfeasible. It is so stressful.

Your council should have a policy on home to school transport. If you read that, it will tell you what you should be entitled to.

I complained to my MP. It helped to get things moving.

If you can't drive and you haven't been able to learn due to your ability/disability, you can't drive. That's reasonable.

It's unlikely that anyone working full time would be able to juggle work to manage school runs as well. Your DH could possibly do drop-offs but not pick ups.

If you also have younger children you care for, that is a factor in what you're able to do.

It's definitely worth looking at whether there are ways you can juggle things around to make it work, but it is really hard. I wish Local Authorities weren't making it harder.

Read the post?! They are!

But he can walk or get public transport. The issue is he can’t do these things on his own and the parents are going to find hard to accomodate due to husband working and other kids in nursery. But this is a challenge faced by many many parents regardless of SEN who have kids in different schools.

my son gets LA transport as his school is 8 miles away but if his school was 2 miles he would be expected to walk and of course we’d have to find a way to go with him as he couldn’t go alone. Just like any other regular kid. Yes we’d have to shuffle things around but thats being a parent

Then you should know most SS do not have breakfast clubs.