has anyone disengaged with the education system?

[pillsthrillsandbellyaches]

ds,4,asd, attends pre-school.

we are having a whole load of crap with the prescat system (pre school assessment team, dunno if its the same in england)

we get the minutes (written by the educational psychologist, who chairs it, and whose best friend is the paediatrician, who we have already complained about).

anyway, these minutes bear no resemblance to the (lack of) care we have had over the last 6 months!

we have sent a response to these (just a few days ago so not heard anything back yet) commenting on various aspects of the minutes and asking for an independent minute taker, and fewer people at the meetings and advising them we want to take a supporter next time.

but we are seriously thinking that after ds final year of preschool we will home educate him. partly because we dont think the local "learning centre" based in a mainstream school is that great, and partly so we dont have to deal with these bloody people! the (dont) care team!

we already have a home programme for afternoons, overseen by an autism consultant.

just wondering what other people thought? and if anyone had any experience or advice?

lol! yeah, in scotland.

have discovered that if your child has never been registered with a school, then you dont even need to tell the LEA you are home educating.

i honestly think my husband would have a mental breakdown if we did that whole fight the LEA thing.

are you doing it for a home aba programme? or support in school?

cue for a (shed seven) song!

good luck. it is (almost) unheard of in scotland for LEAs to fund such like.

anyway, i always fancied being a teacher...

I've been HEing for nearly two years (ds now 11, would be starting secondary in Sept if still in school) and have no contact with the school system or medical services either, apart from what we've accessed privately.

My only contact with 'officialdom' is with our LEA for HE monitoring. I make an effort and so do they, so we have a positive relationship. Other than that I don't bother because, like you, nobody was listening and support was dependent upon budgets and the opinions of people who didn't fully understand ds's AS and actively tried to deny it.

I honestly wish I'd taken him out of school at a much earlier stage as he's made so much progress in the last two years. I guess I just didn't want to believe there could be such a lack of integrity in children's services, but in the end I had to admit that was the case and take my son out of school for his own safety and to give him a future.

We do ABA too - mainstream school with 1 to 1 mornings and ABA sessions at home afternoons. School are supportive of this and it means DS can get to grips with coping and learning in the school environ while keeping up with things academically at home. He is just coming to the end of reception and his reading and spelling are better than his NT twin sister!

Hi, forgive me, but what is ABA?
My son is having a nightmare, struggling physically with school. He is doing 3 full days and 2 half at the moment. Is there another way that doesn't have to mean full home Ed-ing him as I think the social interaction there helps.[Sometimes!]

Thank you, I'll do that!

we HE (have HE-ed my NT 9yo from birth) - ds has 6 hours of nursery a week that will continue until Jan 2012 & 18 hrs of ABA which we'll be winding down over the next 12-18 months, then he'll be HE-ed 'normally' alongside his sisters.

But I'm a HE-or by choice - nothing to do with SENs etc. There are masses of HE-ed children with ASD. My paed doesn't like HE because she says it makes the symptoms of ASD disappear