School refusing to take ds for more than 2 hours

[jjones]

DS3 has asd, some ld and possible adhd. He started school in an asd base this month, he has been there for almost 2 weeks, mornings only. When I went to pick him up today I noticed that the other children that started at the same time as him are now staying for lunch as well so I asked about when he would start to increase his hours with a view to going full time. I was told that they have had to change the class routine for ds and until he will sit on his chair for circle time then they would not take him for any longer than what he is doing now. I told them that nursery had been working on this for the last 12 months with no progress at all. I also said that I felt that the longer he was left the harder it is going to be for him. I was told that they could not consider him for full time as he disrupts the rest of the class.
Thing is I am already worried that I made the wrong choice and should have gone with the ss, I just don't know what to do. Ds is so clingy to me lately and I think that he is just going to get worse if I don't get this sorted.

Oh god no idea- we had this when ds1 was in mainstream. He started with 2 hours a day twice a week. It was a horrendous year tbh, always running to and from school.

I agree with you if it's going to work they need to get on with it and they need to start dealing with any problematic behaviours. I would expect an asd base to understand that.

And how long does circle time go on for for heavens sake? Don't understand the relevance of that.

Good luck but if you feel like blazing away YANBU.

they are reducing his access to an education that he is entitled to because of his disability induced behavior.

Go and smille, and through your gritted teeth mutter "Disability Discrimination Act 2005"

that's appalling, particularly given it's meant to be an ASD base. makes you wonder if they like to cherry-pick pupils - i.e. they want pupils who are easy to teach and they have to make less effort with. is your local parent partnership any use? or do you feel you could approach lea/ed psych about how things are going?

Thanks girls.
I have no idea how long circle time lasts for but he wont sit for snack time either. Things is they knew this before he started.
colditz I am glad you said that. I am going to speak to my friend at parent partnership in the morning to see if she can help.
Thing is only doing mornings is totally screwing up his sleep routine as he keeps falling asleep in the afternoon, and he is the type of child that if he is going to go asleep then nothing is going to stop him.

I don't think this is legal. Ring up Parent Partnership and see what they say.

When we moved school we agreed to start DS part time for a few weeks - this was only legal because it was classed as 'flexi schooling'.

Do diff rules apply if he's not yet 5??? I'm positive once he's over 5 this is not legal (without your explicit agreement to flexi-school him.)

It's legal until the term after a child turns 5.

my DS also attends a unit and has been in just the mornings (today the third day) and his main difficulties are with activities involving sitting down, that is the activities he doesnt like for the ones he likes he is first to sit down

This however has not been an excuse not to start him on full days and the teacher herself said we should start on Wednesday full days.

One of the reasons I picked the unit over MS is the fact he would not be sitting down when requested and will need time to understand he needs to be seated at school when the other children are sitting down and if the teacher told me he is distracting the class I would have far more lot to say than just the Discrimination Act. Surely there are pupils in the unit with lower cognitive level than your son, so will they be going mornings only when its maths or spelling at which your son may be very good at?

Oh, for goodness sake, DS1 is in year 2 now and still refuses to sit on the carpet with his class, quite often, instead chosing to sit at the back of the room and listen from there. Circle time is hell for a lot of kids with ASD.

I agree that there's not much that can be done about this until the term after his 5th birthday, but after then, he does have a right to a suitable education and they need to figure out how to work with him, rather than making excuses and they need to work out how to make his limitations less disruptive. If my kids' small MS school can manage this with the pair of them, a school with ASD base has no excuses.

blueshark that is the problem he is the most severe there, we had no intention of send him to ms because of this.
ouryve there are 8 kids to 5 staff so you would think they should be able to manage.

I have put a note in ds3's home school diary just saying that I would like to speak about his progression to full time. I will go to PPS tomorow and see what advice they can give me.

Good luck.

Ds1's class uses a traffic light system for circle time - next to the board and also spots in chairs. So if ds1 is misbehaving (he's cheeky and will do it on purpose) then hesitsib a red spot. Good he gets a green spot. He self monitors now and moves himself when naughty.

I know he's older but I would expect a unit to have some sort of system.

I have spoken to sen dept at LA who are going to speak to school. just waiting on them getting back to me.

The Head at our school tried to do this a few years ago when ds1 was due to start. Her plan was to keep him part-time all year. The Early Years team all told me not to let her get away with it. They said that it was because the school only received funding for the same number of hours as pre-schools do and by insisting on part-time the Head wouldn't have to pay for any help for the afternoons. (Not sure if this is still the case).

Luckily the teacher ignored the Head and arranged for ds1 to build up to full-time hours at an appropriate rate for him.

Well done on contacting the LA.

I have an appointment to talk about it tomorrow with the teacher. DS is also not managing on the bus either so not good, I tried taking him in myself last week and that was a nightmare not not an option. I already had concerns about our decision to send to the base but went ahead with it anyway.