GRRR at school yet again

[madmummyof2]

my son is now 5 and started MS school full time this term.
he has ful 1;1 support but he still seems to spend most of his time alone in a seperate room.

i understand it is difficult for him to interact as he really doesnt like being in a crowd of too many people and he really cant sit and concentrate on one activity for too long.

anyway. he had a new TA this term who, quite frankly is soapier than a bar of lux. she has absolutly no authority over ds and he really plays up with her.
well he has finally started to settle down and has even started to bring a book home each week (kipper)

well i drop him off today and he has now got a different TA for teh mornings and then the old one for teh afternoons.

no one warned me about this and i just know it is really going to confuse him.
routine is so important to him and any changes to his everyday thinsg need to be handled extremely carefully.
i cannot beleive they have done this to him and me.

its almost like they are TRYING to make him kick off so they can exclude him.

i am just so angry right now. its his statement reveiw on teh 7th november and i cannot wait. the consultant pead is going to try and come along and she wants to push for him to go to a language unit.

It really p*sses me off when the powers-that-be try to insist on inclusion for everyone and then the child is effectively excluded from school life anyway. Grrr!

It sounds as though the school really doesn't have much of a clue about autism. How do you feel about the language unit? Do you think it would be a good place for him? If so then it's good that you've got someone on your side.

Give 'em hell at the statement review meeting!

They really should know better, shouldn't they? It would be so easy to let you know of any changes but they don't seem to think.

I had an issue over the Harvest Assembly this week (two actually, but I digress...). J's class were performing a mini-play about grasshoppers and ants - J was to be an ant preparing for winter and he wanted to wear his ant goggles for the play. He took them in to show the teacher and ask permission, and was told he 'might' be able to wear them and to bring them on the day of the play. Now, J doesn't act up in school much so they won't realise the problems this confusion could cause him, but how hard would it have been just to say "No, all the children must wear the same costumes" so that he KNEW!

He didn't get to wear the goggles on the day, but the stress of the performance and I'm sure to an extent the uncertainty of what he would be wearing, caused him to really kick off last night with one of the worst tantrums we've seen in a couple of weeks. And it would have been so easy to avoid, too. But of course they don't see the fallout so there's no problem, is there?

Knock them dead at the review, madmummy. Stand up for yourself and your son.

my son gets ft 1-2-1 and he became v.attatched to his TA last year, the problem is if she was away or sick he wouldn't accept anyone else doing anything with him and consequently did no work. He now has a group of teachers so that when one is away someone else steps in without him feeling anxious. This was done gradually ie shadowing the TA and then taking over with TA in background etc. It is now less stressfull as i don't have to worry if one is away and he's learnt to accept other people rather than become dependant. Don't get me wrong i wasn't happy at first and neither was he, we had a big struggle to get him to accept it and he was getting v.aggresive for a while and exclusion was mentioned which scared me. But on reflection because they understood why he was reacting so badly and had a goal in sight it did make them more tolerant. I would make sure they understand the effect of this and how keeping things the same would put it right but now i wouldn't reject the idea altogether. It has helped my ds to progress in his development in the long run. Good luck

i know it is good in the long run for him to have different members of staff able to work with him. but at the moment his behaviour is still soo bad. to teh point where the SENCO has actually stated they cant manage him.

the thing that irritated me was that no one warned me until i arrived this morining to see the new lady there. i didnt even realise she would be with George until she said oh hi is this George!
she hadnt even met him before.
thankfully he has had an ok morning as this new lady seems really on the ball and has just played with him all day.
but when he came home at lunchtime he really kicked off and was throwing tantrums over things he knows he cant do/have so i am certain its all just because of the change to routine.

he was back with his original TA this afternoon so hopefully he will be ok tonight but im not looking forward to it.

I do understand i hate change not just my ds because i know the effect it has and it makes me anxious when i just want to have a fairly settled day/life. It was obviously done all wrong and their understanding of his needs is severly lacking. A transition plan should have been drawn up and discussed with you so that you and him were prepared. I am lucky as my ds now has a autism trained TA with lots of experience of all ages and she advises the school as to what will work and wont. Hopefully you can bring all your concerns up in the statement reveiw and get something on paper that you agree with.