Been in tears, cornered by inclusion and teacher separately today and feel hopeless :(

[moosemama]

My morning started with ds's inclusion teacher calling to tell me that ds is basically not producing any work at school in literacy or maths and that in a maths test he did yesterday he wrote on the top that he was embarrassed to hand it in. When asked about it he said that he is hopeless at maths and does not deserve to be in the top set. This is my boy, who when asked what his favourite lesson was in infants, always said maths and was confident of his abilities in maths always sitting at the top of the top group with ease. In the test he completed 14 out of 20 questions and got 13 of them right.

His class teacher and inclusion teacher apparently discussed moving him down into the lower group to show him that he is not hopeless at maths and they wondered if being the top of the lower set might be be better for him than bottom of the top set. The thing is, until this year he was the top of the top set and he knows it, he has lost all confidence in his ability to do maths and a few weeks ago I actually asked him myself if he would feel happier in the other grou, which isn't so competitive, does the same work, but has things explained in more detail and more slowly. He became hysterical, sobbing that he'd been with his group since Reception year and didn't want to leave them and how he doesn't want to not see his maths teacher, as if he's not in his group he will never see him at all etc.

She also said that they are continuing to have problems with him not producing work in literacy, even on the Alphasmart. At most he produces a couple of sentences each lesson, even though he is highly capable.

There are other issues, eg his teacher insists he is being deliberately defiant and disrespectful and his inclusion teacher feels he is extremely unhappy and totally lacking in self-confidence with regards to school.

Then, I went to fetch him from school and his teacher asked to see me. We ended up in a classroom talking for about 40 minutes and going around in circles. She said he is currently performing at a low 3 so won't get a statement I told her that he was higher than a low 3 at the end of year two, which was now two years ago and that represents not 'no progress' but a clearl backwards slide. She tried to tell me that he is 'age appropriate' in his NC levels, 'so you won't get a statement' . I told her that NC levels are irrelevant, he is not making progress and is capable of much more and clearly his disability is preventing him accessing the curriculum effectively and I will fight the LEA if necessary, as you do not have to be 'behind' to require a statement - although he is in effect behind anyway, based on his capabilities.

Honestly, it was farcical and I ended up telling her that in my opinion, my son's mathematical ability and confidence have fallen through the floor during this academic year and it isn't a situation I am happy to let continue - if necessary, if the school refuse to provide him with the 1-1 support he needs I will de-register him and home-school.

I asked her what they are doing/going to do and she just gave me the old 'I have 30 other children to teach as well you know' line. So I asked her if she and the inclusion teacher don't know how to teach my child effectively in order for him to make good progress and have confidence in his abilities - who should I be asking? The answer 'I don't know - there isn't anyone'.

When I pointed out that he was fine up until year 2 and produced lots and lots of top notch work with no support whatsoever, she just said that the work is more challenging now. He has had testing done which shows that he is more than capable of high level achievement, yet he has been sliding backwards at an unbelievable rate.

So, I came home in tears, sobbed all over my Mum and now just feel hopeless. My son has not made any bloody progress for two whole years. They have watched him slide backwards, fail and lose confidence and done sod all about it, then turn around and say that there's nothing they can do about it and there's no-one else who can help either and that old chestnut 'he won't get a statement'.

Ironically, I was told by the inclusion teacher this morning that the new SENCO and head of the ASD Inclusion Teacher Team feel that they have got enough evidence to proceed to SA request and will be going over the evidence the school and I have got together this week, with a view to setting the wheels in motion asap.

I just want to take him out of that bloody place and home-school him. At the moment it seems like the only way he's going to get the 1-1 he needs to achieve his potential. When he works with me I am constantly amazed at his capabilities. If he can do it with me, then he can do it for them as well, but they seem incapable of motivating him. The thing is, despite all the problems he doesn't want to be home schooled, he wants to stay with his best friend and he has actually been making some good progress with his social skills and made a couple of new friends recently as well.

I thought we were starting to get somewhere with the school and they were actually starting to understand and work with us - obviously I was wrong.

AAAAAAAAARGGGGGGGG!!!!!

Oh Oh, I remember the geese honking thread....Honk Honk Honk!!!

Hi oblomov, how are you doing? How did the DISCO assessment go?

How things change huh? Back in March, there I was telling you things were looking up for my ds and now look at us. Most of what I said still stands though - I have dusted off my steel capped butt-kicking boots and after the weekend to recover, will be going into battle - fully armed!

As I said earlier, home schooling isn't an option unless we can't find a way forward within the school system. Ds is desperate to stay in school, having for the first time in his life finally been accepted into the social circle of boys in his year. He was over the moon last night because his best friend was in a French lesson over lunch-time (he usually spends those lunch breaks on his own) and he played with all the other boys from his year, some sort of chase game, a ball game then had a chat (about computer games naturally ). He has also bumped into some boys from his year when we've gone up to the local playground recently and they've all gone off to play happily, so socially things are so much better for him and I don't want to jeopardise that.

To be honest, part of me thinks that the social stuff is so important that if wasn't for his self-esteem I'd think hang the academic stuff, there are other options. GCSEs can be retaught at home and taken at the Tech if he doesn't do so well or he could even just lear a couple of programming languages and take his Microsoft Certification or something similar and he'd never be out of work.

Am feeling a bit more positive today - there's always a way and we will get there, somehow.

To me, social skills come above everything. the reason for that is that we all want to be liked. to have friends. many of us want to have a friend that we can rely on. a best friend. plus, to be accepted within our peer group.
just below that, comes being average academically. we all want to be good at it. not to have to struggle. for no one to tease us. or tell us that we are rubbish at something. because if they do, our self esteem just dwindles away.
I totally get why your son wants to stay at school. it makes sense.

disco, is fine. i have answered her questions. on monday she will give me her opinion. plus she will meet ds for the first time. she 'suggested' that there was 'enough' for a diagnosis. we'll see.

I'm inclined to agree. Fundamentally, the most important thing I want for my children is their happiness and for that they need to have people in their life they care about and who care about them - and that means friends as well as family.

I never wanted and still don't want any of them to be mega high achievers, for precisely this reason, once you have achieved a certain standard you then have to maintain it, or be seen to fail - ds flew through infants so easily, top of everything and blissfully unaware, then the bubble burst and he's left with his self-esteem in tatters.

I was always an average grade student, straight down the middle line all the way through and I've always felt like this is the safest place to be in terms of expectations and self-confidence. If one of my dcs had turned out to be some sort of naturally gifted Einstein, I guess I would have had to deal with it, but fwiw, I'm glad that none of them did.

Glad DISCO is going well. Hope you manage to get a dx and some help for your ds soon.

Agreed. I was a B grade student. I had to work to get it, but got a B in everyhting I ever did, everyhting. It was a shock to realise that ds was as bright as he is. But I too forsee thei as actually making life , if anyhting, trickier. Not so bad now, as he is only 7, but I see myself posting what you have, in the future.

Sorry, moose, I am probably missing some piece of info. If he does not have a statement, then, well, the school is not obliged to do anything, i.e. your DS is just one of the 30 kids in the class. Why has he not got a statement?

He hasn't got a statement because the school refused to recognise there was a problem until he fell to pieces on entry to juniors, at which point I bypassed them and went to the GP for help. Prior to that point, I myself didn't know what the problem was and it has been a very steep learning curve from my son going into freefall at the beginning of the 2009/10 academic year, to getting him assessed and dx'd, learning about ASD, finding out what his needs were/are and who can meet them and what I can/could/should be doing to help. In short it has been a relatively short, but extremely intense and difficult journey, for all of us, but most importanly for ds.

Then the school were particularly crap at doing anything at all to help, I have had to fight tooth and nail all the way, bring in the inclusion team and EPs myself. Because the school hadn't actually tried any support or intervention, in our LEA he would simply be refused SA until the school can prove they've done everything they possibly can do before applying, or, if they did get as far as SA we would only get a note in lieu, telling the school to pull their fingers out and do something to help him.

Meantime, I have been gathering evidence and getting as much help into the school as possible so that we have enough to make SA refusal difficult for the LEA. We are now at the point of applying, mainly because of the evidence I have collated, as ds's school records were nowhere to be found when asked for. (We are on our fourth SENCo in this academic year and the original one was frankly, a complete waste of space.)

He was on SA last year and has been on SA+ for this academic year which means they are actually obliged to comply with SENCOP and support his additional needs and by not enabling him to access the curriculum effectively, they are also in contravention of the Disablity Act. He isn't one of 30 in a class, he is a child with a dx of ASD, plus school related anxiety, hypotonia, visual motor and sensory issues, they are well aware of his problems and their obligations to ensure he is supported.

True, they haven't been required 'legally' to do anything specific with regards to his support in the way a statement would, but they do have to make sure that he has an effective education and must take his disabilities into consideration and make reasonable adjustments for him to be able to access the curriculum, make progress and achieve.

AllieZ - My DS doesn't have a statement, but school have put a number of things in place to support him in his learning and that is what is missing here for moosemama's son.

Lets look at it a different way. If a deaf child didn't have a statement and was therefore only one of 30 in the class, would it be reasonable for the school not to do anything to support that child in its learning?

Statement or no, if a child has a disability that impacts their learning, the school should do what it can to put in place things that can aid them.

Hi moose. Not sure I can add much. We moved DS Dx AS out of mainstream school into HFA Autism Unit attached to Mainstream after Primary 2. Mainstream head really didn't get inclusion. Said they were doing everything they could. I wasn't so sure. He's come on leaps and bounds since then. It used to take me 15 mins to get him into school and then I'd go home and wait for the phone to ring! Understand you wanting to keep the social side up and definitely agree with that. Wonder if there is anything else you can do. I've got a friend who has enrolled her DD (Dx AS) in online school. She tried HE, but found it wasn't really working for her.

Have you tried your MP or someone else in the council with sway. Always works for me, even if it takes time.

AllieZ, I think it's fair to say, moosemama's DS's lack of statement isn't from a lack of trying! Your post came across extremely bluntly, I'm sure you didn't mean it to be.

Hi creatovator. Actually that's exactly what ds's inclusion teacher told me during our conversastion yesterday. She said without a doubt ds needs and ASD unit attached to a mainstream school. Unfortunately there isn't one single such unit in our LEA. Apparently they have been lobbying the LEA to try and get at least one set up, but the LEA are adamant they don't want to do it.

I think what's frustrating is that I spent the longest time not trusting the school, or indeed any of the educational related professionals, but then things did seem to improve for a while (around the time the EP team were involved and he was being assessed). The Head is genuinely sympathetic and is actually really fond of ds (he was his lodge supervisor on their recent outward bound trip so got to know him quite well) and when we go to him things do tend to get done, but each time we have to follow procedure and go to the teacher first, in the full knowledge that we are just wasting our time and will have to take it further, meanwhile ds continues to suffer while nothing changes. I suppose I now feel stupid for letting my guard down and starting to trust them more. I took my eye off the ball while I was ill myself and this is the end result.

I am really hoping we manage to get together and sort this mess out next week, as well as finally getting the SA request in, because if we don't some tough decisions will have to be made about ds's future at that school. I honestly don't know which way I'll jump at the moment, he's so distraught at the though of leaving the place, but at the same time is getting more and more upset about underachieving. We do have great advocates in our brilliant inclusion team, so I'm pinning my hopes on them for coming up with a solution at the moment.

Agree that Alliez's post is blunt. but I think thats good becasue it cuts to the chase. Fact is, without statement they are obliged to 'diddly squat'. And we all know this.
Pwp told me that if I applied for statement, now it would basically be laughed out by LEA. Because I am not on SA, have no IEP. i have requested and been refused, by school. But atleast by applying for statement, LEA might 'encourage' school to buck their ideas up, by listing what LEA expected school to do.
Or that was the advice to me, by Pwp.

Moose, are you sure this doesn't apply to you too ? could be nonsense and don't want to lead you astray. But realistically, there is no other alternative, is there ?
I think we all know you have to apply for statement. And hopefully, LEA will 'laugh' school into doing 'something'.

Ladies, can I ask what I need to show the school to get ds1 put on school action +?? He was put on school action in april and has his review next month.

No dx yet...seeing the comm paed on monday.

I thought school action plus was when outside help was utilised. So wouldn't a referral to the comm paed automatically move him to school action plus? That's what we were told at our school...

Hi triggles The school didnt refer him...my GP did at my request - does that make a difference?

I will ask for him to be moved onto school action + at the IEP review next month...by then we should have had a meeting with the HT and his teacher to discuss the comm paed appt and the other therapies we are doing atm...

ds1 has got his hearing test today with the AIT practitioner....

Hmm... it's really puzzling. I was told that as soon as outside help was sought for DS2, then he was automatically listed as on school action plus. And this was done as soon as they recommended that I go to the GP for a referral to paed. To be fair, it's just an exercise in labelling, IMO. The label they put on him (sa or sa plus) was irrelevant. They provided support for him according to his needs, not his sa level. But I must stress they are an extremely supportive school. Will they not provide more support for him without officially making him school action plus? That seems a bit odd.

I think if you get your referral to paed independently from school they don't 'officially' know about it. They need to call in an EP or inclusion service or advisory teaching service etc or paed needs to write to the school.

ah, see I knew you'd know the official stance on it for sure! LOL

Becaroooo - is there anyone through the school that is working with him?

School Action+ means you have outside agencies involved (I thought this only referred to ones that come into school) - it does not mean you get extra help at school. It means you are getting extra help from those outside agencies, plus whatever help you get on School Action. So you don't need to be moved to SA+. It won't change anything at school.....

Sorry if I have been blunt but moose asked what the school was going to do about it and I think to answer this we need to know on what grounds she can hold them responsible. Moose, with all the dx and the difficulties your ds has the LA does not have a leg to stand on. Get a solicitor and let them loose on the LA.
babyheave it's great that the school have put things in place for your son without a statement - but this was out of the kindness of their heart and you can't demand that another school do this for another child; (or indeed if your DC's school decides to stop it, you have no basis to demand they reinstate it). With the budget cuts I suspect there will be fewer and fewer school willing to provide extra support without absolutely having to so parents will be able to rely on "informal agreements" as opposed to a legal requirement less and less.

Allie, you are totally wrong. Schools are obliged to teach and care for all of their students.

A statement is only required if the school can't meet a childs needs from within their own budget. But it is expected to provide for the vast majority of students out of their own budget.

Schools get money for SEN kids who don't have a statement which they have to spend on SEN provision

the school legally has to care for and teach all of it's students.

Thanks all....

So if I have understood correctly, if the comm paed on monday decides to get an EP/OT/SALT involved (unlikely IMO) it will mean ds1 is put on school action +?

At the moment he is getting help with working on his IEP targets (we do that too at home) and he is on something called "switch on" which as far as I can gather is a reading recovery programme?

Ds1 just brought home a big folder on thursday with a reading book in and his cut up sentances...no instructions...nothing!

sigh.

Becaroo, I think it's very likely the paed will ask for an EP assessment. Not sure if that makes you SA+ because it's a one off thing.

Also likely he asks for DS to be assessed by an OT, but that won't be through school and so therefore won't put him on SA+.

I didn't think your DS had any speech issues, so therefore probably won't be referred to a SALT.

but if school get the ASD team or the SpLD team involved then he'll be on SA+.

My DS doesn't have any speech issues but poor social skills etc so the paed is referring to SALT for his communication/eye contact to be assessed as part of the multi disciplinary assessment along with OT (again) and a developmental check and physical exam by the paed in another appt.

AllieZ, I do know that thanks.

I am sure you didn't mean to be patronising.