Are we doing friday night threads?

[signandsingcarols]

If so, how are you all doing?

Life at chez sign is doing ok, huge amounts of PGCE homework and the OU year is gearing up, so lots of student stuff too.

Am feeling really snowed under, but, ds has been doing well at school this week and has sucessfully been in assembly (yay!) . We are off to the cafe at the church (lovely, quiet, run by volunteers) tomorrow with a little friend from school and his mum, (ds has a friend, ) ).

Really pleased that they are going to assess! Well done!

Extra info, I don't know, moose. You went about in a different way to me, my first parental contribution to get them to assess was only 1 page of A4 and my second was 9 pages. All the school work examples, etc, came from the school. The LA asked for reports/advice from the EP, autism advisory teacher, Special school, MS school, paediatrician, LA paed, SALT, so our bit was just another advice. It is harder to get them to assess these days, so your first submission was much more detailed. It can't do any harm to include it, so long as you have it summarised and organised. There is a danger of having so much info that it's overwhelming and never actually gets read, which is why a summary of the main points is so important.

Thanks Coff33 that helps. I didn't think they'd turn it down, but I worry about being too pushy sometimes. I know we need to be pushy - but worry about where the threshold is for them losing patience and stamping the big red 'Warning: PITA Parent' on your file!

Hi Ninja, thanks.

Crossed with you all!

Just caught up - sounds like there's lots of special birthdays this year - and weightier issues (which I shall join). Ninja - me, you Zumba - just waiting for someone to babysit, so don't worry too soon
Lollipop - dad used to fly when we were young. He used to 'borrow' old RAF planes that had been decommissioned - which meant apart from the controls, there wasn't much in them. If you were lucky, you had some old car seats bolted in!! - most had benches! But it was so much fun.
Good idea about the MN plane - but couldn't we make it an SNMN plane - all welcome, no funny looks from other passengers, destination tbc - but somewhere welcoming and safe with free specialised childcare so that all birthdays can be celebrated in style!

Missed your post Ellen. Thanks for your advice.

I was worried that my submission was going to be too big and not get read. I went all out to make sure every paragraph was numbered and everything was clearly cross-referenced though. I also did both a summary sheet and made sure the final section of their form (which is set up a bit like a summary anyway) also included all of the most important points and clear references to supporting evidence in the main document and appendices.

The other thing I did was to make it clear that I know ds wouldn't be considered to be failing academically in terms of expected NC levels for his age, but that his NC levels weren't my biggest concern and what we want him to have extra support in is social and communication skills, anxiety and self-organisation plus support with overcoming barriers to learning relating speficially to ASD, such as theory of mind, abstract thinking etc.

I wanted them to know that I was asking for an ASD statement with some academic stuff thrown in rather than a primarily academic statement, which I knew they wouldn't even consider.

I should thank you again actually, as I went back through the 'day in the life of a TA' pm you very kindly sent me and the conversations we had around it and took a lot from that about what sort of support we could/should be asking them for. So thank you again for that Ellen, it was really valuable.

I am so relieved I don't have to do it all again this month. I was so sure I would have to.