made to change to MS?

[Vinniesbisqwits]

my sons at a special school , hes been there a year now we really had to fight to get him the place and this year they have put him in this class where all the children other than himself at the moment go to MS with a TA part time , today my son has come home and said the teacher was asking him questions about going to secondary school and digging and delving, now this may be ok in time but i dont feel hes ready and am not sure he will be because he did very poorly at pre school , first school, then had problems so went to two middle schools finally we got him a place here because he was just not coping and so unhappy and was bullied badly he was seriously self harming and i dont want him feeling this low ever again, his happiness is more important than anything, so my question is can we be forced to send him part or full time to mainstream secondary as i dont think he will cope with the changing of classes amounts of people noise and sensory input , he will go backwards and i cant watch that being on suicide watch with a 9 yo wasnt nice .

sorry i should have said hes ASD so hes at an ASD school

if he would be accompanied by a ss TA throughout, this might be a really positive move for him? the TAs literally will walk him trhough everything, so he won't get lost/ bullied and if he can't cope because of the noise/ sensory issues, the TA will have a back-up plan to take him to the nice quiet lovely learning support department for some down time. this looks like a really good way of gently introducing him to the same opportunities his peers at ss enjoy, and a really positive move to maybe desensitise him to some of the things he can't cope with. it would be controlled and supportive.

it is understandable that you are ancious, but please don't let this rub off onto your son. express your concerns to the school, but work hard to get ds to see that this would be nothing like his earlier experiences, and would be a good thing for him to try if ss think he is ready.

if it doesn't work out, the ss will re-evaluate. they aren't going to force him if he finds it impossible. with a TA by his side they will be v flexible and he can drop in and out as required.

it's great that the ss think he is ready to try some ms classes with familiar ft support.

just chat to his keyworker and ask if that's what they are thinking. at the mo you are worrying without really knowing what/ if they are planning anything.

hes already anxious and doesnt want to go theres no way i can go through watching him put cords around his neck and put his head under the bath water , thats my biggest worry i also already know he couldnt cope at all his previous schools , i totally dont belive hes ready at all, what makes it worse is his teacher this is her first post and is totally clueless how to treat children on the spectrum shes awful but he is happy for the first time in his life i dont feel they are thinking of my son at all , i did say i agree of course he may be eventually just not this soon , there deffinately thinkling of doing it they mentioned it before and the other 5 in his class all do part time MS, i think considering ms has previously made him feel suicidal it was totally wrong of them to talk to him about it before consulting us, they have really upset him tonight

it is part of their job to look at whether he is ready to try some pt ms if this is the norm for the school, so they are within their remit to raise it as a discussion point at school. and they have obviously discussed it with you in the past (and you have agreed).

you just need to reassure him that nothing will be happening, it was just a conversation. you can discuss with school that their method of raising the subject caused him to be anxious at home (they need to know this anyway) but tbh i doubt that an nqt with no experience in sn would get a job in an asd unit. and if he is happy, she can't be that awful.

getting yourself in such a bother will be having a detrimental effect on ds. you need to be calm and reassure him that nothing is happening. if he's been out of ms for a year and you are anticiapting that ds will lead a reasonably independent life in the long term, it's reasonable that they look as to whether he is ready to try some pt stuff accompanied by a TA. they won't know if he's ready unless they talk about it, both to him, and to you.

i suspect that your own anxiety about how he was before is colouring both of your reactions to this possibility. he is happy and settled now. if everyone is calm and suggests to ds that he could (if he wanted to) try it once or twice to see, with no obligations, it might be easier for everyone concerned than discussions of cords around the neck and drownings in the bath. the 'visits' might be no more than a walk around the corridors at first. noone is going to be bullying him.

and walking around the corridors when lessons are in progress and he is with a familiar TA would be a great way to start desensitising ds to the setting.

sometimes as parents we have to take a deep breath and look at the bigger picture. try and look at it less emotionally and try and work out whether this is something that you want ds to be able to do in a safe environment. you still have the right to believe that he isn't ready. but try and do it dispassionately. and discuss it with school. school are obviously trying to see if he is ready. that's their job. you can have input, but they are more likely to listen if you can put your point forward as it stands at the present, rather than listing issues that are not current. ds is happy and settled, but may find it difficult to move to this next step. he may find it okay with good support from the school. he might even enjoy it. he might not. school might decide he isn't ready. but they will be listening to both you and him before they decide.

If you don't think he is ready then you can certainly say that. I would never allow my son near a mainstream school again (luckily no-one would ever suggest it!).

When will his annual review be? You can submit your concerns in writing then and discuss in detail.

Can you talk to the head, it may be that there are no plans for him to try mainstream anyway.

No weve not discussed it in the past and we have not agreed at all, i said i it was mentioned as thats what they try to do with some of the more accademically abled children , people seem to forget it was this environment that caused him to previously try and kill himself?? it was fleetingly mentioned in general conversation , no one has talked to me about it other than that, and i know it is not in his teachers remit to be the first to bring it up with him when if she actually read his statement and CAMHS report would see it is a serious issue not to be taken lightly by his class teacher without prior consultation, and if your child had spent all his life being bullied in MS and 2 years self harming and trying to commit suicide i think of course its colouring my view id like a child alive if thats ok with you , how he was Before?? let me tell you he didnt slepp last night at all hes been sobbing one min and having meltdowns the next , this isnt just a case of oh de sensitise him he will get used to it, its years of bullying he endured , the ultimate aim is send hims for a few hours and eventually all day, YES, so the ta wont be with him then, hes not even settled totally in the special school let alone think of throwing him back into the lions den yet, i find your whole post very unhelpful and biased and your manner rude, i came here for support and all i get is someone being ignorant , i am not against Ms i have two other nt children and years experience with ASD and ADHD my son has other problems like he cant write hes dyspraxic and hes hypermobile, wether hes de sensitised or not does not change the fact that a huge aspect of why he didnt get on in MS was his awareness of his differences and self loathing because of it, for the first year ever hes actually going in n out of school smiling, today after one teacher (who has no previous sen experience and this is her first teaching post), i dont have anything against ms school i agree it works for many children , but from 4 other schools i know the environments completely wrong for mine, discussions of cords round neck and drowning HELLOOOOO this is reality not ficton, saintlyjimjams thank you for your kind words his annual review is due soon and i think ill do just thats put my concerns down in black and white, as when allowed to talk sensibly about it , i see the for and against MS and id like my son to access some of the lessons but just dont think hes ready yet ,i would need to speak in depth with the school about all aspects , as at the moment the mere mention of going to a school like this has really reacted badly on him he was acting very upset all day and had two meltdowns in class yesterday, i will have to contact CAMHS again if he does not settle in a day or two, i have looked at the bigger picture ty outofbodyexperience im a big girl 50 yo not 20 so that is not the advice i came here for i asked if they could force me to agree or not and i end up with a lecture from someone who does not know me or my son at all, so i think ill listen to my own experience and not your out of body one

I wouldn't worry too much yet vinnie- I think they'd be unlikely to move him back so quickly. Do remember IPSEA as well who will help you if it gets to the stage where you are worried he might lose his special school place.

I would definitely feed back to the school the impact that this discussion has had on your ds - they need to be made aware or reminded that even mentioning a return to the mainstream environment is likely to trigger traumatic memories and anxious reactions from ds, so that any future discussions of where he goes next are handled more sensitively.

While outofbody is right that mainstream can be an appropriate environment for some anxious children with asd, not all of them will cope there whatever support is put in place.

I don't know if it will make you feel any better but we were reassured at ds' last annual review that if the child is doing better in ss environment, that is an argument to keep them there not to say he's better now, send him back to mainstream.

Does his current ss stop at 11 or carry on to secondary level? If it is just primary, are there asd appropriate ss secondaries that you would like ds to move on to? I guess you could use this incident as a catalyst to say to school and camhs let's work together to make sure transition is planned properly for ds in a way that won't stress him.

I'd put in writing that ANY changes to setting be that a day trip to the park or a visit to a MS school should in future be discussed with myself and parental permission obtained before the subject is breached with my son. I'd copy the letter to the HT and the lea + cahms bod your son was most recently under.

Don't go into past events in the letter -focus on the recent melt downs that occured as a direct result of this illthought out action.

However do ask the teacher verbally if she has done a risk assessment and has plans in place to deal with suicidal episodes on school premises. Be very cool and VERY cold with her - then walk away first, you want to leave her feeling just a little intimidated by you.

Having had to deal with a suicidal 6 year old I don't think the mental scars it leaves on a parents mind can ever be healed totally but we can learn to focus on the immediate outcome needed to ensure our kid never returns to that dark state. In your case that outcome would be no repeats of dumbass suggesions without your say so and no trips to MS until you feel your child is ready to go have a look see. ( I've had my own therapy sessions to help me learn to control the primordial protective instinct it triggers!).

no his school goes up to 19 hes been there a year now his review is easter , he even has a whole weekend of meltdowns when they wanted to take them to london on a school trip it was a total nightmare and as you say bochead i have to be sure he wont mentally go back to that dark place,many thanks pinkorkid and bochead x

sorry should have said hes 11 so hes in the secondary dept now

mn is a really good place to vent. very safe.

my advice was merely that you need to remain calm, cool, collected, and discuss the impact of this short chat with school. they weren't dragging him off to the comp to get eaten alive, they were doing their job and mentioning the possibility of visiting to him in a safe environment.

i suspect that given his own reaction, the idea will have been shelved long before you get to discuss it with the class teacher or ht, which is also their job - to judge if he is ready, which he is clearly is not.

yes, of course you have a right to be upset because you believe the situation was handled badly. and you do need to calmly discuss the impact with school.

my sincere apologies if you just wanted to vent in a safe space, rather than try and calm down enough to think rationally about the consequences of school's (understandable) actions and deal with it appropriately. have school been doing work with ds to minimise the consequences of his previous experiences? or are they just concentrating on the here and now aspects?

in fact, never mind. i'll bow out. boch and pink are giving the same advice in an apparently more palatable manner. hope you get it all sorted satisfactorily and school manage to reassure ds they aren't going to take him anywhere. it will be a good learning experience for them and will enable them to manage his needs better in future.