School GRRRRRRRRRR

[coff33pot]

Well my school relationship is at the current scale of zero after today.

Trying to integrate DS to FT. First 2 days this week fine. Today he was back hiding in the cupboard out of the classroom as I arrived. Clearly stressed out. He refused to walk back with me to get his coat etc but that I expected seeing as he wouldnt be in the cupboard if he wanted to be in the class.

I walk round and find the senco following me. We are now in the hall with other teachers, parents etc walking about and so she chooses to talk about DS with all and sundry about. Not a good start.

I get told perhaps we go back to the previous time of pick up as it is not working. I replied I disagree as he has to get used to staying and altering two and fro will confuse him more. Plus if we go back then he will know that if he hides I will come get him earlier so it isnt going to do anyone any favours. I want to go forwards not backwards.

I then get the "he must conform to stay in the class or it wont work"

I ask the question is he having sensory diet now. The heavy muscle work, excercise etc alternating between periods that require heavy concentration on his part. The answer was no, but he is having small peer group work.

I ask are you still keeping him shut in the classroom all morning. The answer was yes. And so I say ok you are keeping him in the class all morning, letting him out for ONE play, then expecting him to have small group work, then normal class again with no excercise no sensory diet as put in the statement and still expect him to read, write and maths and not be upset that he is overloaded and has to stay an extra 30 mins on top and for this he has to "conform" to go back in class after dinner with no dinner time play and complete one class lesson. Yes was the answer.

I said that surely it is more important that he gets used to staying longer to full time before you put more demands on him as in class learning. And if the school actually did the excercise and diet stuff then maybe you will have a child that is not so stressed out.

Answer: We have nowhere to do 1 to 1 in the afternoons. He is going backwards.

I have told them that he is entitled to a FT education and suggested then, that if they want me to pick him up after dinner then they are excluding him.

I got a "I am in the middle of a meeting, whatever you decide tomorrow I dont care" and off she walked.

I also told her that I am sick of them confining him like an animal and babysitting him. I am not proud of this but that is how I see it.

Don't know what to suggest. Just wanted to say that I think this attitude is awful .

I think you need to meet to discuss what is happening re the provision in the statement and why they are not providing it.
surely even a walk around the playground in the afternoons as a movement break would help. You don't need anywhere special for that.
Can you think of other similar things for them to do so that they can incorporate the 1:1 stuff in the afternoons?
I know that they should be doing it but if you make suggestions they may take them up or modify them to make them work and give your DS a better time in school.

BTW I agree with you they should give FT more of a chance before abandoning it.

Suggestions I have made so far are:

Utilise some of this 30 mins for social stories that are in the statement. Social skills time with one other child plus TA playing a game showing turn taking, role play anything really.
He loves laptop work so again some curriculum work on the laptop

Sensory wise:
Heavy muscle work as in pushing a trolley of books for the teacher accross hall. Sweeping the hall with the big broom. PE aparatus in hall, climb with a timing challenge to climb to the top in a set time. Dig some of the garden (they have gardening club)
Star jumps to music (again his headphones will shut off everything around him if hall is busy)

Calming technique:
Allowing him to listen to his headphones for a short period whilst colouring. Suggested this could also be used as a reward or consequence loss of time even?

Give him a quiet space to himself to go to and if its the giant cupboard SO BE IT. Throw some cushions in there. The corner in the classroom is too loud, too small a class so still cramped and to overloading.

OT has also made recommendations but they are pooh pooing it.
Wont use the visual aids
Wont use the wobble cushion (doesnt work there but works for me at home lol)

He has to be there FT to have any benefit of what is in the statement and perhaps learn..........

At the moment I have been invited for a meet to look at his work. What work, in the reading book it always says "read to DS" not the other way round, the TA writes for him or he gets laptop.

Bloody hell, it sounds like you are bending over backwards to suggest things and they are just ignoring you.
I know it sounds ridiculous but have you done it all in writing and copied to the head asking why not being done? I presume you have? Just that I found if I involved the head in writing things happened faster.

Also what is the TA like? I found the TA to be much more helpful than the SENCO and that the SENCO made promises that were not passed onto the TA so I bypassed her a lot of the time.

does he have 1:1 TA? If so I don't see why the TA can't set up rewards and sensory breaks for him easily. With dd ASD in mainstream - she was taken outside to run on field with TA, spends time doing 1:1 work in another room or in library, is offered choice of rewards which included quite alot of jumping up and down and spinning around when she was in reception; school borrowed a sensory tent which she could use when stressed. They were really willing to try anything to help her be calmer and less stressed. It could all be accommodated because she had consistent 1:1 who was there solely to help her. Is there any chance Autism Outreach could come in? I know lots of people have had bad experiences with them but they are supposed to be there to support and guide school when they are struggling as your ds school clearly are if they are asking you to keep him home for part of day.

I would put in writing to the SEN officer that the statement is not being implemented and ask them to intervene, copy to the HT. The LA has the legal duty to make sure the statemented provision is made but cannot do anything if they don't know about the problems. If the LA are equally useless you can then complain about them to Local Govt Ombudsman. Make it clear your child is being excluded even with the statemented support.

You can also complain to the Governors that the HT and staff are not implementing the statement / not even prepared to try the recommendations and I would include what the SENCO told you today.

Is there another school? I cannot help but feel they really don't want your child and wonder if you would be better off taking your very good statemented support to a school that will work with you.

Stick to your guns about exclusion. This is illegal and you are not obliged to pick your child up early.

Write a note of what happened / what was said in case you need it in future.

Senco IS the Head.........
The TA is lovely and DS has a good relationship with her to the point it is only her he trusts. I cannot fault her and she does have a lot on her plate with DS because of his present state. Unfortunately she has to do what she is told and asked of her so none of this is her fault. She is reading to him for an easy life and I both disagree but understand why iyswim.

She has volounteered to work with DS both morning and afternoon. Which is great but I know the poor woman wont cope with it and DS could lose her if the school dont help DS. Personally I think the school are letting the TA down as well as DS at his moment in time.

He has funding for 25 hours 1 to 1

They took the library away from him which was his quiet 1 to 1 space and now use it for mothers meets in the mornings, they also turned another music room into a classroom which is now DS class but of course everything that was done in there has to be done in the library. So now they say there is nowhere for him to go.

Thanks imogen :)

Yes anges I have written the conversation down now for memorys sake.

Contacting the LA is my train of thought at the moment after discussing it with DH who by the way asked me if the senco was still alive and he was surprised I had held it together this long :)

I havent emailed her yet as one thing I do know is not to send one whilst I am furious. I will be doing so first thing in the morning after a nights sleep on it. Infact I have hammered it on here to avoid emailing!

I will be taking DS to school tomorrow and I will stick to my grounds on him staying. My other alternative of course is to say to them should they call to collect is as they are "excluding" him I will pick him up on receipt of an official letter at the same time

Regards changing schools.......

He changes to Junior school in september so only a short period to go. this is another reason why I think they cant be bothered and are happy to keep him PT without helping him. I could be wrong but it does get you suspicious. Junior school is another battle as they didnt want him without even meeting him or reading the statement but thats another battle story for another time lol.

Where I live schools are so far apart travel wise and I have DD at home to due to go seniors sept so I cant leave her to fend for herself.

Special Schools are non existent and nearer devon than me lol. But I dont think he is SS material. His issues maybe so, due to sensory, anxiety, social skills but he is fully verbal and high functioning and so I think a SS would have the oposite effect in that he will become bored and of course that will only start off bad behaviour due to boredom. And I know hand on heart that if a MS put work in on him there will be good results.

He is complex to say the least but he isnt a danger to anyone at school as he doesnt start fights or even try to finish them,and I do have this in writing so they cant use that against him. He is aggressive as in roaring or screaming and running and he will hold a chair to barracade the front of a cupboard but its never got to anyone being hurt. Feet stood on but thats about it and again not to children.

So sorry to hear this, coff33. It really does sound like they are counting the days until July and want to wash their hands of him. Agree with the above advice. If they do officially exclude him, will that have any detrimental effect on his junior school placement? I know they are getting away with unofficially excluding him at the moment, but is this a battle you can win? Sorry to sound defeatist, but I suppose I'm saying make sure this battle is worth fighting. If there's no hope of a satisfactory conclusion perhaps your best efforts should be about his junior school? I can't remember the ins and outs of your situation, so please feel free to ignore.

To add to what has been said.

The LA has a legal duty to arrange the provision. This means they should arrange it and not assume it is in place until someone tells them otherwise.

It is their responsibility - make them act on it.

Wont ignore you Ellen :)

I am in truth stuck between the devil and a hardplace. I have advised the LA re the junior school situation and they rushed out a statement amended with the said schools name on it as the next school, so they do have my back covered in that department.

But I dont know what a string of exclusion letters would do? Ideally it should show that the school are not coping. And as I am getting calls saying "he is unsettled today" (which means he wont walk back into the class after dinner) that is going to look rediculous in a string of exclusion letters for every day of the week.

I also feel bad making DS go through this too. It is for his future good but I am worried incase they do wind him up to the point he hurts and have an excuse iyswim.

I could wait it out and keep him home for the afternoons but that means none of the statement would have been implemented and so I dont know if it is going to help in Juniors plus he wont be available for transistion visits either and we are at square one from PT at Juniors.

Coff - very grim

Totally agree with eveything Agnes and AT wrote.

You're beyond the stage of sorting this out with school - you need to report the non-compliance with the Statement to the LA (IPSEA has advice on this).

SEN Guidance actually says that Heads shouldn't be SENCOs - it's arole that requires a lot of time to fulfill it effectively. Good Heads shoudn't have that amount of time on their hands.

Crap school. Crap Head, Crap SENCO.

Oh Coff, that's really frickin grim. I do see what you mean in answer to Ellen's thoughts, but even before you'd posted he was leaving soon the thought had popped into my head. If they are just waiting till July then you're not going to win this one.

It sounds like you have a reasonable relationship with the LA, is there anyone there you can talk to, even off the record, for advice? Would having him in for 3 full days be better than short days, for example? I don't know, I'm just trying to come up with suggestions.

Can you ask the lea directly to provide a home tutor to cover the hours the school won't from next Monday until the end of the summer term? Just wondering if the thought of forking out more money might "kick start" some progress?

Does a parental Oftstead complaint of a refusal to implement a statement have an impact?

Just trying to think of non-standard approaches.

Ipsea has a model letter on failure to arrange support in Part 3 of the statement here

Sorry guys I was trying to hammer out a prototype email to the LA with the view to re reading it in the morning :)

But its so long winded.

I am not going to win with this school I just know it. Its daft. All they have to do is give him time. Time to play as one play time isnt enough for the whole day, time to breathe and sensory down time in whatever fashion the OT recommends. This is his major area and unless it it considered no one can expect him to learn or even attempt social skills learning and he is starting to develop classroom phobia all over again.

I feel I should complain on any other childs behalf to be honest. It cant get any worse than it is for DS can it......

I am thinking of just plain emailing the LA asking for a Tutor owing to the fact the school wont meet his needs via the statement and see what hornets nest that starts.

Wrong approach Coff.

They won't even consider a Home Tutor until your child has been out of school completely for a ceratin amount of time and has been declared unfit to attend.

The simple fact is that by refusing to implement the Statement your school is breaking the law.

But in personal terms they are letting him down very badly.

LAs must take complaints about failure to deliver support stated in Statements very seriously indeed.

If you don't want to type volumes why not just write a short letter and ask for a meeting?

ohhh well I would guess even though he has been PT since July that would strike a tutor out seeing as I agreed pending statement.

Ok volume email going off plus a meeting request. They did say they would attend any meetings I had with new school so I wonder if they would come to one if I arranged it with the Head.

DS was flexi-schooled as a provisional arrangement, all put in writing, with the consent of the head while we awaited his statementing provision to be put in place.

5 months later aspects of it were still not in place.

The LGO have took two investigations and 10 months to say the council did nothing wrong even though it is clear that when they shut down their first investigation, the LA were lying about provision being in place.

When head was asked about why he was flex-schooled, she said because that's what mum wanted to do and the LGO bought that despite the letter I had written at the time and records of meetings in which this was discussed with the school.

The LGO have also reinterpreted the very strict legal duty to arrange provision on the date the statement is issued, to a duty to 'start to arrange provision' which is altogether different - they even say this is what it says in SEN COP which it doesn't.

My point?

Don't rely on the LGO to sort this out. They will find any excuse they can to exonerate the council for 'trying their best'.

Put the complaint in writing to the LA using the IPSEA letter and record everything.

Totally agree TA.