Finding the right secondary school for HFA/AS

[sazale]

Hi
My dd 13 got a diagnosis of mild/moderate ASD at the end of Feb. Academically she is very capable but has significant difficulties in all other areas including sensory. She has been out of mainstream classes since October as she was not coping and spends her time in the student support unit. The unit is not equipped for a child to be in there full time as it is manned by support workers and no facilities for teaching. The school support dd a lot with play therapy, social skills classes, praise programs and fine motor skills. DD key worker (who is also the ASD worker) also meets with me weekly.

I applied for a SA (with schools support) at the end of Feb and the LEA have agreed to assess. The SENCO has told me that they can't say what setting she needs as that is what the SA process should identify and they aren't allowed to say but they have said that they don't see her being able to leave the student support in the future and the remit is only to accommodate children in Their for 2 weeks and also that without significant input in social/personal/behavioural areas that although she will be capable of leaving school with at least 5 GCSE's she won't be able to function in the adult world independently.

We all know mainstream is not right but the other choices are limited. There is a generic special school that has been suggested for us that do gcse's. It is a beacon school. It used to be for physical and medical disabilities but the LEA have took to using it for 'vulnerable" pupils. There are a high percentage of pupils with MLD. We went to visit and the environment was much more suited to dd with small classes and safety but I'm not convinced its the right place for her. I am concerned about the peer group for her.

So I suppose the question is how do I find out if itis the right place for her? How do I figure out if it's the right peer group or wether it's my inability to see my dd as disabled? DD has many PDA traits (especially demand avoidance) which the clinical psych said was because she's in the wrong school and won't go until she is but I feel need to be considered to be able to place her in the right educational establishment.

Thanks for reading

I am nowhere near that point yet as DS is only 6 but you have said that she is doing very well academically. Does the school support the level of qualifications that she is capable of achieving in the right environment? If not then I think that you shouldn't feel that it is anything to do with any inability to see her difficulties as a disability. Are there any other schools either independent or state at all that she could travel to if the statement named them?

Thanks Ben10. The school do give students access to the national curriculum and GCSE's but the pupils that do them I think are in the small minority there (2 or 3 each year i think)and I'm not sure at which level they pass. My DD is already at the level equivalent to GCSE grade D in maths despite having not been taught by a teacher for nearly 6 months! The majority of the students we saw there appeared to have MLD's. I suppose that could my first question for them!

My dd is extremely vulnerable combined with her sensory issues are making mainstream inaccessible to her. There is a NAS school in the borough so I'm going to make contact with them to see if they can help advise.

Gabbitas produce a useful guide for private special school provision. You can also search the OFSTED site by region and by school type to get an idea of the level of academic achievement of individual schools. The NAS also produce a list of schools that cater for children with autistic spectrum conditions including pda. Otherwise if you were happy to post your rough geographical region on here you might get some personal recommendations? Once you've got a list of possible schools you can start visiting talking to the headteacher is usually the way to get the clearest picture of how well your dd would fit in there. Good luck.

I would have thought that a special school, with individualised academics would find looking for ways to access to difficult academic stuff easier than a mainstream trying to find ways to access difficult social and life skills stuff...

and if you ended up 'homeschooling' for the academics, that's probably easier than trying to make up for a rubbish social and communication curriculum.

Hi sazale. My dd got her statement, she is 15 and sounds similar to yours, in that academically she is able, but suffers from social communication problems, she also has mh problems.

I have settled on a mld special school, as i know dd will function socially better in the environment, they said they will be able to provider extra work for her as she will be one of the more able students.

sazale, I think you're right to be concerned about peer group. DS has a similar profile to your DD, he is academically bright but could never cope with mainstream. I felt he needed a peer group with similarly bright students so he could develop social skills, so we looked at independent ASD schools as all the state special schools only took ASD with MLD or SLD and had very limited academic opportunities. We ended up going for a residential school, as there were no day schools which were suitable within travelling distance.

We had a local special school offering to allow individual tuition and day release to a mainstream school, to enable him to sit some advanced GCSEs, but I thought that would be disastrous for his social skills, as he'd end up split between placements and isolated from other students. So be careful if they offer your dd the chance to sit qualifications when other students normally don't. Also, check the qualifications offered carefully - many special schools offer Entry Level GCSEs, which are at a level below grade G in standard GCSEs, so would be much lower than what your DD is currently capable of.

I used the ISBI website to search for private special schools and the NAS directory was helpful too. The LA/SENCO were pretty useless in recommending suitable placements, you shouldn't rely on their opinion as they're not likely to encourage you to look at expensive private provision! Be prepared to put in lots of legwork, visiting as many schools as you can, asking detailed questions and looking at the different companies running ASD schools -there are new ones opening now and then so might not be listed in the standard directories.

Thanks for all your replies and there's definitely food for thought there. I didn't realise that when they say they do GCSE's that it can only mean entry level so that's something I need to investigate further.

There has been talk of dual placement with the special school and her current mainstream school but no ones suggested how this woul work and I'm not convinced it would be for the best. Difficulty to develop a sense of identity I would imagine as well as dealing with 2 sets of rules, pupils etc.

She prob could do mainstream with support if it was the size of and functioned like a secondary school. She went through primary with no support as no one identified any difficulties within the school environment and we only got ASD diagnosis at the end of Feb.

Look at:
The priory group schools - particularly the one in Frome and the one near Godalming.
St Dominic's near Godalming.
St Catherine's on the Isle of White.
Northease Manor - eastbourne way.

You do need to be careful re special schools because they do tend to have an over dominance of boys so girls can feel left out. Would she not be OK in mainstream but with a greater level of one to one support. what is your SENCO like? If the LA get wind of the fact that it might have to be independent special they will fling resources into mainstream so she can stay there.

Thanks flyingmum.

She's struggling too much in mainstream. Too many sensory issues and safety issues (very vulnerable). She's not been able to access classes since October so is supported in the student support unit basically being kept safe and doing a very small amount if work. Children aren't meant to be in there full time as no teachers.

She's academically very capable but all other skills are delayed to probably that of a 5 year old. She has amazing speech and excellent superficial social skills which make people believe she's more capable than she is. The Ed psych says she also has auditory dyslexia. She has filtering issues as well.

Other skills to a 5 year old level, academically very able.... Is there any way you can sit with the special school to look at the various homeschooling and/or Internet schooling resources? Ideally they'd do them, worst comes to worst you could.

She really could do with intensive general skills 4 hours with 2 hours or so individual stuff, targetted enough to get her a good crop of gcses (and hopefully a levels in due course).

www.autism.org.uk/our-services/education-and-schools/about-our-schools/robert-ogden-school-south-yorkshire/our-admissions.aspx

Would this NAS school - near you I think - be suitable? Outstanding at recent ofsted and appears to offer individualised curriculum.

pinkorkid, I'm hoping to be able to visit that school after the holiday as I've heard good things about it. My dd SENCO used to work there and raves about it. The Ed Psych said there are 12 pupils from our LEA placed there but he implied that they were more low functioning ASD. They also have a PDA unit there so should be familiar with the demand avoidance that she displays.

mariasalome, I have considered home schooling but I fear my dd would not co-operate as she does not agree with doing work at home and her demand avoidance is at a high level at the moment but it is definately an option if needs be.

The generic special school have emailed me with all their details and there are 4 pupils there my DD age and they have classes with either the year 7's or 9's depending on their ability. They also offer input on the social, emotional and inmdependence side but have made it clear that they only have basic ASD training and although they successfully support ASD children to access lessons none of their provision is ASD specific. I'm not sure wether this would cause a major problem but my dd does have great difficulty in transfering skills from one setting to another. It's so confusing aarrggghh!

Hiya, I wasn't v. clear;

I meant that if parents can put kids through a dozen gcses with homeschool type resources, then qualified teachers could preumably also manage. And if it didn't work, academics might be easier for a parent to supplement or to catch-up on later in life than social and general skills.

The ASD (with PDA unit) school is likely to have a fair few girls... I know a lass with a similar profile to your dd, she did well at a tiny, super-structured dyslexia school up to age 14 or 15, it got harder then.