DD to start Secondary School and terrified Mum!!

[littlelegsmum]

DD (almost 11) is awaiting assessment for Aspergers and we've assigned a private EP to gain her cognitive abilities, just in case we need to look at other areas also. She has recently had a SALT assessment and coming out with an age ability of 6y5m - which is clearly below average. He has said she works better with the 'cues' in front of her. Oh and she is extremely anxious and picks her scalp and pulls her hair out.

Now, i'm wanting to know how I can help her to gain a little more confidence and independance. She relies heavily on me for everything and I will generally leave her to try and explain things first, however more often than not as she can't explain herself and looks to me for reassurance. She won't walk any distance on her own and I have to drop her off at the school gates.

We have had to choose a secondary school within a reasonable distance that will allow me to drop off and collect her. She can't tell the time and really would not be confident or able to use the school buses alone. She has no idea how to manage her time, get organised for school. I have to constantly remind her to pack her school bag . . you get the jist!!

Could someone who is already going through this point me in the right direction and reassure me as i'm completely terrified of the struggles she will face and don't want her to go through it, yet I know I have to. I really feel like I have to protect her as she wouldn't even realise if she was being mocked. I've always spoken up for her.

Luckily for me DD is oblivious to my concerns but knows i'm here whenever she needs me.

Oh, it's so hard :(

Hi, littlelegs. Does your DD have any support at school at the moment? Is she on SA, SA + or does she have a statement?

My DS2 with ASD is 12 and started secondary last year. He's doing amazingly well, but he does have a 20 hour statement. He even catches the school bus, but that is with his brother on the way to school and his TA makes sure he catches the right one at home time (after catching the wrong one once, another thread!)

Have you discussed with the SENCo of the secondary what support they can provide and what sort of transition plan they can offer? My DS had 3 visits with all the other y6s and 3 on his own at times like lesson changeover, lunchtime etc. The school has a good 'learning skills' dept which has a TA led lunchtime club which DS attends.

Forward planning is the way, I think. Take lots of photos if you can, arrange as many visits as possible. Will she have 'friends' going there?

My DD is 12 and is in S1 at secondary. She has ASD and age ability of around 8years.

However, she has adapted so well. She is in base, within mainstream, and is now able to use her timetable and find her way round the large school, without an SLA.

When she was in P7, they offered extended transition, which was a programme of 6 visits, at different times of the day. This was over and above the general transition days that all P7s get. As well as photos, they also made their own handbooks to take away and read over the school holidays.

WRT transport, would your DD qualify for ASN transport. My DD gets a taxi, provided by the Council. It drops her right at the entrance, where she is met by one of the SLAs, so I don't have to worry about her crossing the car park (she has zero road sense)

The point you made about not realising she is being mocked is a good one to hold onto. My DD is totally oblivious to others, but that way she is happy.

And you could also insist on a home/school book. That's where I can write any day to day issues, plus I get to know all the little things like what she has for homework, and whether we need to send her in with a £1 on Friday to dress down for charity .

Oh this post brings back memories !. Like you,I felt absolutely terrified at the prospect of secondary school for ds ( he's in Yr10 now)
Ds has dx aspergers/ and dyspraxia ..
As Ellenjane says...I think the key thing for us has been the support and funding he receives. Does your daughter get funding?
Ds has 15 hours a week. I do not think he would have coped without it.
He has a TA in most lessons. Most importantly , he has a 'form TA ' who kind of sets him up for the day.Prompts him etc. Goes through his planner and his timetable... Warns him of anything unexpected he may have to do... Writes me messages / notes in his planner etc. She is my main school/ home link. He has a 'nudger' in exams .

Errrrm...Other Things we have done which have helped.....

He has no real organisational skills ...and although in many ways secondary school is much easier than primary to navigate ( in terms of having a clear defined timetable, and 'chunked' activities ), he still had needed considerable help in doing so. He can tell the time.. But he doesn't know what time feels like. So he doesn't know when say 10 minutes has passed.Secondary has such a routine based day though doesn't it?... With bells going off to move him on etc... It's easier for him to understand.

He walks to school. He has a phone and key attached and clipped to his bag ( bungee type lanyard) .He has a colour coded timetable in his planner with corresponding coloured books. Each subject books are kept in corresponding colour tipped see through zip folders with the subjects written on.
He puts a wristband on his wrist when he has to remember something... He is slowly learning methods of reminding himself to do things. ( lord... it's such a slow process for him to take these things on board!)
Ds had extra days with the senco going around the school with a dummy timetable before he started there .He also attended a 6 week transition course run by CAMHS which ran through the summer hols which helped immensely . They also worked on recognising and dealing with mocking or kids taking the piss... Although ds is fairly good in this area tbh.( mainly coz we take the piss out of everything in this house!... It's a coping mechanism :-)))
There are probably loads of other things ... I'll think on :-)
For me ... It's been a lot easier than primary. Communication is a thousand times better. And for ds it's been fantastic. I remember he said ' "Primary school was like a zoo mum.... Noisy and mad!...Secondary makes sense... I go in a room and I know what I'm supposed to be doing"

Oh good luck!....( to you both!) It IS hard... And exhausting ( I am still essentially his TA at home)... But honestly? I would never have DREAMED he would have done so well if you had talked to me when he was coming to the end of primary. Keep posting ... I'm sure someone here will have the answers here .

Do you use a visual timetable at all??

We use one for Dd3's morning routine. She has strips of laminated card with instructions such as Get dressed, have breakfast., go to the toilet etc. They are velcroed on to a piece of felt with an envelope underneath. As she completes each thing she puts the strip in the envelope and it is done with. By the time all the strips are gone she is ready for school.

It has worked brilliantly and Dd3 who is 9 and has a dx of ASD, is now able to get ready for school more or less independently. All i have to say now is check your timetable.

When Dd1 started secondary we colour coded her books with the little dot stickers you can buy from whsmiths.

Also have you contacted the SENCO at the new school, you can just ring up and make an appointment. He or she would be able to give you more info about how they will.support your Dd.

Good luck and keep coming on here.

Hi, my DD is 11 and diagnosed with HFA (higher functioning autism, they have already dropped the Aspergers diagnosis here), she started secondary last September and I so remember the feelings you describe! I was also just dreading her moving up. We had a terrible last year of junior school, with things deteriorating to the point where we could hardly get her to school during the last term due to her anxiety which the paed put down to the fact that moving school was talked about all the time at school and that too much prep was increasing the anxiety. You will know what is best for your DD, but we find that we have to be careful how far ahead we tell DD things and to be very matter-of-fact about them. The things that really helped beforehand were:

• She doesn't get any extra funding or specific support, but the secondary school put her in their transition group. This is for any child with a diagnosis or not that they feel would benefit from extra support. This has given her a lot of extra support which has been really helpful. She also went for extra visits beforehand with this transition group so got to know other children ahead of time. Does your secondary school offer anything like this? As others have said find out what support is available/you are entitled to.

• Apart from the clothes which is always a nightmare, DD loves lists and organising things, so we focused choosing the new stationary, school bag etc. and getting it all laid out. She ticked things off the list a lot before she started! Can you find anything positive like this to focus on?

• We did work out the new home routine carefully beforehand and set this all out on a timetable, which we rehearsed, all the way to arriving and which door to go in etc.. I also did little prompt cards - if this happens (e.g. I am late, forget homework etc.) this is what I need to do - as this is the sort of information she will not pick up and will get into a complete panic about. There is an information pack here that I got this and other great info from, that you can download from here www.autismeducationtrust.org.uk/resources/transition%20toolkit.aspx

We found this really useful.

In the end the reality was so much better than we had feared. Once DD had got started there was no longer this great fear of a new and unknown thing hanging over her and she became a lot more settled. As others have said, she actually thrives better having the detailed timetable that she has from secondary. She can look at it the night before and know exactly what will happen the next day whereas at junior every day was the unknown. She too can't tell the time and has no concept of time passing. We have found a time timer from here www.ed-solutionsdirect.com/resources/timetimer.htm very helpful at home as she can see the time going, and I think they do a watch version but they are not cheap (but thinking about this for exams maybe). At school the time telling isn't actually a huge problem as the bells go etc. and there are plenty of other cues for following the timetable.

It is at home that lack of time sense is the most problematic, so we have to manage this a lot, with a clear routine of checking what homework there is straight away, making sure she knows what to do etc. while there is still time to go back and get more instructions from the teacher before the deadline. Her teachers know they need to give clear instructions, and try to make sure she has written them down right and are ready to answer questions if she hasn't 'got it'. It you know what things your DD will struggle with, try to write out some information for the school, with the most important simple things they could do to help that they might not be aware of/notice when they have loads of kids coming in/out of the classroom all day.

TBH much like troutpout we have found the secondary school to be much easier to talk to than the junior school was. We have had some rough patches and it is hard work keeping morning/evening routines organised (and we slip up and get it wrong), but the reality is nothing like as bad as we imagined and DD has done way way better than we could have imagined.

Hope some of this is helpful and good luck with it all