It's happened again, ds now too anxious to attend school [sad]

[Iceflower]

It feels like deja vu...., dd (AS/PDA, 14) stopped attending her ms school at 12, went through statementing, got a place at a specialist school, attended for a while and stopped, now being home schooled.

Ds (AS, SPD, Dyspraxia, 9) appeared to be coping. I have been monitoring carefully since he was 7 and had a working dx of AS. I have been on at the school, succeeded in many adjustments being made and yet, he has hit the wall .

The thing is, I don't know what else I could have done. There are things that could have been done by school, eg better asd awareness and training, but oh no, "all teachers have been trained". Ds has tried so hard and as he says "everyone has a limit".

Over the last 2 months, he has been too anxious to attend and I have kept him off some days, telling the school exactly why he's not attending. He slept with me last night and told me this morning it was the first time he'd slept for weeks. He said he thinks he's broken the world record for the longest time for not sleeping!

I kept him off school yesterday and will do so today. Would it be so wrong if I kept him off the rest of the week so that with half term, he gets 2 weeks off and relax?

School knows I want to apply for the statement, and whereas I know I could do this myself and have done a draft already , I would like to have the full cooperation of school. There is a Team around the Child meeting mid June where the world and his wife have been invited, and the HT and SENCO are fully agreed statementing will be on the agenda.

Should I wait, as it's not that far off, or should I just fire off my letter?

Sorry it's turned out long and rambly

Apply now, makes no difference whether you or the school apply, they can add their support after the meeting, if that is what they intend on doing anyhow. I will add, be careful, school told me they would support my request right up until the Tribunal, then changed their minds.

School refusal is a slippery slope, once you start its difficult to stop, not many schools like to admit a child is refusing school because they dont have the right help in place. So again be careful.

If your ds really is too anxious to attend, then dont send him. Are you sure he is not just 'copying' his sister?

Thanks, Claw. My gut feeling is that I should apply NOW but there is this little voice in my head that says if I rush this, I might regret it.

I have been through the school refusal slope with dd, and with her, I used to ring up the school and say she was ill. School was happy with the stats and nothing got done. I realised that reporting school refusal was actually a useful lever to get action, and have made the reason for ds' absence clear. I don't believe he's copying his sister, but the good thing is I think he can still be retrieved.

He's been willing to try new strategies to help in the classroom, the problem is with school not being consistent with them. He is thus losing confidence in them . I have raised this with the HT et al, but they are taking it personally .

Iceflower, just be really careful with school saying they will back your request, even if they put it in writing. Ds's school put it writing and still changed their minds. Well not so much changed their minds, more a tactic. As i thought school were backing me, i didnt bother chasing them up to evaluate IEP's, targets were left blanked, which to me meant they had not been met. However at Tribunal, all SENCO had to do was say that targets had been met and it was down to me to prove otherwise, which i couldnt do.

I hadnt asked for a copy of ds's school file, as i didnt have enough time to obtain a copy before Tribunal, as school had left it right until the last minute to 'change' their minds.

So when and if you do apply, do it as if you dont have the backing of the school, regardless of what they say.

If you apply now, the LA will write to the school and ask for their input, its standard. School can then support you or not, within 6 weeks you will know. I always like to know what i am up against, prewarned, its prearmed!

Your ds can still be retrieved now as you say, will that still be possible in a years time? (this is how long it takes with requests, refusals and Tribunals) and 26 weeks best way, if everyone agrees etc, which is highly unlikely.

I have exactly the same problem with ds's school, they do not follow recommendations. They take everything i say personally, they do not like it being pointed out, as this would mean accepting they are not meeting his needs and no school will admit to failing a child.

Obviously its entirely up to you, whether to apply now or wait and i hope im not coming across as too forceful

Apply now. My school is totally supportive but the LA still made them witnesses against me at Tribunal - sometimes even if a school want to help their hands can be tied by dark forces higher up the food chain.

You make the application yourself now, then you are proving you can be arsed to get out of bed and take your kid to school. Also you'll have a clear idea of which way the land lies by the end of summer term & may have evn had sight of the LA EP report.

Parental application = appeal rights if statement request is rejected by the LA. Schools don't have that right which can be extremely frustrating for the good ones & is why my Senco now makes parents put in the initial request.

It doesn't matter who initiates the request for a statutory assessment - the parent still has the right to appeal.

I expect your SENCO makes parents do it

1. to save herself the effort
2. so she can lie to the LA that it wasn't her idea and she did try to dissuade these naughty parents from demanding expensive support.

plus, it's a dereliction of her duty to take appropraite action at the appropriate time and apply for an assessment herslef.

To be fair to my current SENCO the illogical internal politics of the LA beggars belief - (see my hand grenade thread for a perfect example). LA's pay these individuals wages. She was a lousy witness for the defence at Tribunal

It seems that the "good uns" either have to get very wiley in order to get help to kids or they don't last long in this neck of the woods.

Thank you everyone, I think my main reason for posting was really just to share/offload .

The HT rang me today, and guess what, she's marking all ds' absences as sickness/authorised absence, and made it sound like she was helping me out

She's also invited the EWO to the upcoming TAC. Looks like it's going to be a blast

Glad they sound positive but I would still send it off now to be honest :)

You can say to the school the sooner the application is in the sooner ds will be assessed as these things take a lot time to happen so if you send it off now every thing else like the report of the TAC meeting can still go as addon info :)

Thanks, coff33pot, I'm especially grateful you took the time to reply. I've been following your story and it beggars belief.

Iceflower, they would mark them as 'authorised' otherwise 'unauthorised' has to be explained.

Again be careful as when/if you or even school apply for SA, they will use school refusal as the strategies in place in school wont work, as your ds is never there to benefit from them. Attendance record is part of the evidence supplied to LA by the school.

I hope your meeting will be about what school are going to do about your ds's school refusal and not what are you going to do.