Primary schools for ASD kids in SE London (Lewisham, Southwark, Greenwich)

[cjn27b]

We are starting to look for a school for DS1 who was recently diagnosed with ASD. While we love his pre-school, we feel we need to get a good idea of what else is on offer near us. We live in SE London and are wondering if anyone has good experience of primary schools for their children with ASD. If so, please could you let us know which ones you like?

Many thanks.

Does your son have a statement?. If not I would be applying for such a document asap from the LEA in question as this is legally binding.

We are just starting the statement process, with the schools support.

While they've (his preschool) a new SENCO who hasn't worked in our Borough before and so some of her knowledge is a bit hit and miss in terms of local practice, she's totally behind us. We have had to question one of two of her suggestions, but everytime it's worked out well. DS1 will be her first child to go through the statement process under her in the Borough. Anyway, we've got the Ed Psych assessment in a few weeks, and will be sending in our letter requesting SA as soon as we're back from holiday next week.

We are using our kids free time on holiday (kids in a kids club) to get our heads around all the education issues. We finally got the ASD diagnosis a few weeks ago, so now it's time to get going on the next phase of this journey. How life changes when you have a SN kid!

Which borough do you live in? Highly unlikely you'd be eligible to apply to schools in the two you don't actually live in, without a good bit of argy bargy to prove your home borough can't accomodate you first.

Is your child high or low functioning and what sensory issues do they have? The classroom environment can be the biggest hurdle to overcome of all for an ASD child. My pm to you reflects this.

Can recommend our school in lewisham borough - think they are the smallest one MS school. But as bochead said its unlikely you'll get a school outside of your borough - which one are you in? What schools are local - that way I can tell what I know and heard about them.
@boc - didn't realise you were near me

We're in Lewisham, only just starting the SA process (DS1 diagnosis took a while). We love his preschool, but want to research options carefully.

While we think DS is probably quite high functioning, we don't really know as we've met so few other ASD children his age. We're hoping that the post diagnosis paed appt will help shed some light on things, along with the Maudsley course and Early Bird. He has no major sensory issues, or restrictive behaviours / thinking, or obsessions, or any of the issues in the B3 section of the DISCO assessment, but all the social and communication difficulties. We're still waiting for the diagnostic report though!

I'm in the borough of Southwark, and could give you some info on schools in the dulwich sort of area. It really does depend what your criteria are - mainstream? private or state? ASD unit? etc etc

Feel free to pm me.

Live on Southwark/Lewisham borders.DS goes to school in Southwark-couldn't be happier. There was also one in Lewisham that I was impressed with (although obviously don't know how it would have turned out).
Feel free to PM .