Transition to Secondary school for DS with AS

[8etty8lue]

My DS is in year 5 and has a statement for 15 hours at a small Primary school. He is now starting to make some progress and becoming more independant all the time. We need to start thinking about his transition to secondary. We live in West Oxon and have the choice of a couple of secondary schools, The SENCO at Primary will not be drawn on which is the best school for him or her experiences of dealing with transitions for other children in the past. I need help on the type of questions to ask. Anyone offer any advice?

We looked at two different schools.
In each school I spent some time in the learning support department and then chatted with the head of learning support.
I didn't go equipped with a list of questions but asked the open-ended question "What can you offer DS2 (Asperger's, ADHD, giftedness) and can you talk to me about how you would go about meeting his needs?"

Every child is so individual that even if you did have a list of questions, they would have to be individually tailored to your child. For example, DS2 has difficulty with unstructured breaktimes and lunchtimes, but is fine if he can go to a club or the library. So for us, this is really important, but wouldn't be an issue for someone else.

this thread may help with some of the thinkgs you might want to be asking.

My DS managed the change Soooo much better than I thought he would. I was worried about the large school, the sheer no of teachers, classrooms, him not knowing anyone etc. What actually happened is that the rigid timetable is great from his point of view. There is none of the changing regular routine in the run up to Chrismas. He was put into a class with 2 other ASD boys and has become firm friends with one of them. There have been some niggles, but despite that DS seems very settled and happy.

Picke the things he has particular difficulty with at the moment and ask the SENCO how the school would deal with it.

DS1 (AS) is now in year 6, but during year 5 we started going to the secondary school open evenings and talking to the SENCOs. From a parental point of view it was very easy for us to see which school would suit DS1 better, but he was less keen on the idea as most of his friends will go to the local comp. Since then we have found out other people he knows from clubs etc that he goes to who are at the other school and the idea has grown on him. The school he will hopefully go to, will take him for a week in the summer as a transition period when they will get to know him really well. They will make sure he learns his way around the school in that time, and the certain people who will be able to help him out (he doesn't have a statement so no 1-1 worker).

LittleMissGreen

I would be looking at now applying for a statement for your son. AS and secondary school can be very uneasy bedfellows indeed and it can all too easily and quickly fall apart.

IPSEA's website is helpful www.ipsea.org.uk