school anxiety - when does enough become enough and you withdraw them completely?

[bjkmummy]

tribunal in february re parts 2 3 and 4. current school cannot meet his needs. all professional reports say he has high anxiety and anxiety disorder and he needs specialist placement.

since june he has attended school part time only as he was constantly vomiting at school. he was then signed off for the afternoons by the gp and has attended mornings ever since - he is 9 - he is not gettinga fulltime education and he is falling behind even further.

current school agreed to have him back in sept on basis that it was 'interim' only and that outreach would work with him 1:1 one morning per week - this has never happened once. LA now say she is too busy to do that , at beg of dec agreed she would see him 1:1 but has yet to even make an appointment to see him

the vomiting has continued - did decrease once he went part time but towards the end of last term it start to increase, he was being sick at school and i was called to collect him etc.

he went back to school yesterday - last night was the worse i have ever seen him , he vomited in excess of 50 times - he was so exhausted that he slept into about 9am this morning which is unheard of. i have kept him off school but where do i go from here? letting him attend part time has just let the LA completely and utterly drag their heels and they have done nothing to help or support him. my mum instinct says that now is time to say enough is enough however i am worried that if i do then the LA may use it again me and say i am keeping him off so they cannot access him for reports etc with the penidng tribunal -0 have to say at this point they have made no attempt to see him and probably wont!

i have a social wotker - she has not come near us - the EWO has never contacted me but then he has a GP note so we are okay. we were having CAF?TAC like meetings which were run by an agency the council bought in but once we went to tribunal they withdraw all help/meetings as they said they could not be invooved on advice of the council due to the tribunal. the council has now completely withdraw the funding so they no longer exsist. aprent partnership also would not help us once we went to tribunal so we are quite isolated in this.

my friend said that enough is enough and now is the time to keep him out of school but she advised me not to get him signed off by the GP but i am nbot sure if this is good advice or not. she says i sahould say i am not sending him back as the school cannot meet his needs (have this in writing) and therefore continuing to send him inot school is detrimental to him - but what should i do????? its 5 weeks to the tribunal - obviously i have followed claws story and this has worried me about where i stand

Bless him , your poor boy ,

I also have an anxious child who vomits and I would have taken her out if she was struggling as much as your Ds.

Are you in a position to HE while you sort out all the crap.

I am dont mean to sound horrible btw I just know I couldnt do it to my child or myself.

Good luck whatever you decide.

I would get him signed off if you're going to keep him off school, or else you'll have EWO to deal with on top of everything else. No matter how much various parties are shirking their responsibilities when it comes to providing him with a suitable education, it's important that you do everything by the book, yourself so that no one can make any accusations against you.

AFAIK, if he is signed off, then the LA are obligated to provide some tuition for him.

Your story is heartbreaking beyond belief, it makes me really sad.

I assume you do not have a solicitor. But there must be a charity who can advise you.

I would keep my child home until the tribunal hearing, what the LA is doing is unlawful (I'm not a solicitor but do have a very logical and practical mind). Your son truly can't go on. Expert reports state he needs to be in a specialist school, follow advice from the experts.

LA can't hold you to ransom like this.

and definitely go by the book as ouryve says. Get him signed off by GP.

Best wishes x

DS1 is currently out of school (since Sept). He was initially signed off by the GP. GPs have no official role to play and cannot provide certification for EOTAS home tuition provided by the lea. You need to have a letter/report from a consultant to qualify as medically authorised absence. This is a statutory defence against prosecution.

The lea are supposed to provide 5 hours per week after 15 days of continuous absence but in reality it takes time to set up. DS1 did not get a tutor for about 7 weeks. Our tribunal is not til May but he will receive home tuition until parts 2, 3 and 4 are decided.

If you are asking the question, enough is enough. But do not 'withdraw' him - take him to the GP to get signed off immediately - doesn't legally mean anything but it shows that you are acting on professional advice. Then, most importantly, get referral/letter/report from consultant (or put into motion). You cannot have medically authorised leave without this and you do not want to be on the non-authorised absence track. Tribunal will arrive before the EOTAS stuff is sorted out and then (hopefully) it will be irrelevant.

so far the GP note seems to have been enough - the school have put his absence down as authorised but of course his attendance is now less than 50%. the school have spoken to the EWO as she comes into school on a regular basis and the school have explained why he is not in school and so far she has stayed away and not made any contact with me whatsoever. i will see what happens on sunday - if the sickness starts again then i will phone the GP and get him seen and will try to get him a paed appointment which is usually pretty quick - one of the benefits of living in such a small county. the reality is if he now stops going to school he will get no tution before the tribunal.

he is very quiet today - he has withdrawn himself all day in the playroom. the consultant has put in writing about his anxiety etc - i only saw her a couple of weeks ago and am awaiting her next letter as i hope to submit as part of my final evidence.

i am shocked at just how little the LA have done and yet they are dragging us through tribunal. i am in a minute going to again email the sen officer and tell her he is off school today - makes no difference as she will just ignore the email - they have already admitted that most emails they just delete as they are 'information' emails but it does give me more of a paper trail and the tribunal can see that we are asking for help etc and they have done nothing at all.

tbh nobody (ie lea/school) took things seriously until DS1 was out of school and had consultant authorisation. You have to ask yourself why you are bending over backwards and requiring so much of DS in order to provide evidence for the other side (who do not recognise the cost involved) in order to make it appear that all is well. Logically it does not make sense.

Agree get GP to sign him off - he can't go if he's vomiting and school are sending home for vomiting anyway.

The last date for evidence must be Jan so they have left it late to see him and thats their own fault. Especially when they knew his attendance was so erratic.

What consultant is it? Is it psych? If so when is next appointment? Is any intervention planned? You could ask GP to request bringing forward the next appointment as currently out of school - and ask GP to give you a copy of the letter requesting this - that way you can show you have requested and are awaiting further Consultant advice.

Do you have a specialist placement in mind and do they have a place asap after tribunal?

consultant is the paedatrician. i will see if he vomits on sunday evening - if he does then i will take him to the GP on minday and phone the paed as she will be in on monday.

last date for evidence is 16th january so 12 days so they have next week and thats it.

the paed seems to be of the view that the vomiting will cease once he starts a school that can meet his needs and i do agree with that - i just dont think any of us expected the LA to do nothing and force us so far down the path of tribunal, everyone i know or who has had involvement including professionals all thought the LA would conceed as they have no evidence. teh only evidence they have is an OT report which agrees with our OT and thats it. they are standing by that his statement is a mainstream statement hence why they are not gettinmg reports as tehy got their fingers burnt by getting an OT report as it showed we were telling the truth. we have SALT and ed sych reports as well - they are all saying the same thing.

the working document is now 28pages long - the LA have agreed nothing in the document except that he needs OT to access all of the curriculum then put all the help etc in part 6. we have ed psych and SALt reports to go in yet - this document is going to hit 50 pages if as we expect the LA will agree absolutely nothing. their solicitor did the last working document wrong so i asked tehm to do it correctly and send it back - they have just ignored me!

they said in their response to tribunal that they were still considering at that point their OT report and once the working document agreed would consult schools - they have approached 3 schools mine, one that he was at 2 years ago with an asd class where he struggled so we moved him to his current school after 6 weeks and i would never ever send him back their again plus he would never agree to going back there it was such a horrible time for him and a generic special school.

my school is a free asd/aspergers school - it is out of county but we have no special schools in county - it cost 8.5k a year plus transport - his current statement is for 32.5 hours but he has never attended full time since his hours were increased. i just wish i knew what the LA were doing - all support theypromised us and current school has not happened so its completely understandable why we now find ourselves in this position - it was inevitable and forseeable to everyone but the LA - the LA wont even tell me the case officer dealing with the case because noone wants to put their name to it - tehy have admitted emails have been deleted - it is a blinking nightmare

Well it doesn't sound like you have much to worry about.

Usually Managers review files due for tribunal about a month before and often thats when LAs start talking sense.

I think I would sit tight and wait for their move. It sounds like your case is in order. If they start to harass you about your DS being out of school then you can always seek a referral eg to CAMHS at that point to give the GP some cover. I think right now as time is against the LA I would do nothing except get GP note and wait and see. You don't want to give them the idea CAMHS + mainstream / generic SS might work. Better to do nothing and wait it out.

I would definitely get him signed off for a while.
We were in a very similar situation with ds (has a sm), although he wasn't vomiting but incredibly anxious. He was part-time for a year and when we got him back with full time support the staff seemed to make him more anxious (some very unkind remarks) and he ended up being off sick at least one day per week. The school didn't really want him there or supply the support that was required and finally admitted that they couldn't meet the needs. We have had to find another school which has been very tricky. LA kept pushing towards ms unit and we knew it wouldn't be right. Am now awaiting the final sm naming an independent specialist school out of county but it's not been easy.
We had a doctors appointment to get ds signed off as we didn't want to keep sending him in there but school permanently excluded on the very same day!
I expect your LA know that he needs a specialist placement and will concede before tribunal tbh. The school you want is actually fairly cheap so I think they'll go for it. Good luck.

Yes, get him signed off. That will entitle you to push for more home education - you don't need a consultant's report for that, though it will no doubt help.

Veritate - DS1 has lea home tuition and they did require a letter/report from a medical consultant. He had a GP certificate but the EOTAS co-ordinator told me this was not sufficient. The lea policy regarding who can give authorisation should be available on its website or via google. Prior to the DfE online reorganisation I used to be able to find the national policy but it seems to have disappeared.

to be honest we are now so far down the path with this - he has been part time since june so he has missed 6 months education already that if he gets signed off full time and with the tribunal now getting ever closer home tution is the last thing on my mind. i am just frustrated that there has been absolutely nothing done - everyone is aware of our situation but chosing to ignore us - think tehy are all scared about the impending tribunal to get involved. tehy have now reorganised things so the sen team includes the people who deal with the statements etc and the social worker etc so my social worker who previously would have been a person i felt i could go to and discuss school difficulties now i cant cos she sits in the same office so has probably listened to all the conversations slagging me off as a pushy mum and that no way they think my son should go to a special school. shes new in post so is clearly going to listen to her colleagues rather than take a stand - its all so now inter connected. my son has beenb very withdrawn since he was home on friday - he has more or less locked himself away from the family - i am already expecting fun on sunday evening

i also did check my LA policy on line - not been reviewed since 2009 , meant to be reviewed in 2011 but hasnt been. it doesnt say whether the medical note needs to be from a consultant or a GP - just needs to be a medical certificate. it seems to put the onus on the school to sort it all out and it only talks about getting them back into mainstream school asap so clearly not even aimed at SEN children or those with statements

link to the national policy is here: webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Lettersandcirculars/Healthservicecirculars/DH_4003049

Also worth looking at this case (similar in many ways to yours) from local govt ombudsman who found against a cc which failed to make reasonable provision for a child who was unable to attend school. www.lgo.org.uk/complaint-outcomes/education/education-archive-2010-11/gloucestershire-county-council-08-005-914/

Sadly it's all too common that councils flout the law in cases like this.

I would also say not to hesitate keeping your son at home if school is so obviously provoking anxiety like this. It is not necessary or required by the sen cop for your son to be in school to be assessed for a statement.

KeepOn, my point is that just because it is LA policy to demand a consultant's report, doesn't make it the law. It is not up to some LA official to decide that a GP's medical opinion isn't good enough. After all, what is a parent supposed to do if they can't get a consultant's appointment? In some areas it is currently taking months to get CAMHS appointments.

Vomiting 50 times in one night? Sounds like you probably need A&E, the out of hours GP or a regular paediatrician. With vomiting that bad, CAMHS might well bounce it as possibly being something physical unless the stomach-type doctors have checked him out.

I do see that you've been under the various specialists already and there are plans to go back soon, but surely it hadn't been quite this bad? 50 throw-ups, your poor DS must be so sore and so miserable, no wonder you've had enough.

yes i know - even when i wrote it it sounds ridicously excessive doesnt it? the amount of vomit each time is small - when he was doing it in school he would catch it in his hand. when it first started i would take him to the GP so that it is noted on his medical records and even took him to the local hospital one evening as it was so bad and they gave me some medicine to help him. every times he vomits he shouts that he has been sick - ive tried to ignore him so not to encourage him in any way etc but nothing seems to help. he hasnt been sick again since thursday evening as he didnt go to school friday and of course now it is the weekend. will see what happens this evening. at the moment not even mentioning school etc. at school before he went part time they even had a vomiting diary for him so we could keep a log of how many times he was sick. he has our occcupational therapist coming to see him in school tomorrow although if he does have to stay off school she will jsut see his teacher and come to the house to see him

it has been documented by the paed that there is no physical cause of the vomiting and it is anxiety based. all of the reports we have had done conlude that he has an extremely high level of anxiety and anxiety disorder plus he got full score for depression. i am under no doubt that once his school placement is finally sorted the vomiting will end. he has also now been dx with sensory processing disorder which is adding to the anxiety. even the LA OT report concludes this as well. he is in the wrong school enviroment hence the anxiety as he just cannot cope. he is also dx now with hypermobility, dyspraxia and various other co morbids but the LA refuse to accept anything but his asd and adhd dx despite them having their own OT report agreeing with ours. the LA promisied support from autism outreach and its never happended - they have just left him to get on with it. ihave emailed the LA when he had to come out of school due to the vomiting - they just ignore the emails. i jsu dont know what more i could do - at every turn i have got it all evidenced and documented but still the LA refuse to do anything to help him. the reality is now that even by letting him go part time etc has done him no favours whatsoever and had actually allowed the LA to do nothing as he has been getting some education albeit only 50%

Your story is terribly sad but what's worse is that it doesn't surprise me .

We reached the end of the road early in Y5 (ds was almost 10) when it became evident that there was no support in place for him and no likelihood of it ever happening. We just kept going round in circles with promises of this and that input which never happened. They never even got round to writing simple social stories for him - he was just expected to be 'normal' and when he failed he was punished. To make matters worse, it was evident that ds had indicators of ADHD as well as autism (agreed by the Head who advised me to seek medical help for him), but she lied on the Connors forms and the NHS psych concluded that he didn't warrant medication. It was another two years and a private psych before he got the drug treatment he needed.

I'd made several informal requests for statutory assessment but it was never followed through. Both of the schools he attended claimed that it wasn't necessary as they could meet his needs, and that they'd have to demonstrate that they couldn't before he'd get a statement. It was then that I realised the gap in the system - an instance where a child's needs COULD be met but the school weren't attempting to do so, and were being dishonest with me about his daily difficulties, their alleged input and their false claims about his academic achievement.

My son had always had aggressive tendencies brought about by frustration and stress and this was becoming steadily worse, to the point where other children weren't safe around him. This was a huge concern for me as I knew he was being bullied as a result but school were denying it. I had him signed off by the GP for a week ('extreme emotional distress') but I realised that even if I worked with the school and LA to find a suitable placement, by this time I could no longer trust them to be honest with me or to provide for him appropriately, plus he was so damaged by this time that I could see he'd never be able to integrate to a new placement in the timescale they'd expect. I knew that we'd done all we could within the statutory system and he'd be better off at home where he could recuperate and begin afresh. I couldn't watch him suffer any more, and I couldn't bear the responsibility of being the person who was sending him to that cruel environment every day.

So that's what we did. We took as long as was necessary to repair the damage and he's now a flourishing 14 year old with a future, something I know he'd never have had if I'd kept him in school without support. He's a completely different person and it's often hard to see where his diagnoses come from.

It's not an easy decision, but for us it had already been made for us. There was nowhere else to go and personally I wanted to be as far away as possible from the dishonest system we'd been involved with for so long. Only you can know if there is still hope with your authority and if there are other options to pursue.

I hope you find a solution because clearly your son can't continue like this and keep his mental health intact. Best of luck to you all. x

streakybacon that is the situation I'm in with my ds 5 ATM. School say they're going to do things but never do and his high anxiety is not being addressed by anyone.

If I apply for a statement I expect they'll say no but he's only in year 1 and he can't carry on like this for the rest of primary.

bjkmummy I hope things get sorted for you soon x

Sazale, if they say no to statutory assessment you should definitely look at appealing against it.