Social skills support at school - any egs of good practice?

[newbrunette]

Hi, I'm looking at moving ds (aged 5, in Y1) to another school and have a list of questions for the new school about how they will support him socially (he is undiagnosed but probably has Aspergers, he doesn't communicate easily with his peers and is struggling to develop frienships).

However, I just realised I don't know what answers I should be expecting from the school. I know his current school has done next to nothing to help him, and I'm assuming I can expect more than that, but I'm not sure exactly what. I would love to hear of others' experiences. What could/should a school be doing to help ds make progress socially?

I'm really struggling with this decision - so hard to know exactly what support (or what sort of school) he needs now and will need in the future.

Any thoughts would be very very much appreciated. Thanks so much in advance.

My DD is 8 and has some features of ASD but no DX. She's quite ridgid in her interactions with peers and very, very passive...she likes to be told what to do! With girls this is easy as they're quite bossy at this age.

Her new school (she began in year 3) has been excellent despite her lack of a statement. They recognised she needed support and her teacher came up with a plan.

She spent a whole term teaching the class circle games such as Farmer in the Dell and also things like British Bulldogs.

She would choose a "games master" daily and that cchild would have the game cards where they got to choose the game and then give the "Parts" out.

My DD was often made the games master as a way of helping her interact and gain confidence.

I love that teacher for what she did. I mean it I really do.

DD has friends now and is settled.

Your DS...you can help him by staying in touch with the teachers and by asking for suggestions as to which children might be good for your to invite home for tea.

Teachers know which kids are sociable and kind....

you can help him by staying in touch with the teachers and by asking for suggestions as to which children might be good for your to invite home for tea.

That's a really nice advice.
I'll use it with ds2.

There's 'Circle of Friends' where a hand picked group of DC are taken out to play some social skills building games occasionally and encouraged to become a bit of a team. It depends on the children picked and the skill of the TA etc who organises it. You need some good role models, not just those DC who also struggle with social skills, and it needs to be something that the DC really want to be part of. Make sure it's fun and there's a bit if kudos in being part if the group.

Our school has a "Learning Mentor" who works with the SENCo and from what I can see is there to bolster up children in difficulties - she takes them for play sessions and talks to them if their going through parental divorce, bereavement etc. She also does Circle of Friends which is I think around six children of all types and including a couple of kind and socially competent children to act as role models.

My youngest son's class has 'talking partners' too which pairs children up and gets them to talk to each other about whatever the topic of the day is. The teachers are very careful about who goes with who I think so that the child my son is paired up with is fairly patient and seems to quite like him.

Good teachers/LSAs/TAs should be talking to you about which ways are best to give your DS opportunities to talk to other children, maybe over a shared obsession passion or in a more formal setting like a social skills group. It's worth talking to them and getting a regular connection with them, both to get information about how he's doing and to keep what you discuss at the forefront of their minds - with 30 kids it's easy for things to slip, even with the best of intentions.

Hi, I just wanted to thank you all so much for your replies - just logged in and saw them and they're all really useful. I will digest all the info properly later (up against a work deadline at the moment) but just wanted to say how grateful I am to you all - I don't know where I'd be if I couldn't tap into other people's experiences on this board.