What, if anything, should I say to this primary SENCO?

[StarlightMcKenzie]

She works on Saturdays at local shop so I have got to know her over a few months. Not very well, but enough to know that she is a senco, and for her to know that ds attends a special school. She has never seen ds though.

In one of our chit chat non-conversations, she asked how ds was and then mentioned that in her school there is a child with ASD in reception who was non-verbal. She looked genuinely stressed about the topic as she explained that the parents aren't taking the hint that he should be taken out of that school and put into a special school. She said that the school would really support them with that move, and spoke about how it was impossible to teach the rest of the class with that child being so disruptive.

Now this is the first time I have heard the 'other side' from a genuine and honest stance. I don't have any sympathy at all. I think the school should get the child a statement with ABA written in it, a competent TA and continue to support him.

I'm so angry about this I can't go in the shop again. I do however realise that this SENCO may well be as crap as she sounds, but is quite representative, and it isn't her support she doesn't know what the right thing to do is.

WWYD?

btw, I don't know which school she works at and she hasn't told me, and I don't have any details about the child or family.

Our old LA is rather infamous for being...what's the word?
Shit.
That's the word :)
So we moved to another LA that isn't quite so shit.
I just didn't see the point in fighting them, but as said, I am lazy :)
It was affecting me quite badly, and that in turn was affecting ds.
I take my hat off to anyone who can fight and not lose something of themselves in the process. I couldn't.
I also think one can get so caught up in the fight that they lose sight of the goal? The system is so iniquitous and so weighted in favour of the LAs that it makes me despair.
I couldn't live in despair any more :(
It's cost is a lot, both financially and mentally and emotionally and our journey is probably not over.
But I am better armed than I once was - mostly due to MN - and will do what I have to.

zzzzz that post made me smile!
I remember feeling the same at first.
So glad its working out for you :)

Sorry to cause a misunderstanding. My posts are purely a reflection and justification about the path we have taken (although constantly under review). We were in a position where we WERE forced to chose between MH and academic attainment, though I think and hope that the academic stuff isn't as bad as it easily could have been.

I'm not suggesting that people should not expect and aim for both. I think I do as an overall outcome of our journey, it's just we got caught out and had to do the best we could. I can't say I'm over the moon about our choice, but it is a good choice for us all the same.

I am envious of Agnes' won provision, but I know enough to understand that even that takes a huge toll on the family.

There just isn't a solution in a system as corrupt as this and we all have to do the very best we can, plus always always have a plan B. Though that doesn't mean ever giving up on what the system is supposed to be, and I certainly never will.

badvoc if you are lazy, I wonder what it makes me!!!!

it is such a hard choice.

I am heartened to read of others' experiences of transport - my heart still sinks at the thought, but the day is getting ever closer when ti might be necessary...

we too have had tough choices to make, although I do think dd1 is in the best place for her at the moment. She could not cope at all with ms schol originally, because she was terrified of other children. and so we found a school that was right for her - where she was educated individually (1:1 in her own classroom), and built it up from there. that placement wasn't right for academics, though (although they gave a brilliant grounding in the basics, to be fair), and where she is now is better. I still think she falls short, at school, of what she can achieve at home, but then she is also coping with so many other demands - other children, different routines etc.

it is an almost impossible balance. if we put her anywhere where there shoud be more expectation of her academically, then almost inevitably less woudl be expected of her, and she would not cope emotionally/mentally. by keeping her where she is, she may not ultimately achieve everything academically that she is capable of. but she will be happy, and secure, and more able to tackle the world because of that security.

for now, happy and secure enough to be able to learn wins out. in the future? who knows.

Dev...you are ace :) that's what!
Yes to it being the best thing "at the moment". I totally get that.
I feel that way wrt ds1. He is happy now and the move has been great for him but come sept??.....who knows?
My experiences over the last few years have meant that I take nothing for granted, and like star says, I always have plan b.
ATM my plan b is home ed again as there are no other middle schools/junior schools locally.
Any new school would be a bus ride/car ride away.
Which is a whole other set of issues.

silverfrog your last paragraph sums up very well what we want to achieve for ds1.

we learned long ago that right now was all we could hope to achieve in terms of the right placement. so much changes - dd1 is a very different child from the one we had when we were first looking at schools. and she continues to progress at an almost alarming rate, nd so there is every possibility she may outgrow her current placement.

the problem, of course, is finding another placement that is more suitable (let alone the fight to get her funded there) if that shoud ever happen, as placements that can cope with dd1 are few and far between, sadly.

I think academic potential/self-esteem and well being issues vary greatly.
DS1 is very academic. His mental well being is improved by him knowing that he is bright - it gives him that feeling that he is good at something.
Realistically, if DS1 is going to stand a chance of independence, working for a living will be a good start - again, self-esteem from having/keeping a job.
His motor skills are weak, the probability of him being able to do any manual work are also slim.
So for us, the decision is to focus on the academic. Socially, he has family/friends, but there will be a point at which DH and I wouldn't be in a position to help him academically.
Within the academic MS choices there are still decisions to make. Which MS suits him as a person/learner.
I believe the right school is out there for each of our DCs - we just have to find it, as it sure as hell isn't offered on a plate

DS2 has poor dexterity, and isn't very skilful practically. He's also very average academically, middle sets in an average comp, but with 1:1 support. I do worry about whether I have prioritised the right things. Because he copes well in MS, with support, I've always felt MS was the right place for him. But he doesn't mix with MS DC, he has no interest in them, so socially he is very isolated. At 13 this concerns him not one iota, however.

He'll get a handful of GCSEs, Maths is his best subject, but he's only 2nd set out of 5 in his best subject. I have no idea what job, if any, he'll be suited to. He will never 'pass for normal' so will need somewhere very tolerant and inclusive and preferably not involving the general public. I worry a lot about post 18. School keeps him occupied and it's what all DC do. What will happen afterwards? Especially now that ex dickhead's financial support for DS2 will be going directly to DS2 post 18. Will he be able to manage money, will I be able to afford to support him, will he still get DLA or it's equivalent?

Would a SS have been a better placement, would it have equipped him for life after school better? Or would it have isolated him from the MS world even more?

Answers to these questions on a postcard, please!

Its fair to say we are happy with ABA package, and happy ds is in mainstream part-time. It is more suitable for him for SS, for now. I can see if his language does not improve significantly it may not be the right place a few years down the road. I don't want to write him off at 6, but its hard to see him gaining language & understanding other than very very slowly. Huge chunks of the nat curriculum are out of reach at the moment.

Up to now mainstream has been somewhere ds turned up with his ABA team, used the NT children for socialising and observational learning and his main learning went on outside school in 1:1. Now he has improved in some areas he is able to access some large group academic learning - which 2 years ago was unthinkable - but only his favourites of phonics and numbers. Now we find the teacher reluctant to include him properly. They are so reliant on ABA staff so that even though DS is ready for ABA to fade back at times & the teacher take over, the teacher is still leaving all the teaching of DS to ABA staff. So we are now starting to bang our head on the resource restrictions of mainstream. Without a teacher who is prepared to spend 1:1 time with him, get to know him and what he does / does not know, learn from ABA staff and include differentiated work for him in lessons plans we are stuck.

At the moment I feel I am HE him on academics even though he goes to school! He is perfectly capable of joining in more in lessons if only the teacher would do some planning for him / run some small groups etc herself.
We are in the ridiculous position of having a numicon trained teacher but I have had to buy numicon and do it at home and send in notes saying I have taught ds x at home what should I do next and getting a note home; when really she should be teaching him numicon at school not leaving it to me.
It is the teacher's job to differentiate the class work for ds but after 18 months I am still waiting for a single lesson plan (not written by me or ABA) to include him.

Its appalling really that one of the main frustrations with DS now is that he is doing too well and now ready to join in more is not being allowed to because the teacher is too busy / lazy / overworked.
So i think nothing is perfect.

Perhaps an ABA unit attached to mainstream would be better so we could have the ABA, the social and the academics.

I am really happy with the ABA side of his programme but as far as school is concerned I am right back to policing what is going on and having to fight for time for the teacher to get round to teaching ds. We even have a 14 hour a year budget to give the teacher ABA training and the school have not managed to release the teacher for any this year. I can see DS being left out of academic teaching to the point he is so far behind he has to go to SS because the teacher has forgotten its her job to teach him.

I do dread to think about the children in mainstream schools like this without ABA or other 1:1 staff / parents capable of stepping in and doing the work themselves.

Its a catch 22. we picked this school because they had no autism experience - and so it would be easier to get ABA into school - but now the lack of experience is beginning to show. But if we had picked a school with more experience of ASD we would not have got ABA in or kept it in. We were definitely right to go with the best chance of getting ABA into school, the ABA is more important than the academics, its just disappointing with experts in their classroom every day the teachers are not taking the opportunity to learn how to teach DS or the others who will come behind him.

Star, this is easy. This woman simply wants you to make friends with the other dc's mum, cos she (rightly or wrongly) thinks the system is woefully failing him and she doesn't know how to offer anything better.

Go in to her next week, with something she can pass to the other mum: a flyer for a coffee morning, a little invite from your dd to this dc, etc. Shame it's half term: if there was a quick way to reach the parents, you could bring them to moondog's day

She can't get him a statement with ABA and a competent TA. She's never heard of aba, and would have no idea what constitutes competence. However, if you trained her up over a number of years, you might have found a mainstream for ds's last 2-3y of primary [ok, flying pig emoticon]

I'm another one who is firmly pro-SS for DS1. If I had put him in his sister's MS school, it would have been purely for my sake not his. He would have been absolutely lost there, not having a clue what was being taught and how the other children were interacting, and so I saw that option as the ultimate babysitting exercise. All effort would have been directed at keeping him quiet in a corner, and he would have learned not one iota. The thought made my blood run cold.

Even with an ABA LSA, his LD and lack of speech would have meant he was outside the classroom more often than he was in it, and thus in reality his experience would only have been minimally a mainstream one.

But most of all (although it was tough when I first went to view his SS and reality hit) I wanted him cherished and valued. And I wanted him content and happy. I would never have wanted him somewhere where he was tolerated at best.

His SS is not perfect, though extremely far from a dumping ground, but for me there is no question that expectations are higher for him than they ever would have been at MS. But then I've always been strangely anti the academic side of things for DS. I want his speech worked on as a top priority, and then life skills second, so I do go against the grain there!

I havent read the whole thread. However being pushed to join a Special School is a big worry for me. I raised it here

I would like to try MainStream before going to Special needs

googlyeyes I have sent you a pm.

Finished reading the whole thread. Very informative.