Help me be strategic (long re ASD dd and flaky primary)

[Handywoman]

OK lovely peeps, I need some help here, as I'm about to paddle out of my depth. 8yo dd2 in Y3 now has 'working diagnosis' of ASD, awaiting report from Paed (expected soon). SENCO planning to set up IEP and refer to Autism Advisory once Paed report is in. The difficulties dd2 has in school are (to quote SENCO) 'slow academic progress'. She has problems with inattention, poor executive function, meagre written output (although when given support +++ she can express her own ideas beautifully and neatly, with good spelling) and anxiety at times (insisting on silence in classroom and getting upset). Also big problems with reading comprehension. She needs support to attend to extended instruction and remain on task. Socially she is interacting superficially, not giving cause for concern at school. Out of school she is dropping out of group activities apart from swimming (difficulties with group interaction and group instruction) and needs close supervision with friends. She has fairly robust self esteem at present due to zero awareness of her issues (problems are caused by everyone else, dontchaknow).

Presently I have a good working relationship with SENCO who has been very supportive of the diagnostic process for dd2 (which she happily instigated at my request having been flagged for intervention at the end of Y1 by CT). However our relationship was blighted temporarily last year when I was moved to complain to governors about SENCO after being accused by her (in no uncertain terms) of causing my (Dyslexic) dd1's lack of confidence in maths by transferring my anxiety onto dd1 (expertly deduced by SENCO because dd1 holds it together at school). This episode was sparked by SENCO and CT being incredibly defensive, although reading between the lines this defensiveness has potentially been caused by school vastly inflating dd1's NC levels from Y2 to Y4 thereby creating a need to justify 'lack of progress'.

So, back to dd2 with the working diagnosis of ASD. Had a meeting with SENCO about six weeks ago. SENCO had liaised with EP, called a meeting with me and presented a raft of ideas and interventions to support dd2 in school including written plans to scaffold planning and facilitate written ouput, ear defenders (crap idea, meant to reduce anxiety, but more a 'one-size-fits-all-ASD-intervention) pre-teaching of spellings etc. All well and good. 2 weeks ago I sent an e-mail recently to this SENCO updating re Paed appt, and SENCO replied that she was shortly going to email the written info previously discussed, to class teachers.... this is about four weeks from being told that all this stuff was swinging into action (er..... and also what's with the e-mailing? They are in the same building FFS).

Having worked with this SENCO for a number of years (firstly with Dyslexic dd1 and now ASD dd2) I realise that this SENCO is full of brilliant ideas, enjoys the kudos of being SENCO and associated important meetings etc. etc. But is absolutely crap at following anything through, challenging or changing what happens in the classroom. She is also supposed to be reading with dd2 once a week to help her with reading comprehension. I have heard nothing to indicate this is happening either. Just to add to this, HT thinks the sun shines out of SENCO because of the wonderful way SENCO comes across (ie all style no substance). But HT is chocolate teapot, never challenges her staff (after I wrote 3 pages to govs complaining about SENCO blaming me for SpLD dd1's math probs HT asked me bold as brass during meeting to address this same issue, 'if there was anything I wanted to discuss with SENCO'? = spineless).

So.... I can see the writing on the wall now. IEP will come at a snails pace, very little will be implemented in real life and the slow progress will continue. Same input = same output. All supported by mouth-no-trousers SENCO and trumpeting HT. I will have nowhere to go but Govenors again with any difficulties.

So, wise women, what should be my strategy now (bearing in mind my relationship with this school is potentially fragile, although we are on extremely good terms at present)? Sit and wait for it all to fail at a snail's pace? Start e-mailing for updates about intervention (create a paper trail)? What would your plan be?

If you got this far, a very sincere thank you

Applying for a statement is what I'd be doing here as well as creating a paper trail. Autism outreach are all well and good but they don't seem to have a lot of clout in schools and with a lacklustre SENCO to boot it would not be followed through either.

I'd also be looking at other schools in the area too.

You are her best and only advocate here. No-one else is better placed than you to fight her corner for her, this is also because no-one else will do so.

Have to say my gut reaction is the same as Attila and that's to move her but I know that sometimes isn't possible. The school is led by a head - if a head is uninspired when it comes to these things, then it feeds down to the rest if the staff as well. I would be inclined to start the statementing process - you will then be ale to name an alternative school if needed rather than moving her now to a school who would not know here so it could possibly delay the statementing process

thank you so much for input so far. My gut feeling is take the long view and apply for SA. I have two problems:

1. the mouth-and-no-trousers SENCO and chocolate teapot HT makes the situation completely un-necessarily confrontational. If I apply for SA will this get their backs up? How will it affect school? They will probably tell me there is no way that this is appropriate until after IEPs have been trialled (graduated response and all that jazz) and they will probably take it personally as they've acted extremely defensively before with nil provocation. Is now really the time?

2. what on earth do I put in the application? As per para 1 above? Furnish with reports from Paed/SaLT? Also I am in Herts and there is a 100% chance that they will refuse. There is NO WAY they will agree. This means I will absolutely have to go to Tribunal. What the hell do I do then and how on earth? It all seems a massive, massive, Herculean step to take. Help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YOu need the interventions writtend down and made SMART.

It is less easy for SENCO to get out of not delivering if there is a record.

So, comprehension (may I recommend language for thinking - takes about 5-10 minutes each scenario) you need to tick when the task was done, list the questions asked and rate the answers. Kept in a book/record.

TBH, if the head is crap you might have a better chance of controlling the intervention.

It's the 'strong leadership' heads that know it all (And know it all wrong - lol) that are difficult to work with, the crap ones take parental suggestions as their own and ask for a promotion.

I should clarify, the HT is 'strong' in ivory tower terms. She won't let anything touch her. She's the type to immediately turn everything around to be your fault.

It took a complaint to the Governors for her to apologise for the impact of being told by SENCO my dd1's maths difficulties were down to me not her SpLD (I think I am the only person to hear the word 'sorry' come out of her mouth!).

She thinks her staff and her leadership are faultless. The governor who sat in our our meeting was merely a lapdog for the school, and made no attempt to appear impartial. His only contribution was to indirectly criticise us.

HT fails to listen properly, as soon as you start speaking you can see her formulating a response. Her automatic reaction is to bat everything back. She will support this SENCO til her last dying breath, though, they have a very 'pally' relationship.

When I wrote to HT to politely thank them for all their help with dd1 and what were they going to do about my daughter's lack of NC sublevel progress 2011-2012 I got a letter back saying 'your dd1 has no SEN in maths' (in direct contravention of her EP report and therefore against SENCOP). So she's no shrinking violet. It was only after I went to the Govs that she became apologetic. But she will do everything to enable her staff to remain untouched by parental input. Everything.

It's a tricky one.

Thank you for recommending Language for Thinking, Starlight. Do you mean school should be using this to support comprehension?

I will not let them slip a fluffy IEP into dd2's book bag on the quiet. I will be in there asking for SMART targets, and I won't sign until I'm happy.

That much I do know. The rest scares the hell out of me (gulp)

TBH Handy The school should probably do something like Language for thinking, but it's so blimmin easy for you to do yourself I would just do that so you can ensure it is done.

'HT fails to listen properly, as soon as you start speaking you can see her formulating a response.'

Oh yes. I have that atm. The response will ultimately be all the reasons why what you are requesting cannot be implemented, before you've even clarified what it is you're requesting.

grrrr

Yes yes, Starlight Exactly that.

I am very new to SN so I can't contribute anything specific, but I do have one general piece of advice that I was taught (at vast expense) a few years ago:-

Work out what the other person would least like you to do, put yourself in a position where you can do it (i.e. collect evidence including timed, signed meeting notes and emails) and then let the person realise that you will make their life as difficult as possible unless they do the thing that they should have done anyway. Then give them a face saving exit from the situation.

(Its just common sense really but its harder to do than say. In your case, I'd be wondering if there was a way for the SENCO to find herself realising all by herself that she has a choice of actually doing something with your DD and thereby cementing her (unearned) reputation or finding herself on the losing side of a fight to expose her incompetence). Sorry a bit trite to write it out, but that would be my strategy whilst simultaneously looking for another school as a plan B.

After a depressing parents evening yesterday I feel your pain. Our school has great support from ABA but still teachers not willing to do any work themselves. Our SENCO is lovely (sadly leaving) and is egging me on to go and talk to HT, so I think it all comes down to the HT and class teacher in the end. If one won't do the work and the other won't enforce it then even the SENCO cannot make it happen.

In your situation Handy I think I would just tackle the CT and forget the SENCO / HT. See if you can get the CT to commit to something realistic and get the CT to police the SENCO doing the reading etc

Why was the Parents evening depressing? Was it due to the feedback or lack of forward plans?

This will turn into a rant & a highjack (sorry)

They just do nothing. They leave everything to his ABA 1:1 when they are supposed to be responsible for his academic work and ABA support them with that (i.e. not plan it for them!). They just don't teach him at all. If he cannot join in with what the other children are doing they do not differentiate it for him at all eg provide written not verbal instructions / easier work. ABA staff want to just support / fade back but can't because teacher will not step up.

So he can join in with phonics and reading and is doing well with those (because he taught himself / ABA taught him, nothing to do with school)

But he cannot do expressive writing, maths, topic work etc etc as that is all presented orally, at length, in a way he cannot understand.

He could do topics, maths etc if the teacher did a bit of preparation and differentiated it to his level, but she doesn't - ever.

eg numicon - teacher is trained in this - ABA asked teacher to train them to use it - teacher not done this

topics - ABA asked for info in advance of what doing so can pre teach / think of different ways for DS to access, get materials together etc - teacher does not give them any info in advance so they just have to wing it on the day

class is 'challenging' and noisy - so noisy that DS (who generally has no problem with noise) cannot hear his 1:1 even when she is next to him - school say 'well the other children all manage to hear and understand what to do' - so basically they don't intend to do get the other children to behave to create a noise level where DS can hear his 1:1. Often the 1:1 has to take him out as his attention level drops as its so chaotic - then his attention is back to being perfect - but teacher says 'theres not much point him coming to school just to go out with his 1:1' - so now I am wondering if she is saying there is any point him being in school.

If OFSTED went into tomorrow they could not produce a single lesson plan which shows they even consider how DS should access the academic work, they know its their job (not ABA's) but just don't do it as they know ABA will step in and fill his time with other skills

They don't just have low expectations for ds, they have no expectations - I don't think they have even asked themselves the question as to what level he is at / should be working towards - so he loves numbers and could pick numicon up easily if they tried - yesterday they gave him groups of numbers to count and in seconds he was counting them correctly into the teens - but teacher said she did not know if he understood the concept of 'addition' - I felt like saying why don't you know if he knows! Why don't you try to find out if he knows.

And then ABA has suggested they structure the break times a bit with activities (as children are just running wildly around and ds is trying to join in but doesn't get why they are just running wildly) and teacher says to me at parents eve 'we are trying to think of ways we can bribe the other children to play with yours'. At that point I wanted to punch her

The school are so lucky, they have a fantastic ABA team to support ds and them. I told teacher I wanted to get to the point where all of his lessons were differentiated (ie by her!) and she said 'well we tend to do literacy, numeracy etc in the morning' and implied its because ds only goes 1 morning and 5 afternoons that explains why he is not getting differentiated work, because obviously if he were going 5 mornings and 1 afternoon it would be an entirely different story. ABA say other schools they work in are not like this - its more of a partnership and work is planned by school & they then help adjust it etc. I think school just feel ds has an expert attached to him so they can forget about him and concentrate on the others.

I feel I am being backed into a situation of doing all the academics myself with him at home / using his 1:1 time for this (when he needs that for speech, social etc). His ABA staff do what they can to adjust the work but sometimes its not possible eg if its on Victorians

They don't even try to include ds even in small ways. So for eg in the morning there is an instruction on the smartboard and the children have wipe off boards and have to follow it so it say name 5 things that begin with b etc.
Last week I went in and it said something like ' can you think of five animals that begin with the letters b,h,r,s and write them on your boards'. Well thats too much info for ds to process - he could read it but not understand an instruction that long - so I wrote on his board Animals and then a list b, h, r, h___. Instantly he understood he what he had to do and wrote 8 (spelled correctly including rooster ). So why could she not write it like that on the smartboard??? I sent him up to the front to show her (ok so I was making a point) and she was 'did he think of these all himself?' Grrrrr!!

Agnes, rant and hijack away, that is truly awful. Is it just the CT that is clueless or the school in general? Awful.

Agnes, I'm sorry it won't make you feel any better when I tell you that is one of the most depressing posts I have read.

Is there a plan? Will next year be better? Is there a different school/class?

You should have recorded that teacher and sent it to your MP. That's awful.

There is a different class but has child in it with asd, whose parents I think may be in denial (so not agreed to statement) and who has the same awful provision (same outreach teacher, SLT etc) we fought so hard to escape from before we got ABA. So am wary of putting ds in that class as LA may decide they can go for a '2 for the price of 1' approach. This boy has terrible provision - its like watching what would have happened to ds had we lost the tribunal for aba. After 18 months in school he cannot sit for 1 second, pay attention and follow a 1 step instruction so ds would learn nothing if put in a small group with him as all the time would be spent stopping other boy escaping.

DS is now year 1 and has job share so have now had 3 teachers - all the same. To be fair when ds started he went mainly to play and socialise & only 3 half days as his language was no where near point where he could access curriculum. Its because he has made so much progress with ABA and his language and being able to sit, pay attention, follow his peers, learn in a group, control his behaviour, learned to read etc that he is now able to join in that is causing the problems. In some lessons eg phonics he can be completely independent and pay attention for 30 mins so I know if other work was presented in a similar way he would be able to 'get' that too.

He is I would think only 12-18 months behind in some areas eg he could write one sentence about a picture - which I think is about where his brothers were at start of reception. He cannot do any of the imaginative stuff, cannot make up a story, could not understand what a Victorian was, can't tell you how he feels etc - that is all beyond him. But he def could do basic factual writing / labelling, basic numeracy, sentence building, sequencing etc. We do cover some of this in his ABA sessions but have lots else to cover apart from academics so would expect his 6 half days in school to be where most of academics were covered.

I think we were so pleased to find a school that was happy for ABA to come in, and so keen not to rock the boat to keep ABA long enough for school to realise how fab it is, that we have let them get away with not doing their job. I guess I do need to go and see HT don't I? We have had enough meetings to discuss what the teachers need to do, it just never materialises.

I think they don't plan the work enough (at all). They come along with the expectation all of the children can access long strings of oral information so they don't have to plan but can just do it on the spot. So its the language barrier and that they just don't want to put in the time beforehand.

On a positive note the children are fantastic with him and his 1:1 says many of them do seek him out at break and look after him / help him join in, so its not about the children not wanting to play with him. Its more that 1:1 has tried to fade back at break so he is more independent but then he struggles as NT 6 year old games don't make much sense / have no rules. When they play structured games it works well. So I am not sure where the bribe comment came from because some of the girls would treat him as their toy pet all day if they could.

If he gets the 2 teachers DS2 got in year 2 then it will not be any better.

School makes right noises about SEN but lacks actual experience. Partly we chose it because it was clueless on asd. if we had gone to a school with experience then LA would have tried to pull ABA out much quicker.That said I did expect more of a desire by school to learn what to do! Its because we want to hand over some of the workload due to his progress and they do not want to take it on because they would have to provide work that is easier than most (not all) of the other children in class.

'we are trying to think of ways we can bribe the other children to play with yours'.

Agnes that is fucking dreadful (sorry for language but that's made me furious)

Our TA (basic ABA training and ongoing supervision/targets) shadows ds in the playground from a distance, and (at our instruction) introduced structured games for him to join in - IT, stuck-in-the-mud kind of games. He's also in Y1. Can your ABA shadows do similar?

Ah, just read your second post, and see your comment about breaktime games.

I know exactly where you're coming from about school/ABA relationship - it's very tricky. We spend Reception battling school to let us (ABA) get on with it and stop their in-house 'expert' taking control with her predictable, useless 'visual aid' crap. Now her input is at a minimum, which is great, and his CT is brilliant, but now we have a useless lazy SENCO (eg who has taken nearly a whole term to send back the IEP which we agreed on in October). But have come so far and they're willing (now) to work with us re ABA so maybe the alternatives would be worse.

Interestingly we also have a boy in the other class who is ASD (?), no statement, but gets the standard 'intervention' from the 'expert' as above - thank the lord it's not ds!

Only other thought I had, and you may have done it already, but could your ABA supervisor go and give a half-day 'training' to CT/SENCO about how ABA works in a school, role of the shadow etc? Maybe at the beginning of the next academic year?

Handywoman, I think I would, in your position, be reaching the end of my patience about this. Your dd is in Y3, she only has three more years left after this one. You know how quickly it will go. Don't wait around - I would give them one more chance to get their intervention/support implemented and then tell them very nicely that you're planning on applying for SA yourself.

It might get their backs up. And/or it might shake them into action. Either way, it's your dd who is the important one here - not the school.

When ds was in REception and the school still hadn't put the support in place that we'd won in ds's statement, I wrote to them a couple of times, emaild the SENCO several times, then wrote to the Chief Exec of the LEA Children's dept teling them they were failing in their duty. The TA was appointed the following week . I was worried, of course, about the impact on the relationship with the school (esp right at the beginning of his school life there!) but I realised I might be waiting for years. We have a lazy SENCO too, and though I like her, I now feel no concern about getting her to do her job - and if that pisses her off, so be it.

Thank you, bialy

Mouth-and-trousers SENCO always used to implore me to get on her case regularly... But it seems she is in reality prone to being defensive and immune to the idea that she's anything other than super effective and proactive. She lives in cloud cuckoo land. It's bloody frustrating. SENCO promised 1 to 1 reading time with dd2 starting after half term. We are half way through week 3 and so far nothing. I find it incredible they can get defensive in these circs. But they will.

We have offered training - we have a training budget of 14 hours ABA a year - school have used 1 hour in 2 years for whole school 'autism' training as part of training day. The school will not release class teacher to do training. We have offered after school training - teacher will not do it. training during preparation time. 30 min slots of training etc etc - nothing taken up. We have even offered to train the teacher how to devise a behaviour plan for the whole class (as that would obviously benefit ds if the class were better behaved - there about 5 'difficult' children) and they have declined that and come up with their own behaviour system - which does not work.

I think the teacher did realise how bad it sounded once the words were out about the bribe, but of course you can't take something like that back!

ABA did loads of break-time games etc and its been really successful - DS is now pretty independent in the playground and will find children to play with and ABA got to the point where they could stand back for long periods. I think they will need to step back in because the children's games have become too wild / chaotic - tbh I think its a case of several children in the class playing 18 rated xbox games at home! So I think ABA will need to put structure / supervision into the games the other children play so ds can join in again.

At the start school did not have to do anything as ABA did it all and now ABA are saying we are ready to hand this bit over, school are not picking up the baton - and months go by as we wait for them to step up.

ABA had to spend the first year building relationships, not rocking boat etc etc because we need school to back us against LA when they inevitably try and reduce / pull out ABA too soon - but I think we have been too soft and now need to lay it on the line a bit.

There is no doubt it is a tricky class there is a teacher + TA sometimes + DS 1:1, but tbh I think they probably need another adult in the class fulltime or maybe even 2 TAs because 5 other children are such a handful.

set up IEP and refer to Autism Advisory once Paed report is in.
'slow academic progress'....
SENCO had liaised with EP,
raft of ideas and interventions to support dd2 ....

SENCO is full of brilliant ideas, enjoys the kudos of being SENCO
crap at following anything through, challenging or changing... classroom. [previously had to] complain to governors about SENCO after being accused by her... of... transferring my anxiety onto dd1

So, what's the bare minimum you need her to do right now?
Make it easier for her to 'do' that minimum, than to delay or 'not' do it. Then be excessively grateful. At the same time, openly (and apologetically) apply for stat assessment, and blame influence of other SEN parents (us )
Meanwhile, make a non-challenging paper-trail (link books are good)

Agnes, I wish I could say i was