Please come cheer me up by telling me the advantages of mainstream with full 1:1 over special unit.

[Crawling]

Saw Ed ouch today she was all set on a special unit until bloody portage put her twopenneth in now she is recommending Ms with full 1:1 support. Please cheer me up by telling me the advantages of this over a special unit.

But I am still waiting on what statutory assessment says.

Hi don't want to hijack your thread but I've got a similar problem .The ed psych has recommended my dd 3.5 who has autism should go to a special school the portage worker came to visit yesterday and said that in her opinion my dd should attend a resourced provision .iI visited the special school a couple of weeks ago and my dd loved it anyway I wish you well and I hope your child's placement gets sorted out.

Automating hijack away and thanks for the wishes. So sorry you are having trouble with your portage worker too.

I've thought of one positive my DC can all attend the same school now.

Hi Crawling. I think I may have spoken to you on another thread about this. I have a similar situation, well in that I am waiting for a statement and confused about what option to go for, complicated by the feeling that his current ms don't want him! I have just spent the afternoon doing a pros and cons list for each school I have visited and his current school. It hasn't brought me to any conclusion yet though! Is it worth you trying this, might help you formulate an argument. In my case I am hoping that the proposed statement once it arrives will prompt a strong reaction in me either way!

You're not in east London are you ? Think we share a portage worker

No Autumnsmum I think crap portage workers are just all over the place im from Wales.
Thanks limboli it's so horrid trying to decide when there is barely any information to help you decide.

Lil I'm trying to do the same I really want ss partner wants ms we both want more info but we've been told its our decision,

Here are my personal reasons for preferring mainstream with 1-to-1:

More and more real integration

Higher standards - the units I've seen, unless targeted at hf kids, have been pretty meh in their expectations

Units arent a good preparation for the rough and tumble of the real world

I hav seen ome really uninspiring teachers in units, but perhaps I've just been unlucky

In the mainstream class, child has more chance of accessing the curriculum - many units I saw were unite content to let the kids coast along on P levels ad infinitum

If you get a good 1-to-1, it is like having a teacher to yourself to decipher the curriculum and help your child. Apart fom atlaytimr, s/he has an adult in their corner

In a unit the ratio is not 1-to-1 so a less personalised curriculum

The unit will often say it is autism-specific, but this can be very woolly and mean either Teacch or "eclectic" - neither of which were my good for my boy (we used LSAs trained in ABA)

My hf DSD did primary ms with a 1-to-1 , went solo at ms secondary and is now as near as dammit nf

Sorry about dodgy typing/autocorrect

ds2 has mild cp, autism & learnign difficulties & attends a ms primary with 1 to 1.
For us the advantages aree:
He is going to school with his community (ss are an hour away) his peers 7 their families know him, so now he is just X rather than the boy that gets picked up in the bus.
They have high expectations of him & he is totally included (as far as he can manage) in every school event.
The social interaction is very good & playground rough & tumble has really helped.
He is able to be included, follow the nc (sort of) with differentiated work & support.

But i truly believe that MS can only work if..
The school (teachers, governers, head) have the right attitude & want your child at their school, as it does take effort on everybodys part to make it a success... it is not about the money.
The physical environment has to be right, ds2 can manage as its a small village primary on one level with small class sizes.
The child has to be able to cope in the environment to be able to learn, a ms class even with 1 to 1 is not the right place if the child finds it so upsetting they are distressed & disrupting for everyone.

Every day should not be a battle, if it is then its the wrong setting.

Good points

Neither my DS or DSD had anxiety around noise, so could cope in the ms classroom.

And it was very nice to be t same school as big sis!

I declined a place at ASD unit and requested 1:1 MS instead.
My DC is high functioning but very socially delayed.
Main reasons were:
The ASD unit seemed very inflexible (HA!) very much, this is how we do things, and this is how we make them do things our way. The ms school treat him very much as an individual and were very accomodating regarding his transition, in ways which the unit were not prepared to be.
Distance we walk 5 mins instead of 45 mins in taxi with 2/3 other ASD kids. (My DS is very intolerant of other people's noise).
Social - I felt his social needs would be better met by interacting with NT kids, rather than other kids with social difficulties. At the ASD unit there would have been 6-8 kids and my DS would have been one of the higher functioning, I felt he needed the NT kids to rub shoulders with more than the ASD unit offered. There didn't seem to be much integration at all with the MS school that the ASD unit was affiliated with.

Other bonuses that I didn't appreciate until it happened were being part of the local community, kids at the park and cubs etc know him, greet him, play with him etc as he is my PFB it meant local friendship for me at the school gate and a verbal handover twice per day with his SSA.

Thanks all im feeling much more positive now. You have certainly cheered me up.

Oh and ive spoken with the ms school they wrote me a letter in support of a statutory assessment and were very supportive of my concerns and worries for dd. So hope they will do well for dd.

The thing that puts me off a unit, the one I visited, they don't have 1:1 support. He does in ms. In special he wouldn't get it but the class size would be vastly reduced. I think it's all or nothing for me. The unit school was probably my favourite school but I just can't see it working for him.

Thanks polter I asked and she said it was for lunch and break times too.

Thanks again limboLil the 1:1 is a good positive thing.

Yes to lunch and breaks too. Job share LSAs worked for me

The right LSA will get some games going at break times, helping child Socially and also making him popular as the source of fun games

We are going through this at the moment too, and despite DS's SN preschool recommending that he attends a unit, we are opting to send him to mainstream (hopefully with 1:1, but we have been told not to expect to hear about statement until the end of the summer term) for exactly the reasons highlighted by sickof above.

The units we looked round were just like nursery classes and did not have high expectations of the achievement potential of the students. I was not encouraged by the amount of children still on p scales when they left the units.

I also felt that in DS's case, it was important for him to be surrounded by peers as he copies behaviour. He spends half the week at a MS pre-school and copes very well there with a SIPS worker and enjoys being in a busy environment, despite his ASD. In the SN nursery, he is much quieter and more withdrawn and expectations of what he can do are much lower. I am impressed that you are being offered support for breaks and lunchtimes too, as this is what I am most worried about for DS.

It is hard to get break cover, as LSAs need breaks too

That's why job share worked, eg one does whole morning, leaves at 12, next does till 3

Hard to get agreed

I have known of some mums who paid extra to LSAs on the quiet to take only short loo break then follow child Ito playground or eat lunch alongside

Yes, that sounds like one advantage of having a job-share. I am preparing myself for a battle to get full time 1:1 even during teaching hours, especially since I was told (before they knew I was going to refuse the unit) that our LA are refusing to statement most children in MS. I wouldn't put it past myself to slip extra payment to a LSA for looking out for my DS over lunchtime though

I even know one mum who would send coffee in a flask in for the LSA to swig at break time, obviating the need to stand in the staff room waiting for the kettle to boil!

I will bare that in mind, come September