Please help, should I go and remove my son from school?

[TapselteerieO]

Ds, hfa, been at a new school for three months, previously never had a phone call about his behaviour at the old school, everyday I am getting phone calls or chats from the teacher, today it was the ht.

I sent a happy positive ds to school and I am just so worried about him.

Depend whether the head-teacher / teacher is coming up with any stratagies to help your son or just moaning about his behaviour. If his behaviour is just because his routine has been upset by the move then another move won't help. If the difficulties are because the school is not supporting him then they need to either rethink their ideas or you should move him.

On Wednesday his teacher called to ask me to collect him, because he wouldn't go and eat his lunch - I refused to go, thought it would give ds the idea that a meltdown would get him out of school (reward) and it gives the impression school can't deal with him . They are blaming his behaviour, they think they are giving him enough support. The reason for his meltdown that day was because he kicked over a wet floor sign (no supervision not sure it was deliberate or an accident) a handful of children took the opportunity to tell on him, one after the other. Ds got upset, said something mean and refused to apologise/work.

Today he was put in a different group (no prior warning) refused to participate and ht got involved. I just feel poor management, no warning and ds 's teacher seems to escalate everything out of proportion - I am ready to admit ds can be challenging but they don't think they have a problem they think he has one.

I have since spoken to the ht again today. I told her I am extremely concerned and considering removing him, I know it isn't the right thing to do, but I am so worried about him and they do seem to be putting the onus on ds and not acknowledging their responsibility.

What support did he get at his last school and how does it differ from the current school. You might be able to ask that they try similar things. Sadly, some teachers seem to cope better with HFA children than others. A rigid teacher and a HFA child is not a good mix in our experience.

Don't threaten to remove him. They'll probably escalate their crapness to encourage this.

Start gathering evidence and data instead. With enough of this you can get a much better placement, even an independent school might be on the cards if you can show enough crapness.

I think it is impossible to advise without knowing what stage of the SEN pathway you are on? Have you applied for a statement? What level of support is he supposed to be getting? Have you discussed with school how they are going to meet his needs? Do they understand his needs? Are there reports etc etc?

If you don't have a statement and wish to apply for one, whether you stay at this school depends on whether you feel there is any hope the school will help you and support your application.

If they are against you, I would not send my child to a school which isn't interested in meeting his needs and put him through a crappy time in the hope this will lead to a more positive outcome. My experience is that if a school is prepared to pretend it is doing things to meet needs, it can be difficult to challenge that.

So you need to work out what you want out of this but putting your child through a crap time to prove he is being failed by a crap school isn't something I would want to do.

Have been looking at Autism policy - the ht is saying they are giving him all the support they can, but he had full time 1 to 1 support at his last school. This school knows this, our old ht took ds's support assistant to the new school twice as part of the transition. They really tried to ease the transition, ds started quite well - think the school were thinking he didn't need as much support, and tried to keep it general rather than specific to him, they wanted him to integrate and not to be seen as "different" by his peers.

I have been writing a letter all week, keep redrafting and adding stuff. Think we will probably have a meeting early next week - I am not good at meetings, get v emotional. Hopefully dh will be there he is good at being the voice of reason.

Oh, you are in Scotland? I don't really know much about the Scottish equivalent of statements but in England, unless you have a statement, no support is legally guaranteed.

You need to draw up a list of things your son needs based on any reports and recommendations he has and go through them with school asking whether they can meet these needs. If they can't, they need to be honest about what the problem is.

Life can be really hard with a HFA/AS child as they can appear to fit in and their behaviour can belie their difficulties so that everyone leaves them to it and then is surprised when things go wrong. This can be tough even when you have a good school but if school are not onside, look elsewhere

Does he have a statement of educational needs?

If so what support is shown on that.

To help you take control of the meeting go armed with bullet points. Incidences that have happened.

Ask for a home/school diary which is a better way of communication and also a log of what is going on in school. Sometimes a pattern can be formed and you can work out the triggers. :)

Repeat at the meeting that your DS does not like surprises and to avoid confrontation and upset it is best to warn him of changes WELL before they are about to take place.

If its not working and you can see why ie. 1 to 1 less now than before then dont be afraid to say so.

Email form is a great way of communication and a paper trail.

Might not be a good idea to keep mentioning removing him as that can leave school with an advantage of ringing you every 5 minutes asking you to collect (which is exclusion btw however short or long)

We moved local authority and school just before Christmas, old school bent over backwards trying to smooth the transition, we have been working on ds's CSP (coordinated support plan) not sure if that is similar to a statement? It is part of something called a Child Plan. We write notes, they redraft, we re-write what they misinterpret.

HT will be ds's lead professional for the CSP - I am concerned she isomer interested in projecting the right image for her school than meeting my ds's needs. She can talk the talk.

Had first meeting with CAHMS for this LA just over a week ago - the psych was brilliant, last psych had sent her a letter cc'd to us which we never received confirming ds's dx. I have handed this in to the school - the ht said she couldn't do anything until we had dx in writing which is utter bollocks according to the council's policy on ASD:

"services will respond to the child?s needs, the response will not be constrained by the presence or absence of a diagnosis." - this is in bold in the policy.

They have been trying to put all the onus on ds to control his behaviour - like asking a blind person to see?

We have constantly told them in all the many times we have met that ds needs time to process information, he needs advance warning of change, timer/5 minute warning - I think the teacher has been almost threatening ds with punishment (loss of golden time/telling Mum/not getting achievement points), which result in meltdown- we have told them that punishing ds does not work. His response will be - "don't care" and then he self destructs.

I feel that the old school put into practice whatever they had to in order to get ds's needs met. This school seems to want to talk about the theory, say all the right things but is incapable(?) of actually putting the important stuff into practice.

I am very grateful for all the responses, I have this weekend to get a coherent letter together. I really don't want to move my ds, there is another school he can go to - but I just would rather avoid doing that because of how disruptive it will be for ds.

We have sent an e-mail to school ht, outlining our concerns. Very brief response from HT - School are going to be contacting Autism outreach service for them to do a classroom observation, and the HT has "organised for our Principal Teacher for Additional Support Needs to give additional advice to the class teacher." Is this enough?

A friend has just asked why ds doesn't have full time or a specific one to one - I am not even sure how many hours support ds is getting. I feel like a crap parent, it is such an obvious question to ask. Should I send an additional e-mail asking how many hours support ds is getting and when it is allocated?

Cheers Polter, I have sent an e-mail to the autism outreach co-ordinator - to let them know we want their help, and put across our views. I also included the letter we sent to the school, plus a note of the daily incidents at school last week. Just about to do the school run, hoping my ds has had a good day and I don't get the daily update about his behaviour.