State schools ABA or not????

[zumbaleena]

I have a nearly 4 yr old who has been on a good ABA program for almost a year now. She has come along fantastically and is highly verbal now. We are heading towards a tribunal asking for ABA. I have started looking at reception schools for dd and am v confused. 2 outstanding state schools said no to ABA on phone. Her current private school is v open to ABA but the fee might drain us financially.

I can,t hide or talk behind the bush about ABA as we are heading to a tribunal. At the same time, I don,t want her to go to a school who don,t want her. Soooooo confused! This is looking harder than a tribunal :-(

The problem with ABA is not ABA. It is the fact that the TA cannot be used by the school as a TA for the teacher as it is in most other TA arrangements albeit unofficially.

If a child has an ABA tutor, the targets are SMART and the tutor can produce a minute by minute account of their time spent with the child. This stops schools from using their SEN resources flexibly and to spread them amongst other children which is what they are used to doing.

In order to alleviate their guilt at this, they fabricate justifications for their actions by insisting that ABA causes dependency or is barbaric or doesn't teach social skills or whatever else they can insist is bad about ABA which is frustrating.

I don't know what the answer is tbh though a school that has trouble recruiting children might be more amenable and flexible and quite possibly better for your child in any case.

See fluffy's posts on this thread to understand why state schools would be against

thanks star! u really are a star! you helped me decide in a roundabout way! I have to find a state school that are genuinely happy/interested/curious to look/find out about my child. This has to be the first step....if they initially itself look at her as a drain on their resources or her support to be a challenge to their authority....then that is not a place I want to send me girl to. And if of course, I can afford it financially, then she should go to her current private school who genuinely welcome her with open arms.

Many LA funded schools will say no to ABA at this stage because they do not want to be seen to support the parent against the LA with a tribunal looming. LAs often tell schools to refuse ABA to undermine your appeal. When is your tribunal? If you win this and get the statement to say the LA must provide access to a mainstream school as part of ABA then that is a game changer. Schools can then accept ABA without being seen to undermine the LA and in fact the LA must find you a school that will accept ABA.

We won our tribunal before we had to find a school and no school we approached post tribunal refused ABA. The tribunal can name a type of school (mainstream) you do not have to have a specific school agreeing to ABA. You can also go to tribunal on basis of current private school and once you have won ask for a LA mainstream place. As a child with a statement you don't go via the usual admission process anyway and even if the school is full (usually only 30 allowed in infant class) then your child will be an 'excepted pupil' and not count towards the 30. Places wont be allocated to March / April for reception anyway.

You also don't have to send her full-time as her ABA time counts towards her education so DS started 3 half days, then went to 5 and now in year 2 goes 6 half days. the rest of the time he does ABA out of school. Worth thinking about if the private school will let you just pay for a part-time place - that may make it more affordable, or at least give you some breathing space to win the tribunal and then find a school.

Sadly our experience is the input mainstream teachers have made to DS education has been minimal. The children are great with him but all his learning in and out of school has been achieved by us and ABA. The emphasis on school is quite disproportionate to the benefit it brings. The pool of children and social side is great but you can replicate everything else yourself and IME probably do a better job. So I suppose what I am saying is don't get too hung up about the school the LA will make this out to be crucial part of his education but in practice with a good ABA programme it is a bolt on, not the core.

LAs dont like ABA in mainstream because it makes the rest of their autism provision look bad and they dont want it to get out there are better (more expensive) options out there.