education welfare will i risk a problem here ?

[thriftychic]

having a lot of issues with school at the moment ,started a thread the other day .
basically they want to put ds2 in an internal exclusion in their isolation / behaviour room and he wont / cant go to it .
he has asd. he did one day and wont do any more . i am not trying to force him to go anymore its causing alot of stress.
school wont budge on it so we are now stuck at home . i have asked for a meeting . they have said they will send his work home for now .
ds2 is going downhill with it all , he is saying that he isnt going but hes saying hes a psycopath for messing everything up for me and other horrible things about himself. its not helping that hes getting crazy with staying in the house so i want to get him out tomorrow.
but, what happens if we get stopped ? will i be in trouble then for him not being in school ?

yes lol i feel i have gone from a mouse to a lion this week if you knew me in rl that probably would make you laugh . it is the power of MNSN arming me with knowledge
school have informed me that they are marking him down as authorised absence so , i guess thats a good thing ?

yes that means you don't have to justify his absence to the EWO.
You are perfectly entitled to take him out. When ds was out of school no-one said anything to us if we went out.

They are probably marking his absence as authorised as they don't want the EWO to know about their illegal exclusion!

and the saga continues because after i emailed the teacher asking him to confirm what had been said he replied with a few lies . he said id declined work at home , declined a meeting and hed offered lots of options all with the exclusion and options with the school refusal . not true.

he really bends the truth , harping on about all the options and alternatives hes offered that ive declined . i asked him to repeat them , at first he ignored me only stating that we need a meeting. i asked again , email came back saying the options were that ds2 could do the exclusion with one to one , or work alone , in the behaviour room. no mention of what he thinks we could do about him now being at home indefinitely .

i spoke to camhs on friday , bit of a let down . was all agreeable with me , said she was ringing school today to arrange a meeting .

phoned me back saying no meeting was arranged and that she / they wanted me to send ds2 into school tomorrow to talk to someone he feels comfortable with . that will be no one then.
she thinks he should go in by himself and talk about how they can make the exclusion doable .
the teacher obviously sweet talked her (camhs) as she was all full of how they want whats best for him and that are very positive about ds2 and that hes doing well at school ( was told by pastoral woman 10 mins later that hes already behind and now more so)

She has told me to sell it to ds2 that the school are being really nice and helpful etc and that he needs to go .
I already tried all that right at the start , they said one day he did that and they backtracked and insisted on two! i tried and it caused awful problems !

this is the camhs woman who told me not to use punishments and that ds2 obviously has trouble expressing himself . so now she wants him to go and negotiate his own punishment that he doesnt even think is justified .
are these people mad ? or am i actually losing touch with reality myself now ?

options to do with the exclusion i meant doh!

Does your ds have to do the exclusion in the behaviour unit?

Seen as they are offering one to one, could it be done in the library for example?

i think they may agree to that but the trouble is ds2 will not agree to do it anywhere.

He is adamant that he has done one day and is not doing another . i could threaten him with no sunday fishing trip which is everything to him atm but i dont think thats fair really and it could likely just be a massive meltdown and still no school.
I could try telling him that we need to go but he doesnt have to agree to anything . prob wont work though. He says he doesnt trust school now. Its the having to talk to someone though that always causes problems , he doesnt want to talk to anyone at school for sure .
i am worried that this has now taught him that he can refuse to do whatever he doesnt like and im going to have problems with other things .
I havent rung ipsea yet , i will try them tomorrow.
i am not very clued up about statements , would he have been treated differently if he had one ? how do we get one ?

No i agree, dont punish him anymore. Maybe one of your compromises could be 1:1 supervision, but no talking (ds hates this too), looking/reading fishing books in the library or something else of interest to him?

Then focus on what school can do to make sure this doesn't happen again. Who is responsible for your ds pastoral care?

i will put that to ds2 , that we could suggest reading fishing books etc thanks , the pastoral woman will be there tomorrow if we get there. I copied her into all the emails i sent to the teacher and also forwarded his to her aswell , wanted her to see how he was lying and not answering my questions ! tbh i can tell she agrees with me but she doesnt say too much , obviously her hands are tied .

I think compromise (if poss) BUT also focus big time on what measures school are going to take to ensure this doesn't happen again.

Insist on some strategies being put into place immediately. Strategies to avoid him getting to the point of wanting to lash out. No point just keep dealing with the consequences, without addressing the cause.

Why cant pastoral care woman do the 1:1 with him? take the opportunity to build a relationship with him, so there is someone he trusts. I am assuming she is his 'named person' to whom he should be able to go and talk to with his worries?

educationandrights.blogspot.co.uk/p/applying-for-statutory-assessment.html

IE's blog is really helpful explaining statement process too.

thanks , yes shes the first port of call for any problems . shes nice enough but really very dopey

Well nice is a good start, especially if your ds needs to build a relationship with someone. I find the nice approach works far better with ds, than the sit up and do as you are told approach!

I think they also don't appear to have taken into account the change of routine for your ds, expecting to just change your ds's school day totally without any upset is a huge expectation.

Maybe a time table or list etc setting out what he will do for the day would help?

yes its 9:30 until 4:30 in exclusion instead of 8:30 until 3pm. cant eat lunch with the rest either so different day entirely

How did it go Thrifty? Any news?

ds2 first reaction last night wasnt good , he was adamant he wouldnt go and it was the same this morning . He got really angry and stressy , a box of cereal flew through the air , so i went for my plan B which was to tell him that we would go into school, not in uniform , just for a short discussion about what could be done and that he could then come home again and hopefully there might be a solution for tomorrow. He agreed to go as long as he didnt have to agree to anything he didnt feel he could handle . He said he was worried they were going to trick him into the exclusion room.

so , we went into school . There was supposed to be a teacher and the pastoral lady , but no sign of the teacher . the pastoral lady spent a while telling ds2 that he could do the exclusion in another room on his own near her office and she would keep popping in and out making sure he was ok . i mentioned that i had suggested he take along his fishing books and she said he could do that but it was nudge nudge wink wink and she hadnt said he could. that hacked me off really as i think it should be allowed if hes actually managed to get there!

ds2 flatly refused to agree to any of this anyway . He said that he wont do it because he cant handle sitting in the room all day it drives him insane (hes like that at home , needs occupying all the time) its horrible , we dont know what its like to be him and also because its unfair .
He says they ganged up on him and he shouldnt be in an exclusion . The teacher who had dealt with all this stuck his head in for about 2 minutes on route to a meeting . stated that ds2 HAD to get this exclusion done and brushed off what ds2 was saying about being ganged up on and the shoving the teacher being an accident . wasnt interested at all
we left with no resolution.

later on i told ds2 that i had done all i can , that they wont change it and he really needs to go , this really goes against my grain . i dont bloody agree with it but i am worried about all the classes hes missing . me saying that to him wasnt good really because then he was stressing that he was making things bad for me but he really couldnt go to school either

tonight , i rightly or wrongly suggested that he go and take his headphones and ipod to distract him , some sweets and his fishing books , he said hed get them taken away and i have told him it should be ok . He said he would do it .
tomorrow morning will be a different story though and i wont be surprised if he wont go again . I will be furious though if he does make it in and school complain about the ipod and take it off him .

What is he expected to do in the room on his own all day?

this is horrific
who else is involved in ds's care? who diagnosed him?
did you speak to IPSEA?

What happened about the lies about offering work etc?

No answer when i replied correcting the lies , other than to say we need a meeting.
a psychologist at camhs diagnosed him after that we saw another psychologist at camhs a few times who ds2 wouldnt have anything to do with so it ended up just being me and dh that saw her . she is the one that has spoken to school but she seems to be more with them iyswim.
He hasnt gone this morning , he had intentions of last night but he hasnt gone he just keeps saying its not fair , he shouldnt have to go when it wasnt all his fault what happened.
they expect him to work from a book i think in the room.
ds2 has said that maybe he could do an hour a day in there
not phoned ipsea yet , tbh im in a bit of a muddle with it all , feel anxious and i wasnt well to begin with . sorry enough self pity !

Thrifty, its enough to make you feel ill, if you wasn't already!

I think the only way to put a stop to this is, is to focus on their legal responsibilities and yours.

Im no legal expert but my take on it is they are acting illegally, they are imposing an indefinite exclusion by instructing you to keep your ds out of school. Indefinite exclusion is illegal. It is also not good practice to exclude children with SEN as this often escalates the problem. They have a legal duty to make reasonable adjustments to policies and practices. The 'adjustments' they have offered don't seem to be reasonable adjustments a) do the exclusion or b) do the exclusion. A reasonable adjustment would be a compromise to enable your ds to do the exclusion.

Your legal responsibility is to make sure your ds receives an appropriate education. You can do this, he will attend school, just not the exclusion, you cannot physically force him to attend an exclusion and neither can school.

This battle of wills has been going on for far too long. Phone IPSEA find out exactly where you stand legally and quote it at them. Its the only way to get things moving the right direction, rather than circles.

thankyou both just printing out all the emails and putting them in order . then will do like polter says and write things down in order , as i am sure to get muddled when talking to anyone !