ASD unit in mainstream secondary. Any experiences?

[ouryve]

This is one of the solutions that our LA has suggested for DS1 for secondary. Our problem is that it doesn't even exist yet, so I cannot visit it to find out how it works or evaluate whether it would be a suitable option for him.

DS1 is extremely bright, but has very pronounced social and sensory difficulties. He hasn't even been in his own classroom at his small MS primary for more than short periods, this week. This is a class of under 20 children, most of whom he has known since he was 3, so as MS classes go, it's pretty undemanding.

My concern about an ASD unit is that he would never willingly venture out of it to go to lessons and would end up doing little more than worksheets all week and becoming thoroughly bored with the whole thing - and finally give up on school altogether. I can see how one would work for children who can manage in class with support, but he's not managing in class with support. He's not even in class half the time.

So, if you have an able DC with ASD in a unit or base within MS, what does their day look like, in terms of organisation? Is your DC accessing a reasonably full timetable, and do you think the support of the base is enabling this or that it would happen, anyhow? Do you think the system is a good solution for your DC, or have to had to settle for the least bad option offered? If your DC gets out to mainstream classes, how well supported are they in those lessons? If not, are they being properly taught?

Gosh - that's a lot of questions. Thanks in advance to anyone with any insight!

We went to look around an ASD secondary unit and were not impressed - possibly the SENCO was just having a bad day.

Q: How do you deal with meltdowns? A: We tell them there at big school now! If only it was that easy!

Q: I don't think my boys would cope with the noise and crowds? A: well we might let them leave the lesson 5 minutes early but they would still have to stand in the corridor as the door of the classroom for the next lesson will be locked.

Q: What support can you give? Well they will lose all the specified hours of TA help on their statement if they come here and I decide where the TAs go. Guessing it would not be with my academically able ds's then.

She had a lovely suite of classrooms but not a child in sight as she believes inclusion is being in the mainstream classroom.

Strangely, did not put this school down as an option for my ds's. I hope there are some better ones out there.

This is one of the reasons I decided to canvas opinions and experiences. I could visit a unit in a neighbouring LA - and I would have visited a unit in a neighbouring LA!

In the case of your, I think I would have been saying thank you and goodbye at the meltdown question. You could grab and random person off the street and have a good chance of being met with less ignorance.

I'm also hoping for enough insight to ask some useful questions of our LA officer in our discussions.

Could you find out if your LA is modelling the new unit on an existing one, then visit that other one?

There are two asd units in our LA, both working to the same model. My LA listed an asd unit as a possibility for secondar school transfer. However my ds is not able to access the classroom so it wasn't suitable. I commissioned an asd expert to appraise the suitability for ds and decided against it. Pm me if you'd like to find out more.

That is definitely something worth me asking (gosh, that's a clumsy sentence - it sounded right when I thought it).

There are currently no ASD units in our entire LA, so nothing "local" that I can visit (I say "local" in quotes as I am in one of the largest and most dispersed LAs in the country, geographically).