School days reduced

[Skylar123]

It is looking increasingly likely that my Ds (hfa) age 7 school day will be reduced due to anxiety and stress at school. We already have a 30 min later start. Mornings are a battle just getting him to co operate in getting dressed etc. Screaming and refusing to do anything, begging to stay at home. However when he is there he stays although he tells me he hates it and wants to come home. He seems ok after sch though it's just he gets very anxious at bedtime and before school. I wondered how changes to other dc's school days take place with other msnetters please such as shorter days, half days etc. just interested to know what others are doing in similar situation regarding school attendance. Thanks in advance.

DS was happy to get ready and all but once on transport and in school he would throw the behavior to get himself excluded and once in time out he would throw serious tantrums and stress and anxiety would hit the roof. Sending him for half days only made things worse and school admitted they cant meet needs.

If its same case for your school then either call for an earlier Annual Review or meeting with SENCO/HT to put in an emergency provision to support him or contact your Statementing Officer.

Reduced timetable in my experienced led to DS being out of school FT.

Ditto to what BlueShark said. In our case a reduced timetable was a slippery slope to "we can't meet his needs, we're looking at permanent exclusion".

If things aren't working, they need to be more flexible until they find a way to make it work. In retrospect, I'm not sure what effect they expected a reduced timetable to have on my DS, it really wasn't explained. It changed nothing for us, just made our lives harder and school's easier.

ds2 is on a reduced timetable at the moment as the alternative is permanent exclusion. If the latter happens the only option there is left is a tutor at home because there are currently no spaces in the PRU/BESD school which is the only other option in the borough and even if there were spaces we wouldn't want him to go there because it would be disruptive for his brother who is happily settled there.

Since being on the reduced time-table he has gone into school slightly easier - well I haven't been kicked and spat at this week - or run off whilst he has been there so probably has reduced the anxiety a bit. He apparently, is standing at the window watching for the car towards the end of each session. The plan is to try and extend hours ago after Christmas gradually if he settles down.

Unless, the school puts in more support then I don't think reduced hours is going to be terribly effective. The school needs to work out what is causing the problem at school and try and make interventions to cope with this - for example is it particular lessons (ds2 finds PE, music and RE particularly troublesome) or unstructured times like the playground (perhaps needs 1:1 adult support during these times or to be allowed to stay inside).

Reduced hours is meant to be the last option and there should be a plan for reintegration set up if/when you agree to it. It may just be that the setting is just not appropriate for your son - ds1 is much improved at his BESD school but I still can't say exactly what has made the difference and what was causing the anxiety at his mainstream school.

Thank you for all your comments. I really don't know what Ds is like at school as I'm not there. Sch tell me he is fine, gets a bit anxious at times and needs help with instructions. He is not disrupting the class. My view is that he tells noone when he is getting stressed and it comes out at home. Sch have introduced a good day bad day sheet for me to fill out with Ds. See if that sheds any light. Going in half hour later is not really making any diff to how Ds behaves at home before sch and the trouble I have getting him ready etc but he likes the fact he has a slightly shorter day. I'm not getting to work until 10am which isn't good for my job.