Have you thought is my child actually being taught?

[kafkesque]

I am worried as usual and feeling no my child is not being taught especially as he has been wandering three times now around the school to my knowledge in one term.

I really want to do some covert bugging like you see in documentaries and you tube. Have you done it?

It's a major factor why I homeschool right now. DS hit 9 years old and still couldn't read fluently.

I wanted him educated, not babysat.

No. Lots of children aren't taught especially well, but some are able to learn despite that. Not those with ASD though. They're the canaries.

I do wonder some days. Ds has 1:1 reading evey day. He had missed a weeks worth of lessons. I asked the senco twice why - 1:1 teacher was ill - fair enough. But after two weeks he still had no reading books as no one thought to include him back into the class book routine. It took going to head with a complaint to get him back into the class rota as instead of getting 20 mins a day 1:1 he got nothing for two weeks! My school action plus kid. Proactive eh? My ds is on no ones radar. Another tick for his tribunal case I think

No mine isn't. The only education of any sort she gets is when her 1-1 ABA worker goes in. Otherwise she is just babysat.

DS3 wasn't by school. He has ABA worker thankfully and she steps in and makes sure he is learning all the time including at school. But we have never had appropriate level work set by the teacher. They don't have time / don't get it / don't know him or autism well enough to know how to teach him / have very low expectations of him. I now do it myself / with ABA and we just use school time for social etc. Its one of the reasons he doesn't go to school full-time as he can't afford to waste more hours a week somewhere not geared up to teach him properly.

It was a major factor for home ed for us, too. Ds was still learning a bit but he was on a very dodgy path, and certainly wasn't coming anywhere near meeting his potential.

Tbh, even if you did find evidence to prove your suspicions, chances are he still wouldn't get the support he needs. Good schools that genuinely work in partnership in parents, even to the extent of simply keeping us informed of what's happening in school, are rare. It would trouble me if my son was found wandering around the school with nobody aware of it.

We had a school once. You know where, Starlight and instead of educating my children - who had statements and full time 1:1! they put them in the office to be babysat by the office staff and used their LSAs for general assistants. only found that out when one TA risked her job and showed up at our house one night, in tears.

We left the area shortly after. Just phoned the school and said they aren't coming back.

That was the most extreme, there's been not so good provision, and examples of their entire education being the responsibility of the TA because the class teacher has basically opted out.

Where they are now is very good. in fact, they've been consulting with outreach to come up with an individually tailored timetable for my youngest, who has been so stressed that he became very ill and very violent. it's got physical activities and 1:1 sessions and down time built in.

This happened after we got cross because it felt like they weren't appropriately differentiating the curriculum for them, and that our youngest wasn't coping. The ed psyc got involved at that point.

They've both got and always have had full time 1:1, but that isn't in itself a guarantee of anything, as we found out!

It is unacceptable for your son to be wandering about. The school has a duty of care and they, frankly, need a rocket up the arse.

What outside agency involvement do you have? I found that the more outside people were going in and asking the schools to show what they were doing, the more the schools put things in place! funny that...

Same in my case, was that DS was just playing games on an ipad to keep him quiet and they thought that was progress! He was bored out of his skull and I think started us down the road to school refusal.

Not even educational games. Talking Tom Cat, ffs. I sent in a list of topics DS was interested in and suggested if the ipad was keeping him quiet, why not let him have a look at Google Earth, which he LOVES. Nope.

Heard it so many times from parents of SEN kids in our area that it played a large factor in our decision to go for an ss. I thought there, he would actually be educated and not just shut up.

Same his older brother is in the same class as they have dual years and there is only 16 months between them so in together. DS1 says DS2 just plays on the laptop all day to keep him quiet. Funny that because when I asked about technology to actually teach DS2 I was told “No autistic kids tend to focus too much on electronic gadgets once introduced to them and that it would be very difficult to get them to do anything else after that.”
DS2 is supposed to have full time 1;1 so was shocked to see him wandering around on his own. “rocket up the arse” will happen when the timing is right our school is very crafty and blame me for everything. I believe the LSA is used to teach other children with problems in the class. So I agree fulltime LSA is no guarantee of anything.
We have outreach in the form of OT and SALT but it is not enough which we are taking to tribunal for.
DS1 is moderately dyslexic I found out SENCO uses coloured overlays to test for visual impairments and hasn’t tested DS1 funny that as we have a diagnosis from Dylexia Action. Wouldn’t it have crossed her mind...
Once SA settled for DS1 and tribunal settled for DS2 will definitely go in with home tuition.
I would love a telly crew to go in and show Michael Gove what carp is out there. Any crew out there? keeping their hand in do contact me. In the meantime I like the look of 380 TVL Covert Button CCTV Camera

ds2's school is trying really hard and he is learning but in a totally non-standard way so he is doing lots of science experiments, researched about ancient egyptians, made a film etc etc. Whether he will ever put pen to paper again now that is a different story.

ds1 has much more of a standard curriculum with lots of heavy bribery with computer games in free time which is working for him. They have started to take him gently out of his comfort zone so he is able to access things like music and dancing again which a few months ago he would totally have refused to do.

When can I say I have done all I can for my children?

Is it after the tribunal having secured as much help as possible plus extra tuition to make up the shortfall?

Or do I have to carry on all the way to the European court of Human rights?

I am so tired but pacing myself!

TBH if we didn't have ABA I would seriously think about bugging DS. At least I know he is safe and being taught even if not by class teacher. If he were wandering around I would be v. worried.

It works the other way too. My Mum was a teacher and said she would have loved to video some of the children and show their parents how badly they behaved at parents evenings (these were not kids with SN btw).

kafk, You will have done the best for your children if you know you can live with your actions. The Courts are not always the best course of action, in that your child has only a short time of life in education, if you waste it fighting people when you could have educated a letter of apology will never give him back that time.

It doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. But if you have resources use them on your child and family and make a decision to go to court when the benefit outweighs the effort. The court stuff outside of this has to be secondary (although I would urge anyone who feels they can to keep going and keep lobbying as our children's children need us to).

There are only so many hours in every day and every action carries an associated cost, be that intrusion into family life, time, money or effort.

Look at the expected outcome of any particular action and weigh up the specific benefits to the child of taking that route with the resources of time, money and emotional energy I have available at that time.

I regard the court process as just one weapon in my armoury to help my child. No less important is the hours spent doing daily therapy, or fun times giggling together in the park. The professionals that meet your child won't even remember his/her name in a decade, whereas you'll still be living with what you've done or not chosen to do.

You may find however that you'd rather spend the money on direct therapy/tuition & have some decent family time rather than go to court. The balance of benefits changes as our children do.

The perfect school or statement doesn't actually exist. All we can really achieve is the best possible compromise. If the time another court case + the ACTUAL support (often the delivered RL version looks nothing like the paper one!) you'll get at the end of it is worth it, then go for it!

Thank-you so much with these wise words. Mumsnet is my rock.