Best type of school for my DD (ASD) ?

[Strikeuptheband]

I am looking for any opinions/experienced advice you can all throw my way.

DD is 4 and attending mainstream nursery school for a year with 1-1 support. They are well meaning and fairly accommodating and she is settled (but it took her months as her anxiety levels are very high and she has a rigid need for routine which causes problems). She is verbal, and very much more able to express her needs to me nowadays but her speech (pronunciation) is very unclear even to me. She is with me full time apart from nursery. She seems to not have problems learning but on her own terms.

So at the moment we are in the middle of statutory assessment, applied for by myself. I suppose what I wanted to know was what sort of school is best for her, and also what the statutory assessment is likely to recommend. Would she be accepted in an autism unit within mainstream? What about SS in a class for children on the autistic spectrum? The school keep saying she's on a similar level to others in her class but I think they are forgetting the anxiety, the self-directed nature of her learning etc. I don't feel like they are very autism aware and I worry keeping her in mainstream will mean it is very difficult to move later. But it seems very early to be using transport ( which she would need for a unit or ss).
Any advice gratefully welcomed.

What you are offered as a place by the LA depends entirely on what area you live in, as not every area has the same provision.

I can only say what we did for my dd - it may not be appropriate for your dd.

We did not want mainstream at all. We did consider an ASD unit based at a mainstream school, but only if dd was allowed to stay at the base for as long as necessary, rather than a drive towards inclusion from day one.

dd has ended up at an independent, highly specialised SN school. it is right for her. she would never have coped in mainstream (may have done in a unit if the place was right for her - I am not sorry we did not push for the unit we looked around, though, as it would not have worked for her)

Some thigns we considered during our school choice period:

we did not want dd to ever feel as though she was failing. she finds life difficult enough as it is, and does not need it highlighting that she struggles more than the majority of her peers.

we wanted a highly individualised curriculum for dd. oen where she can still be working on P scales for writing, for eg, yet NC level 3 for maths. this is achieved at her current school via a mixture of methods - partly 1:1 tuition, partly being able to mix up the groups easily (so she is in one class, but then a separate group for maths, another separate group for handwriting, another separate one for literacy - all based on ability rather than age)

we didn't want dd to have to 'fit in'. we wanted her school to be a place where she felt happy, secure, and enjoyed being. not where she was stressed, having to cope, and 'get through' the day.

take some time to look around all the different options you have in your area. make a list of questions before you go to look around. try to 'see' your dd in those different placements - think through how she would feel and react in the settings you see.

I understand your worries about transport. I had the same, but luckily I am able to take dd to/from school myself, as her school hours fit in with my other children's timings. Others on this board have successfully used transport from the beginning. Again, what works for one may not work for another due to differing needs, so this is another one to think through carefully.

Thanks for your reply. In our area there is a unit within a mainstream setting and a SS that caters for 3-19 year olds and has 4 classes specifically for children with ASD. They are about 5 miles away. Or there is her current MS which is very local and her older sibling goes to. We would pretty much definitely get in there as she scores highly on all the criteria. Plus even if not, by then I would hope she'd have a statement.

DS1 is also at an independent, highly specialised ASD school, for many of the reasons Newbluecoat outlines. I also never wanted him to be a square peg in a round hole, or whatever the saying is, or to just be tolerated somewhere. I wanted him somewhere he could reach his potential but also be welcome and celebrated rather than tolerated.

As for the transport side, Ds's school is about 8 miles away and he has had an hour long journey in a taxi each way from the age of 4 (with an escort too). I fretted like mad about this beforehand, especially as he was so little, but really needn't have. We both got used to the new routine incredibly quickly, and he came to love his journey. I guess it was easier for me as with two other children in two different local settings, there was really no alternative to transport. And I was 100% sure it was the perfect school for ds so the journey was a minor inconvenience in the scheme of things

My son went into ms at age 4 without a diagnosis or statement. He moved to ss in year 2 (September just gone). When I attended the induction morning along with other parents who were mostly foundation age children, I was very envious of them that I had not been in that position 2 years ago. I wish I could go back and that my son and our family could rewrite the last 2 years. Can't recommend special highly enough. Not just for your child, but for how you are treated too as a parent.

Hi I've spoken to you on the starting school thread but I will mention my dd has been using transport since she was three in September.i was really worried how she would cope especially as she is one of the first children to be collected but she's doing really well
And in fact showed me the other day where one of the other children on her bus lives

ps forgot to say, I was all in a dither about whether to use the transport my son was eligible for and delayed by a few days when he started. He was fantastic with it from day one and they have to virtually push him off (kidding) in the afternoon because he takes so long trying to saying goodbye to everyone! I think the journey home chills him out too, he's a sweetheart when he gets home. When I used collect him from ms I was treated to meltdowns, strops and doing a runner on a daily basis.

Thank you do much for all of the replies.
I would love my DD to attend provision for her needs ideally. I am not sure how likely she'd be to be accepted into a SS because apart from her autism (which means she has lots of anxiety and a strong need to know what will be happening, and significant speech and language difficulties) she is academically holding her own. I sincerely hope they didn't go too positive whenbthey filled in the SA paperwork. They seemed to think her anxiety would improve but I know that is often not ot tge case especially without help. But I would say that it shows more than ever that she needs to be in the right environment to learn.
Those of you who got into independent special schools, are the council funding them? How hard was that to argue for if so?

Sorry for typos -using predictive text not very predictable!

Licking, what sort of transport is it?

He goes on a minibus. It's only 5 miles away but I have son at local school too, which is on our doorstep. His isn't independent school, it's state run. Some of the children are more severely affected than him but I have still seen him come on loads - to do with being more comfortable, less stressed in the environment. He does have learning difficulties though, at age 4 wasn't speaking at all really.

That makes me feel a bit better already. Thank you, LMW
Has anybody reading this used an autism unit for their child? In theory it looks really good but I definitely do not want her in mainstream for secondary. Would attending mainstream in prinary cause problems for her attending more specialist provision for secondary?
Thank you all so much for your very detsiled posts so far by the way. It has been a great help.

Strike up we were offered a unit for dd2 but opted for dp sch and yes many children's move from mainstream to units or special school s for secondary as there is so much more to cope with due to the size of the sch and class changes etc

My dd attends an ASD unit in a ms school. Has only been there since October but already it's obviously the right place for her. The unit is fantastic and each child has their own targets depending on their ability when they start. As dd is non verbal their main target for her at the moment is to improve her use of pecs and increase her attention paying skills.
There is no pressure for inclusion unless they think it would benefit the individual child and even then only for things they think the child would enjoy. It's mainly the older children that this applies to as the younger children are less able. For example if a child was especially good as maths, they would join the ms class for maths sessions then return to the unit.
The school is quite small and as such all the ms children are familiar with the unit children. My dd gets the minibus now but before that was arranged I'd take her myself and nearly all the ms kids would say "hello mini Fresh" to dd as we walked to class.
It really is a lovely environment.
I think they have potential to go to the comp ASD class straight from there but it's a long way off for us yet so haven't really thought about it.

Thanks FreshWest

I am noticing a lot of you are saying your children are non-verbal. DD is far behind with her language skills but making good progress despite not having had much 'therapy'. She is very much more aware of other people than she was but still does not quite know how to approach other children. Her language is very unclear. She enjoys nursery but they don't seem to be doing much working towards her targets and they seem to think they can just treat her like the others. But she has a 1:1 and funding and outreach visiting regularly and I can't help wondering if they are just coasting with her? I wondered if it was best for her to go to this her local (and very good for NT children) mainstream or to go to a different school from her sibling and on transport but hopefully geared towards her needs. But I wonder if they will say no because she's verbal and doesn't cause the nursery too much bother anymore?

Strike up my dd is verbal and goes to a special school she is receiving lots of speech therspy

my dd is (very) verbal. she has a severe language disorder, but can hold basic conversations.

she was no 'trouble' at pre-school either - just a lovely little girl, who plodded about quite happily getting on with ehr own stuff, charming everyone left, right and centre.

we still managed to get her into an independent SN school from the age of 4 (she's 9 now), and when that school closed, into a further independent SN school.

dd now has 30 minutes a week of individual SALT, plus SALT groups each week and her SALT programme delivered via her curriculum daily too. her biggest issue is still her language, although she is making brilliant progress.