Ambitious about Autism's new 'Ruled Out' campaign on academic exclusion

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello

Ambitious about Autism have launched a new campaign today called Ruled Out. It focuses on children with autism and asks why they miss out on school.

Ambitious about Autism say:

'Children with autism are disproportionately affected by both formal and illegal school exclusion. Some parents find it difficult to find a school that can meet their child’s needs and as a result their children are put on part-time timetables, excluded or not able to access the curriculum they are entitled to. In short, they miss out on education.

4 in 10 children with autism have been excluded informally and therefore illegally during their time at school.
20% of children with autism have been formally excluded in the past 12 months.
Over half of parents of children with autism say they have kept their child out of school for fear that the school is unable to provide appropriate support.'

The campaign has the following aims:

Every family of a child with autism should know their rights, and have the resources to help their child get the support they are entitled to at school.
Every school should have access to an autism specialist teacher, to build capacity among schools staff and to support children with autism to learn and achieve.
Every local authority should set out in its local offer the support available in its area to ensure children with autism have access to quality full-time education.

Ambitious About Autism has asked if Mumsnet would like to sign up as an official supporter of the campaign, and as ever we said we'd need to run it past our posters. So if you have any thoughts on that, do please let us know; and of course if you'd like to take action to support the campaign at an individual level, you can see how to do that at the bottom of this page.

Thanks
MNHQ

I agree but I've just had them issue a provisional view on this issue which found fault with the LA and it has restored my faith a bit.

Perhaps this issue is one they understand

Pm'd you IE

How will the campaign aims help? You may as well tick Aim 2 now because most schools already have "access" to an autism specialist teacher, whatever that means.

Aim 3 can also be ticked once the Local Offer is published as required anyway.

So that leaves Aim 1, which seems to be about arming parents to police schools and LAs. Perhaps the DfE will fund a charity to provide advice?

This is too important a subject to hope that schools and LAs, because they become more "aware", will suddenly decide to provide the support that our children need.

What we need is a 4th aim - monitoring and enforcement. Who is going to do that?

I have to say that I'm unsure what this campaign will achieve other than short term headlines. I applaud the will to make changes but am unsure it will be achieved in this way.

My ds is asd and we are currently in the process of getting a statement. We have a flexi schooling agreement with the school. He stays until lunchtime. Initially it was an illegal exclusion but I think this was pointed out to the school so they quickly put the agreement together. I was fully aware that the situation wasn't entirely above board as I am (or was) in education myself. It suited me because he can't cope with school for a full day. I have had to give up work because of it though. I appreciate that in an ideal world specialised support should be available but it isn't. Forcing the school to take him all day, which I could have pushed for, would have been distressing for him, the staff and other pupils.

Additional needs in this country are generally met through the goodwill of schools, a tough fight by parents or not at all. It shouldn't be this way. Education is a right for all not the just the typical or easy pupils.

The reason this situation exists is because the people with the power to change it, don't care. It isn't a vote winner. They might give a speech about how they would change things or even put policy and legislation in place. However with the other hand they will slash budgets, divert funds or create targets which are impossible to meet if additional needs are to be properly catered for. Combine that with leas and schools that are in a very real sense (eg on a day to day basis) unaccountable, then you have the hole in which many children find themselves in. Don't get me started on the accountability of academies.

There are ways IMO to stop this but they would require a total change in how schools are assessed and monitored for all pupils.

I agree with all you have said soapbox. And I think while those with the funds and the hear of those in power remain committed to beating around the bush because they are scared of upsetting people, little will change.

We shouldn't be begging for crumbs from the table for kids or asking LAs to 'please' be nicer and more lawful or pretending its all about changing their hearts and minds. Because it's not.

I wonder whether there will be CFB funding applied to this campaign. The report seems to flag up the CFB as some kind of game changer, rather incongruously, and with no evidence to support its assertion. Obviously talking to an audience of specific audience though.

Perhaps AAA could clarify whether they will be getting (or have got) and Government funding for this project?

And I do wonder if we will just see AAA projects aimed at 'working with LAs and teachers to promote autism understanding' developed.

What's the problem with that? The NAS has been doing it for years through Early bird and. Early Bird Plus and where has that taken us?

I know LAs who have refused to assess a child simply because the school has not done an Early Bird Plus course - as if that is the same as actual provision.

So we get the same old 'access to training' 'access to specialists', all delivered third hand by someone who may never meet the child but who has been on a course so knows all about autism.

And the saga continues.

ABA is not something appropriate for my child but I can't imagine for a minute the AAA will be promoting that amongst LAs in its material.

It's not so much the schools that need "access to specialists" as the children!

Yet another meeting, or tick sheet is not the answer. Sitting down on the carpet and working directly with the child concerned is the answer!

There are no penalties for schools that ignore specialist advice, (though we all know the poor children pay a high price in terms of reduced outcomes).

Gah! head, bash, wall.......

Wholesale cultural change is needed and that starts with abandoning the apologist language currently used. Access to an adequate state education is a taxpayer funded right of ALL children aged between 5 & 18 in this country. The law says so, and the law needs to actually be seen to be upheld.

I completely agree

Well said bochead, great news on LGO glad your faith has been restored, mine has completely gone!

That bit about LGO was meant to be directed at IE

my little boy will be starting school in september we have to go through all the statementing process he got a diagnosis of autism with some learning difficulties at xmas he is three four in may he is currently at mainstream nursery where his brother attends school they have made it ckear they don't want him we to see the local special school today it was lovely how likely do you think it is he will be offered a place?