Homework battles.

[pinkandsparklytoo]

DS had ASD and in a mainstream school at the moment. He has jusr turned 7 and is in year 2. His official diagnosis is due to arrive any day and his statement should be completed in month or so. It has really been a struggle to get him to stay at school, he is on part time Monday to Wednesday and has gardening Thursday afternoons and golden time on Friday afternoons. So far he has been excluded for at least 20 days this year, plus the part time. The head told me he should have been permanently excluded after he kicked the deputy in the mouth last week. School are trying to get him a managed move to a more appropriate setting. The problem we are having at the moment is that he refuses to do any work at school and then they send it home with him and expect him to do it here. I think it's that they don't want to push the issue in an attempt to stop him lashing out at school and therefore not having to exclude him again. They then expect me to do it with him without providing any instructions. He requires one on one to get him to focus enough to do any work and if I can even get him to sit down to do it he just does it wrong on purpose or scribbles all over it. That's after his massive tantrum about it. I am 34 weeks pregnant and have a 3yo DS at home which makes the one on one difficult to achieve as he is being extra clingy at the moment. This leaves me until DS2 goes to sleep about half 7 to do the work, which is when DS1 should be starting to get ready for bed. When I did get DS1 to do some of the worksheets his TA told me that it wasn't good enough as he had been given that one weeks ago. My family support worker has told me to just write on the sheets that he refused to do them. Can someone advise me on what I should do? At the moment school just seems to be a baby sitter for 3 hours a day.

ds2 is also on reduced hours due to challenging behaviour.

I do not give him any work to do at home because I feel at the moment it is considerably less important than his mental health so we try and do fun things together. He is often reluctant to go out of the house but he has dug me a pond, painted my benches, does cooking, beats me soundly on the wii etc in the time he has been off school.

Part of this is sheer stroppiness though I admit - if the LA won't provide him with a suitable educational setting then I am simply not going to augment the stress by having battles at home over doing work. He does love reading so I go to the library quite often and get him both fact and fiction books but that is as far as the learning goes.

I am not sure he does much even when he is at school - certainly nothing formal.

He is going to transfer soon to a specialist independent school and we will wait till then for him to restart formal learning. We have found you do have to keep hastling the SEN team if you want them to take swift action - for example as the statement is so close have you asked whether you can visit the alternative settings suggested?

Just write refused to do the homework, or send in the bits he has some even if it's been scribbled on. You have a child at home and soon a baby.
Have you or the school or la decided on with school would be more appropriate?
Has ds got a statement or has the school applied for a statement.
It's wrong for ta to say his homework is not good enough.
Most la have a parent partnership, have you spoke to them?
Or try ipsea or sossen?
Each school has a sen governor, maybe try them.
Hopefully someone will come on board later who has been through this and will be able to give you more direct help.
Hopefully he will get a better placement soon.
IF ONLY WE HAD THREE PAIRS OF HANDS.
Most of us know what it's like trying to juggle kids with different needs, it's hard work at the best of times.

Don't do it. Why should you cause yourself additional stress? Try other ways of learning things. Has he any special interests that you can use to do something which school might deem educational? For example my son who hated formal homework liked cutting out pictures from magazines and sticking them in a project book (this was F1 cars) and writing captions. Similar planting seeds, you could get him to write some labels for pots and photograph them. Number work you could get him do cooking with you, and vaguely mention quantities, again keep a photo. This might be good for his self esteem (children like the idea they are good at things) even if you don't care about what school thinks.

Btw scribbling on the work and doing it wrong on purpose suggests huge anxiety about his school work, all the more reason for not infecting home with schooly stuff. He is reacting to school environment by showing anxiety, hence outbursts, you certainly don't want him to be anxious at home. No-one can learn anything when they are anxious.

Hi, what they are asking you to do is extremely difficult I think that in the case of the homework and ASD, the advice is that parents do not enter a battle ground. We are suppose to provide comfort! some people even recommend hiring a tutor for homework (that is if budget allows). I guess that the TA who talked to you has no personal experience of what you are going through. Perhaps you could speak to SENCO and show them that www.tonyattwood.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=76:should-children-with-autistic-spectrum-disorders-be-exempted-from-doing-homework&catid=45:archived-resource-papers&Itemid=181. They should really be providing you with a tutor. I would also try parent partnership. What you are going through is very challenging and you must be exhausted.

Sorry for taking so long to reply, I have been out of the house all day. We are in the process of getting the statement- the draft is due to be returned at the end of next month. I've arranged an appointment at one of the schools we are looking at but they are full for his age group. Today he has done nothing at school and they have sent it home with him again. In the afternoon he was meant to do gardening at the school next door. They said he wouldn't even participate in that and needed to be held as he just wanted to run around the garden instead.

They sound utterly useless pink sadly there are still some schools that really dont get inclusion, if your ds cant cope with the curriculum it is upto the staff to differentiate it or even offer a completely different curriculum!! If he needs to run around in the playground then maybe they should try to let him and work around that. They could do loads with him outside!

It is not up to your son to fit in it is up to the school to meet his needs. The sooner he is in a decent setting the better I would say. Poor boy

I know, if they had just let him run for a few minutes he would have settled down.

A 7y old. With autism. Extensively trained, experienced, salaried, professional teachers can't get him to learn. So, instead, a barely trained playground type on minimum wage suitably specialised TA is telling you off for you not managing to get him to do loads of pointless worksheets? No wonder your ds is decking the deputy. Was it her idea?

You're a pregnant, non-teacher mum with another young dc, a home, and a disabled dc. You're expected to home-educate your ds on top of looking after him when they illegally deprive him of schooling, and on top of the stress of sending him part-time to a school which can't/won't cope?

I'm in awe of your restraint . You're a better woman then I am . If you ever need someone to tell bossy-boots TA just where she can stick her worksheet, let me know

Get them to write something about the arrangement in the link book and keep a copy. Then email 'asking for confirmation' and saying there's no way you can do it. Send to the head teacher, cc chair of governors, parent partnership, statementing officer and your family support worker.

The deputy is also the SENCo. They seem surprised when I say he won't do it at home. Conditions are hardly favourable for doing worksheets, especially when half the time they don't even come with instructions for me to even tell him what to do. His writing is poor and so he hates doing it. When he gets home from school I try to run him around lots so I can get him to sleep before 10. He has a limitless supply of energy but all he wants to do when he gets home is play trains or watch tv. I try to do baking with him as he says he enjoys it but I can only get him to focus for about 5 minutes.
I don't think there is a link book. I've definitely never seen one. I know the SENCo has a book she writes in about what he has done that day but I haven't been offered it to look at.

Took him into school today where we were met by the deputy/SENCo. She asked me to have a talk with DS about the sort of things he would like to do at school. I asked what he is actually doing when he is not doing work and she told me that yesterday he spent an hour picking blutack out of the cloakroom carpet while his TA watched. When I picked him up she said he had done some work today.

I know the SENCo has a book she writes in about what he has done that day but I haven't been offered it to look at it

Youll be wanting this

You can make your own home school book
It's just an exercise book, perhaps laminated with a nice picture.

Or you can go the whole hog and print out a communication passport, so they'd be too ashamed not to use it