ASD Unit in mainstream or private school?

[sleepyhorse]

Hi there

Feeling a bit lost regarding schools
I have a son who is 6 yrs old and just gone into year 2 at a local mainstream with a SALT provision.
He is statemented for SEN in speech, language and communication and has a place on the specialist SALT ARP there. He was diagnosed with a language disorder when he was 3 yrs old.

In the last year or so it became apparent that his primary need is now social communication and it's his biggest barrier to learning and making friends. However, whilst he has made good progress with his language development it still continues to be quite disordered. He has quite a complex profile. He hasn't been diagnosed with ASD yet although his pediatrician has noted he does have some traits including sensory processing difficulties. As the provision at his current school is solely speech and language they were concerned that they are no longer able to meet his needs so they advised us to go and look at other mainstream schools last term with ASD units. We looked at a few and there was only one we liked and felt was suitable for DS so we notified the LA that we wanted him to start there this Sep but then they told us at the last minute there were no spaces for this Sep. We were really disappointed and felt let down that the LA had failed to find a suitable school for him and we didn't think it was acceptable to put his educational needs on hold for a year so we instructed an SEN solicitor to start legal proceedings and are now fighting to get him into an independent school which is more local and is for kids with mild disabilities including high functioning autism, speech and language, dyslexia etc. I have now instructed a private SALT, Ed psyc and OT to carry out an assessment.

DS is going for a 3 day assessment as the independent school next week and should they offer him a place we would need our LA to fund it which is why we are going down the legal route (they currently fund other kids from our county who go there so i know its not impossible).

To put a spanner in the works, I then get a phone call last week from my LA officer to say a space has become available at the mainstream school with the ASD unit and so have offered ds a place. its quite likely they have heard through school we are going down the legal route and possibly tribunal and they are panicking as they don't want to fund the fees at the private school. Too much of a coincidence! I have told them I needed time to think about it.

Im so confused as to what I should do. Do kids with language, communication and sensory processing difficulties do better in independent schools where yes the classes are smaller and there is lots of specialist support but then you perhaps don't have the good role models as your peers are also faced with complex difficulties OR is a mainstream perhaps better where there is also specialist help as well as good role models?
I just want him to be happy and to become the best that he can be.

Sorry this is so long!!!!
Thanks for reading and hope I haven't bored you too much!

I looked at both an ASD unit in a ms school and one in an indie school for DS. They both had the same class size in the unit except the main school class size was obviously smaller in the indie school. Smaller class sizes will help a child with spd but the LA might argue that the child can be taught in the unit if they are struggling. Find out how much time your child is expected to spend in the unit and how much time they spend integrating him into the main class. I found the indie unit spent more time in the main class than the ms unit. Make sure the cost of the indie unit includes all of your child's therapies and that they can definitely provide them. Find out about the peer group in each unit as well and think about the impact of them on your child and whether he will fit in with them. The main difference i saw was the approach to teaching was completely different in the indie unit, however this depends on each unit and might not be the same at the unit your looking at.
If you're going for the indie unit then the only way you will win is if you can prove that it can meet all of your child's needs and the ms unit can't. Unless there is only a small (less than 10k) overall cost between the 2 and then sendist might take into account parental preference.
Unfortunately we're not entitled to have our children educated to be the best they can, we are only allowed the cheapest placements that can meet their needs

Difficult decision

Could you try the mainstream & keep school B as an idea for the future if need be.

Thanks for your replies. In an ideal world I would keep him in mainstream with ASD provision - the problem is the government is making cuts backs with SEN and Is already starting to close ARP's throughout mainstream schools. His current school which has a SALT ARP is literally hanging on by a thread. They threatened to close it last year but agreed to keep it open for another year (it's now been halved and some members of staff lost their jobs). It is shocking what's happening and it seems these kids who need specialist teaching will just get thrown into the deep end with little support.

It's going the opposite way where i live. They have just got funding for ms ASD units for KS2 and KS3 (they already have a KS1 unit). Unfortunately they can't find any schools to attach the units to, the clearly didn't think about this when making all the ms schools into academies!

I would ask the LA if they expect the ASD unit to close and if so, when. I'm quite blunt with my LA and i can spot them lying a mile off!
You could always put your son in the ms unit and if it does close then the LA have a responsibility to find you another place, this might make it easier to ask for the indie school unit if there are no suitable alternatives.