Special school vs comprehensive for secondary????

[chuffinalong]

Hi, I have a nearly 10 year old daughter with severe learning difficulties and possible PDA. She is currently in a state primary school with a statement and a full time one to one. She generally doesn't mind school, but is only really interested in the social aspect of it all. She is very well behaved in school and meets all her targets. She is also very popular with the other children, although I think she finds it a bit much sometimes as she prefers one to one. She never wants to see her friends outside of school either...
We are starting to put a list of schools together to go and visit. There is a special school in our area that sounds very good. The problem is, it has a very rough sounding and bad name. It used to be where children went who were too unruly for any other school. It is now for children with SEN's and is rated outstanding by ofsted, but the name still carries a lot of prejudice among local people as being for 'problem' children. As young adults, one of the most frequent questions we are asked is 'what school did you go too?' I don't then want people to think 'Oh, I wonder what's wrong with her then?' I also worry that it might put off prospective employers, or even boyfriends.
I know i'm over thinking this, as I always do, but it's so important we make the right decision, taking everything into account.
Any advice or information would be great, Thank you.

Yes, I think you're right. We'll go and have a look. I think a state secondary would be like sending a lamb to the slaughter.

Both special school,s and, indeed, mainstream schools are soooooo different from one another, it's not possible for us to say which would work best for your dd.
You must go and visit all possible options, talk to the teens already there, ask the staff what pupils tend to do when they leave there. Ask about things that are going to be relevant for your dd. Don't worry about 'reputation', worry about 'what will work best for my dd'.

thank you, i will. I have 6 schools on the list to visit. It's going to be a tough choice.

Really, why is that?

Oh, that's ok then. I thought you meant harder for the child to adjust between the two maybe. I'm not sure money wise in her case as she has a full time one to one and in the SS she would just be in a smaller class... I'm sure they'll let me know.

Ignore people's ignorance about the SS. You're always going to come up against it, but what matters is making the best choice for your DD.

DS2 is in year 4 and has ASD, until recently non-verbal, with severe learning difficulties, but quite sociable, and no way are we even considering mainstream secondary for him. The gap between his peers has always been huge (he's only just progressed onto the EYFS curriculum and is still on P-scales) but he wouldn't have the level of support in a mainstream secondary that he has now. The environment would be entirely inappropriate and unsafe for him.

It's worth looking at other special schools further afield, too. You'll need to check that each school has the right approach for PDA, in particular. A lot of the standard ASD strategies that will be used in SS can cause a lot of stress to a child with PDA. Not all professionals recognised PDA as a thing, though, never mind a diagnosis. Ask pointed questions about things that you know would be a big issue for your DD. I had a look around some local schools for DS1 (ASD, ADHD, PDA tendencies and sensory processing difficulties - he was really struggling in mainstream, at the time, to the point where his mental health was deteriorating), a few years ago and one conveniently had no kids in class in the primary part of the school, on that day, and had 90 of them in one room for a noisy music lesson. I commented that that was DS1's idea of torture and exactly the sort of situation he avoids and asked how that would be handled. I was told they would "desensitise" him. Definitely not the right approach for him.

He's now in a small school where he's in a class of 5. He tolerates music lessons, there. He even joins in with PE. He's still fragile, but school is now a safe place for him because it's the right one.

I was warned about the amount how much the demands and expectations rise in secondary school compared with primary.

My ds has dyslexia and I thought it wouldn't be that hard, but actually it was pretty clear as we went round mainstream secondaries that many of them had no working system for ensuring that each of 10 different teachers knew which of the 500+ kids they teach each week had which SEN.

Even picking one that had a good system we still got a bit of 'why are you late?' 'why haven't you got your book?' 'why haven't you done your homework?' and once 'capable but lazy'. But the SENCo was onto those mistakes and they were pretty rare anyway. And the SENCo was great at working on therapies with him which helped, and later revision timetables etc

SO there are schools who get the whole SEN thing, and have the resources and the will to find solutions.

Good Luck

Thank you both. I'll put together some questions based on what you've both mentioned.

Hi chuffin I have a Dd with Asd and Spd amongst other things she is 12.

She often says to me that she wants to go to a specialist setting where adults will understand her!

Lots of mainstream secondaries are literally massive and the teachers are teaching hundreds of children everyweek. They cannot get to know everychild!!

I hope you find the right place for your Dd but be very careful of staff making promises of support that sound to good to be true!! They probably are !!

Good luck

chuffin just wanted to add to what others have said. My dd is currently in ms but joining a ss for year 7 later this year. It became clear she wouldn't cope in our local ms comp, its a very results driven school and huge. Also had even considered this, but they had faculty LSA's so her support would be different for each subject. We found a lovely ss and as corny as it sounds I just knew and I felt the
Head was great.

The other thing I found useful was reading through all the ofsted reports as they gave a good idea of how the schools actually cater for their pupils and cuts through the gloss of the school prospectus. Good luck.

Sorry, hadn't even considered..

Yes Dd3's school has faculty TA's as well!!

Dd3 doesnt even know that they are available to help her if she needs help and she cant access their support anyway because that involves asking them, which she cant do!!