DS is in last year of prep school (Y8). He has an ASD diagnosis, he's intellectually able but is a bit tone deaf social skills wise, and he could easily be described as annoying.
He is a 'nice' boy. not malicious, but children will sometimes pick on him and set out to wind him up and he does not cope with this at all.
Anyway, he is now in exam week and essentially after they finish on Thursday school is over, and they do no more learning for the remaining four weeks of term but instead do activities such as going off on residential trip and such like.
He was trying to get us to do a go kart party for the whole school year, which would have cost quite a lot of money, but we suggested that this was a waste of money on children some of whom dislike him (in the event we are spending less money for him to drive some cars on his own). He said 'no they don't, nobody really dislikes me I've had some issues, but it's fine'.
Anyway we have seen how they respond to him, he comes bounding up like a puppy in the morning when he gets to school talk to them, and they just blank him, but he keeps going oblivious.
Apparently prior to half-term they were arranging the groups of rooms they would sleep together in on the trip. Originally DS agreed to be with 3 other boys who are all a bit beta male, which was sensible, but then two days later one or perhaps two of them (he is very vague on this point, as he often is) asked him if he would be swapped for another boy who is also quite beta (he is very small, but has normal social skills), and DS just said 'ok I don't mind'.
Unfortunately the result of this was that he was going to be in a room with one boy who previously picked on DS to the extent that DS ended up punching him. The school were supportive of DS on this point, and when we were summonsed to school to discuss it it was not to ask us to justify his actions but to ask whether they thought it would be helpful to discuss his ASD with the other children, and how he might get wound up by others. (DS was horrified by this suggestion btw.)
Anyway, it seems that today at school one boy, let's call him Draco Malfoy, had told DS that the other boy (whom DS had punched) had complained to his parents about DS sharing a room with him, and they had kicked up a fuss to school. The same thing was said by the boy himself.
Not sure if this is true of course, as it has come from children, rather than anything directly from the school.
Anyway the reality is that none of them really like him, which is unfortunate but it's something he needs to deal with in a sense, although obviously he is finished at the school soon enough anyway. In a way it's tempting to say, fuck the rest of the school year and don't bother going back there.
But we did tell him that he shouldn't let people push him around - he needs to have some sort of social status, the boy who asked him to change rooms is smaller, slower, less sporting, less academic than DS and he shouldn't just be a pushover to whatever other people want him to do.
I am not sure how it will go in his new school, there are under 20 in the year now, and in the new school there will be 200, but we do need some sort of action now and for the future.