Specialist schools for academically bright DS with ASD - South London ish

[IsItMeOr]

DS is in year 2 at the local mainstream primary. We are in the process of appealing his EHCP, and getting independent assessments (Ed Psych, OT and SALT). We thought he was being well-supported at school, but autumn term was disastrous (worse at home than school, but I know you will probably share my suspicion that it is probably related to school).

We would like to visit some specialist schools which might be possible alternatives for DS.

He is achieving at slightly above average levels in most academic areas, except writing is on the weak side. Initial feedback from EP is that he has expressive language difficulties, and is very academically able (he mentioned gifted). DS's social skills are lacking. From what the EP has indicated so far, he is inclined to think that the current school could meet DS's needs with more specialist input. If they can't, he was talking about DS needing a school specialised in speech and language issues, rather than ASD.

Our dream school would be one with small classes, where DS is with equally academically able peers, and has on site SALT provision and access to specialist ASD and OT expertise/support.

What schools would be worth a look, do you think?

My experience of mainstream primary was that DS (AS) picked up rudimentary social skills, but was totally out of his depth with his peer group by year 6, despite a lot of nurturing by the staff. Going to MS secondary would definitely not have made him suddenly acquire skills comparable with his peers.

Thanks whoknows and 2boys helpful points about it needing to be the right school for the right DC.

I guess we need to have the confidence that we will know the best fit when we have seen a few options.

Yes, we were very lucky that the one we wanted is quite close to home. We did get it named on DS's statement on appeal (conceded pre-tribunal, last year) even though it's out of county, but we are close to the boundary and there's nothing even remotely nearby that's suitable in our county (big county, I only investigated our half, but none of the state SSs would have met his academic needs and none of the MS secondaries would have met his needs for OT, SALT and social interventions).

It might be worth finding out if there are any local support groups for children with ASD, our local branch of the National Austistic Society have an active FB page where lots of sharing of info about schools goes on.

What/about More house frensham (lots of boys from Richmond and/Kingston
Blossom House Wimbledon. Meath Ottershaw. The Rise Feltham. Sossen has a list of schools so may be worth contacting.
Ds1 is doing his/A levels now from his ss (boarding so not s London)