Rant about school - argh!

[yippeekiyay2]

So had a meeting with Ht today regarding his complete pile of crap safeguarding referral that has caused unbelievable stress and upset to us. Whilst he squirmed under our comments and questioning he refused to accept that he had done anything wrong - but wouldn't give us copies of the paperwork as he felt we would 'use it against him' of course if he hadn't done anything wrong we wouldn't be able to... Anyway that is not the rant as such, once we had decided we had said our piece and it would go around in circles we moved on to talk about applying for EHCP and other issues and as part of this his comments were on the lines of "she is not autistic she hasn't been diagnosed yet" - yep that's why the county autism specialist has him on his books, the school use a ta who specialises in autism with her and an independent specialist got her into a social group for children with Aspergers then also goes on to say they have gone "above and beyond" to support her - no, you've done what you are required to do as an la school! And just making it sound like she is a burden to deal with instead of actually ever saying anything positive about her. And her meltdowns over completing homework are not autistic, as his child cries about doing homework and Children are just like that!! Honestly there are no words - no decent ones anyway! If it wasn't for the massive change in our family with getting a brother/ sister in August I would look to move schools but that just wouldn't be fair on her. Only good thing is I made it clear I would be applying for an EHCP now and I expect the school to support it given she is still having lots of problems, refusing work etc. Just why is it so hard and why are there so many ignorant people working in education??

*her on his books

I feel your pain and I am a teacher. I have heard some pure bullshit spouted by my colleagues about children with autism. Sadly I think the attitude of many teachers is that autism can in some ways be switched on and off. They seem unable to understand that children with autism are disabled in the same way as a child with a physical disability is. No one would suggest that a child who couldn't work should walk a bit, but for some reason children with autism are meant to put their social and communication difficulties aside for a bit and be more like everyone else! the only bit of advice I have is to keep everything calm and in writing wherever possible. Rant in your head and on here, that's what I do! I am sweetness personified whilst being an utter pain in the arse when needed.

Yes cansu I am usually like that but the subject matter at the start of our meeting meant I had already been much more angry, emotional and interregative than I normally would be and it was quite cathartic for me as I am normally the opposite! I also work in education and feel so frustrated with this attitude about 'hidden' disabilities. I guess his remarks revealed to me what I already suspected - that he is paying lip service to autism and just likes to categorise her as having challenging behaviour...
My husband made notes of the meeting and we could get legal advice about the referral issues but I think I would rather channel my energy and funds if needed into the EHCP which would benefit my dd in the future. I'm also considering pursuing a private dx alongside the waiting for the NHS one to see which comes first because the delays are ridiculous and I wasn't happy with the SLT part of the assessment anyway...

What an absolute twat.

I agree the safeguarding issue doesn't need to be your priority at the moment, but you are entitled to copies of all education records about your child in the school's possession as of right. If the safeguarding referral has been completely discounted by social services, I would have thought the records should include that. Can you get a copy off SS anyway?

Yes Augusta the sw has said she can provide copies if we would like them which we told him, so refusing to let us have them was pure petulance on his part really. Thing is his referral caused an investigation that has, whilst being cleared by ss as all checks came back clear, dd admitted to lying (and it transpired today she had actually already changed her story 3 times with school and they coerced her to repeat the original story to refer it, they also exaggerated the injury in their referral, didn't mention her assessment for autism in the referral or him saying to us well I didn't think it was a safeguarding issue but I couldn't write that in my referral...he also couldn't answer satisfactorily our questioning over the protocols - which we use ourselves in our work so i understand them. Tbh the whole thing has affected my mental health massively and I don't think I can bear to keep going over it. He was most offended that the sw was saying she is surprised it got to the stage it did which just proves all he cares about is himself and couldn't give a crap for the distress he's caused us.