First SENCO meeting - what to discuss?

[hellohome]

My son's senco works to a very part time schedule and it's been difficult trying to arrange a meeting. I want to make the most as I probably won't be seeing her again for a long time.

My son is 6, in y2, diagnosed asd in September.

My 3 main concerns are - he's getting lunchtime detentions frequently for hurting children in the playground. His teacher says it's not like him as he's so good in class. I want to try and PREVENT him hurting other children rather than punishing him a day later.

secondly he refuses to go to school. I have to force him we are late every day. he's very upset at the school gate and it's now affecting his brother who is always up, dressed and ready for school on time but has late marks every day.

thirdly last year he was behind in everything. He had a great teacher who put him 1:1 with a TA and put him in small booster groups. she made sure things were explained in a simpler way for him and asked TA to help him focus on his work as He gets very distracted and doesn't complete the work. He is now average at all subjects which is great but this year he has no support in class and I'm worried he will fall behind again. his teacher last year helped him keep all his stuff together and remind him to take things home at the end of the day as he's very forgetful. this year his teacher says a year 2 student should be able to do this independently and so far he had lost a coat, two water bottles, two jumpers, his reading diary and his whole backpack one day (which I went in and found for him after school). even though he's year 2 I really think he needs prompting to remember and keep hold of things.

passing in the hallway one day his senco said she was going to add something to his iep. but I don't think he can have an iep as we've never had a meeting with her or read or signed one? should I ask for him to have an iep?

also in June his SALT put a list of recommendations to the school to help him and as far as I'm aware only one of them is being done (actually half done). can I ask her to put the other recommendations into place? also recommendations from his assessment report? Can she refuse?

Thank you everyone

Hi again

Yes he should have an iep which you should sign. Don’t feel like you have to do it there and then - take it home with you to study and check.
It should all be SMART and achievable - at the start of my journey I knew nothing and DS’s was full of vague things like ‘needs to find a teacher when feels overwhelmed at playtime’ (to stop him hurting) which was completely beyond him and he never achieved that target for 3 years running.

A few things that might help:

DS goes in 15 minutes later than the rest of school (he comes with me to drop off DD first then we take a little walk).
He goes in the front entrance and is met by his TA.

Before he had his EHCP and full time TA he still used to go in the front entrance (on time) and have 10 mins in the sensory room / talk about his special interests, before going to the classroom. He then avoided the scrum of everyone going in.

Playtimes are often v difficult for autistic children - all the rules of the classroom disappear and it’s a free for all with all sorts is unwritten codes.
Social stories can help if done regularly (eg before every play).

Also you might find there are some children in particular that your DS is regularly getting into tussles with - in which case school should try and unpick why (my DS used to hurt one girl in particular and it turned out she once screamed in his ear and he was scared she’d do it again so kept preemptively stopping her).

Also below the radar winding up from other kids.

In the end my DS spent playtimes in the library playing Lego (and now has supported playtimes in the hall playing games with a few other children).

Regular sensory breaks / stuff to keep him regulated (this will perhaps come out of the OT report). He might be sensory seeking at play (my DS used to pull kids onto him to feel squashed), so if they can provide this in a structured way for him he might not do it so much at playtime.

If I think of other stuff I’ll post more.

A few other things - I got a EHCP for DS this year. I put it off for ages (partly because school kept saying he was too ‘bright’ to get one). This is not true at all - although we did have to appeal a no assessment decision to start. Even though he wasn’t in school full time (and indeed still isn’t).

It’s made a huge difference to us because we now have input from lots of very experienced professionals who are written into his plan and school listen to them.

Before (when he was at a different school, it’s infants and juniors) when it was just me asking for support it was such an uphill struggle.

Without a plan they don’t have to do the recommendations on reports (altho if the school is truly on board to help they should of course, but it often comes down to funding).

Finally my DS has made such great leaps this year. A lot of the things he struggled with at 6 are now making sense to him (social things mainly) - he’s nearly 9.