Auties transition to Year 1 - thread 3

[LightTripper]

This is the continuation of the thread for parents and carers of autistic children in reception year at school, going into Year 1 in the autumn. All welcome (also parents with older or younger children who want to ask questions or share their wisdom!)

Welcome!

I agree it shouldn't be waiting. they use the excuse he doesn't tell them but ds has never communicated his needs to them they know this and won't have it.
I am going to my mp i think something needs to change.

Sorry Harley, that’s awful then. I hope you can get it resolved.

If you are not happy then you can talk to the head teacher or a governor. I think one of the governors usually has SEN oversight.

Heads already fully aware and involved with whats going on. I will try governor next. Thank you.

That's ridiculous Harley! Your poor ds.

Worst thing about it is ds thinks hes the one that has done wrong.

liv the going to sleep is better with the melatonin but he still wakes most days at 4:15 😴

Fingers crossed the EHCP is ok. In ours the ‘all about me’ pages have not been updated but otherwise it’s fine. I need to get a letter off tomorrow as the deadline is Friday.

Exhausting open! The melatonin has been working wonders here. Ds has been going to sleep by around 7-8 each night and has been much more relaxed and willing to go to bed in the evening.
Not quite sure what happened yesterday he was quite disregulated all day. He went to bed fine and was asleep by 8. He then woke up at 2.45 and I'm not entirely sure that he's been back to sleep!! He woke me up again at 4 and when my husband got home at 5am (late job) he was still up. He's currently bouncing off the walls a bit. Going to be an interesting day today.

I hope you had a low key day planned liv, he’s bound to crash at some point.

Open how was ds going in this morning?

Did you get chance to look at ds' ehc targets.

danni I posted a couple upthread.

He went in fine this morning, thanks. The real test will come in the next few days or next week once the change hits home.

Did your ds go back today?

Sorry open must have missed that. Thanks x

Yes ds went back today, he went in fine (he almost always does) they said he's had a good day and he's came out happy and in a good mood. I met his lunch time 1-1 today, she's nice and ds seems to like her.

I said to school this morning I would prefer ds to start full days ASAP or he's going to get back into the routine of coming home again then when it's time to stay all day he'll be confused. she agreed and thinks it may be next week or the week after he stays.

Also mentioned the biscuit and sweet and juice situation, didn't want to he rude as she is only being nice and she said that was fine and she would give him a treat of jellies on a Friday to bring home and I could give it then if I wanted (which is fine by me) also he came out with water in his bottle at hometime today so fingers crossed.

Liv hope ds sleeps well tonight.

Ds is settling much easier on melatonin thankfully. Really pleased.

He's still waking in the night often and gets up stupidly early, but tbh. I'm just pleased I get a couple of hours a night to think straight before I go to bed.

That sounds promising danni! Was it the teacher or the TA saying these things? Hopefully sounds like you've got a good one, whichever one it was!

Good news danni.

Ds had a great first day. I am pleased but aware it could change any time. Apparently he only went into his old classroom to look first thing. They are using a ticket system which worked well. If he needs a break he asks the teacher for a ticket. Then he can leave the classroom with his TA for a walk and they use a timer for going back.

He has been invited to a party at someone’s house. So far we haven’t accepted any of these and I’m unsure what to do. I think I need to chat to her mum who I do speak to a little.

danni are you going to ask about the slow release melatonin (Circadin)? It doesn’t work much better for us but there’s a chance it could for you.

Glad DS had a good first day open: when is the party? You might find a home party is OK/better, especially if the weather is OK and he can find his own space to chill out a bit if it all gets too much. The last one DD went to was in our local pizzeria and our nanny sent me a video of absolute carnage at the table (shouting, screaming, waving and bashing things) among all the other kids and DD peacefully sorting the crayon pot into colours in the corner, happy as anything! But sometimes there is no "way out" and that's much tougher.

DD's first morning this morning. Seemed to go well. She was definitely very excited and keyed up, and wanted me to hold her hand during lining up, but when the line walked into the classroom she happily went in and gave me a little wave so that was pretty good! We've also heard from school that one of her class TAs is going to be doing the Early Bird + with us, which is great because he is in the classroom with her all the time (I assumed they would send the SENCO, who is nice but not around as much, so this is much better).

Hope all the other littlies are continuing to settle in well!

Light it’s great that the TA is going to do the course with you. I’m glad dd’s first morning was relaxed too.

I spoke to the child’s parent about the party and I think we’ll give it a go. Though it will be outside so hopefully the weather will be good.

Ds was a little trickier going in today, he ran off to the back of the playground which he did a few mornings last term. He did go in after a few minutes though. Not great listening this afternoon, I’ll get some feedback on the morning tomorrow. The afternoons always have more potential to be tricky as he wakes so early and has probably had enough by then.

DS went back to school yesterday and has gone in fine. He had a cry last night, said that he missed his Reception teacher and me - whilst it was heartbreaking seeing him so upset I was really impressed that he was able to articulate what was wrong. His 1:1 said that today went well. However, at pick up he ran away from me down onto the school field. I am still on crutches and I just wanted to cry. Bath time which is usually a high point in the day was awful too. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Open DS has been invited to a house party too which we have accepted. The invite said feel free to drop off and collect later but I have told the Mum that I'll need to stay.

Glad that school start seems to have gone well for most. Harley hope that you get the school toileting issue sorted - have you tried the ERIC helpline?

@dinples i haven't but i will. The heads saying they can't do it until the nurse puts a plan in place but the nurse told me the school have to do the plan so i need to speak to hos nurse but shes not intill monday now. Hes been bad all week.
Hes not settled yet and every morning os getting worse this morning he went into school in non uniform as he wouldn't put his uniform on.

I am so sad today to as all the progress we made with his toilet routines in the holidays has now been lost and ds is starting to get annoyed with me getting him to do them when they don't at school.

Harley hope you get something sorted soon, I know how difficult toilet training is it's still ongoing with my ds. I feel like to get him completely dry and clean it is going to take forever. He hasn't worn a daytime nappy since April (he still wears them for bed)

Ds school take ds to the toilet every hour and half. He still has plenty of accidents but since April when I took him out of nappies they have done that schedule as he doesn't say he needs to go on his own accord so they just take him at intervals. When he soils or wets himself they just change his clothes that's never been an issue and they don't mind thankfully.

We don't have the continence team involved either as it's 7 before they get involved with SN children here! Which I find ridiculous, but hey ho.

Definitely check out Eric as dimples said, I found some of their info really useful. Specifically the bit about making sure they drink 8 drinks a day ideally milk or water as anything less than that amount can make their urine too concentrated and can be the cause of accidents, also constipation - the bowel pressing on the bladder can cause accidents. I always assumed constipation meant they couldn't pooh, when in fact there are a lot of symptoms of constipation I wouldn't of even realised until I read it.

Well, ds has been awake since 3am and is refusing to go to school so we had 1 day of enthusiasm!

I hope everyone else is doing better

Glad your dd is settling back in we'll light.

Good that things are sounding a bit more positive danni.

I hope today gets better for you open!

I'm sorry you had a tough day dimples but brilliant about ds articulating himself so well.

Ds has refused to put on any clothes for the last two days! Hopefully we'll get him wearing them again before he goes back to school next week.
Amazingly the day he woke up at 2.45, he made it all the way to 6pm before falling asleep. Thankfully we haven't had a repeat performance of that.
I have to go into the school on Monday to chat to his teachers agin before he starts. They seem really on it this year, so hopefully ds will be ok in the new classroom. They have made a corner of the space just for him to try and help him spend more time in the classroom.

Ds annual review. Make of this what you like, but please do give me your feedback. Lol

Teacher didn't attend, nor did any of his 1-1's I haven't even met his teacher properly only a 1 second hello in passing before the holidays. Apparently they cannot pull her out of the classroom. Which I obviously don't blame her for, but really?! And ds' 1-1 is with him so that's why she cannot attend. So the time i meet his teacher will be at parents evening in October like any other parent who doesn't have a child with complex needs

So review was just literally me and the Senco. Who said she would give copies of his ehcp to his teacher and 1-1 to read and work through.

Ds only met one of his targets from the last ehcp. The rest, some of them where only partially met. She doesn't want to change them or add anything new to them as he's struggling with those, and he needs to meet those first. She said all the targets are still very relevant to him and makes sense to keep it as it is.

Tbh I'm not sure he'll ever meet some of those, I did say this. The ones about social interaction and danger awareness particularly, he has autism for fucks sake and not the mild kind!

We changed a few bits in the 'all about me' which are no longer relevant such as wearing nappies for school etc. And she has added in that he will be staying for lunch and will need to be supported at all times, I got the feeling they wanted some additional funding but he's on the max band for mainstream school (I've been told it will be about 3 weeks time he will stay for lunch - although I was led to believe this would be happening next week ) so then I thought maybe they wanted him to go to SS but I didn't get those vibes from her, she was talking all about his individual plan for this year and what they would be doing with him etc, she even went on to say when he moves to the juniors his ehcp and support would follow him.

I'm just a bit miffed at him not having any new targets added in, open when you said about cognition and learning and the numbers 1-100 etc etc ds cognition and learning is to manipulate a toy for 3 minutes or more and something else I can't quite remember without getting stuck under my bed finding his document box. (See what I mean about basic targets?)

She said academically ds is doing really well. she had all his tracking sheets from reception and said he's exactly where she expects for autism, low down in social, managing feelings and behaviour and doing ok in literacy and maths. But for ds given his diagnosis and starting point with her school she thinks he's doing really well. And she said a couple of areas he was almost meeting age related expectations (although he got all emerging on his end of eyfs report?)

So she is sending all of the ehcp and the development tracking sheets off to the LA and I will get the draft soon.

What will the LA think? Not meeting targets on the ehcp, but has gone from 16-26m/22-36m to high 30-50m low 40-60m on the eyfs in reception.

He is making progress.

I'm just confused. X

Forgot to add, ds will stay on eyfs until January. Then move to pivots (p scales) until he is at the NC level.

One thing I'll say though, when I came out of meeting ds was sat in the corridor with his 1-1. Apparently the teacher had put number jacks on the screen and ds freaked and refused to be in the classroom, this happens a lot, he refuses the classroom and ends up doing whatever he wants out of the classroom. School are happy for this. Since ds is happy with this and this is how he ends up out of the classroom much more than he's in it.

What can you do?!