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!

Liv that school sounds amazing! Is there a place available for your DS? I'd jump at s chance of a non mainstream setting if it means smaller groups, more support and adaptations for the individual students. Fingers crossed for you.

Danni live the letter, so cute shame the teacher is not making more of an effort to communicate, particularly by attending meetings etc. Although it is great that he has his 1:1 the actual class teacher should be moree involved too. Sounds like SALT isn't coming in often enough to 'get' him either. We've been discharged from SALT after completing the More Than Words course, as was everyone else on the course. Apparently we can get referred again through school...

Will continue message in a second part as keep loosing every long one I type up!

In my rush to get the message in before it disappeared I made some typos! Sorry

open hope your meeting goes ok on Wednesday. Has your SD tried the wobble cushion yet? Hope it helps helps him Am thinking about thing one out.

We have been tempted to get a groo clock many times but haven't taken the plunge yet. Sounds like it hasn't been so successful for several of you so will probably give it a miss.

Harley hour your DS us feeling better with his chest infection. Sounds like he is doing amazingly well with poo in toilet! Best of luck with the meeting tomorrow. Hope it goes well.

Light great that you get to spend time with the TA on the Early Birds course. Hope your DD had a good weekend with no waking to complete homework in the middle of the night.

lottie" hope the school/teacher can find a way to support your DS with his reading so they can see his potential. So frustrating when you can see that your child can go something at home but the overwhelming environment in school just stops them.

DD is having s slightly anxious time, been going to the toilet very frequently, just like she did the first weekend after she started school. I think it is anxiety but will get a sample and maybe go to GP tomorrow just in case. Her nails are picked and bitten way down into the nail bed too.

She said a bit was mean to her on Wednesday so it might be related. I spoke to the teacher about it and she took it very seriously and was keeping an eye on DD on Thursday and Friday. She also said she wants to put together a support plan for DD for after half term, which is good. This will involve a meeting too when Ch will be great as we can actually discuss any issues rather than me hurriedly trying to do so so at drop off and pick up!

A boy was mean, not a 'bit'. Sorry about typos!

LittleSwede he hasn’t used it yet. First night he sat on it and said ‘it moves about’ and then said ‘I don’t need to use it yet*

It’s great the school are going to put a support plan in place. Hopefully the half term holiday will ease her anxiety.

open maybe he'll use when he thinks the time is right! At least he tried it out

Just has a class Whatsapp about the Halloween disco this Friday, apparently all the children are talking about it and are very excited! DD hasn't mentioned this once I will ask her if she want to go but would need to accompany her in case it's too much (I suspect this will be the case after the initial fun bit)...

DD is unbelievably excited about Halloween! There is a class party thing too but I'm not sure if she will go, or just go for a little bit of trick or treating in a smaller group.

Have you already tried her with stim toys? I'm just wondering if there is anything that might substitute for the finger picking .... something she can peel a layer off maybe? Perhaps like those little black scratch cards with rainbow colours underneath you can get from Flying Tiger?

I'll try those scratch cards light, thanks. We have some armbands with squashy little 'pegs' you can pull at which she's not that interested in. Have also tried stretchy men, squeezy balls, fidget toys/cubes and similar things.

Even resorted to allowing her kids nail polish at Christmas to see if it would stop the picking. Half worked but only up to a point.

Hope your DD enjoys the build up to Halloween, has she been trick or treating before? We've been away every October half term since DD was a baby do we've avoided Halloween. Although we did see some spooky decorations in gardens among the Aloe Vera plants and cacti when in Lanzarote

Littleswede I'm hoping I can get him in although I'm sure the LA will have other ideas! They are currently very illegally not issuing my draft EHCP post review grrrr.
Glad your dd's school are going to be putting in more support for her.

Light my dd is also super excited about Halloween, including making my dh buy her a massive pumpkin yesterday!

DD has been trick or treating and surprisingly really likes it! Though I don't think she says trick or treat ... not sure. Maybe she will this year, now her brother is old enough to say it with her!

Luckily our nanny takes them. One of the downsides of DS being in school and me doing the childcare will be that I guess I will have to chaperone this next year or the one after ... that is not a happy thought!

These are the scratchy things I was thinking of LittleSwede:
www.bakerross.co.uk/scratch-art-doodle-sheets?&gclid=Cj0KCQjwuZDtBRDvARIsAPXFx3Cq7wH7UQMX7n-sHHZd3TSIUvc1mbAeRyLhKTjL1OvP-jGnsOPUqsIaAq7SEALw_wcB

Or maybe those clay blocks you dig a dinosaur out of (which Flying Tiger also definitely used to do)?
www.naturesexpression.com/Dig-it-out-Kit--Dinosaur-Fossil-in-Clay-8_p_2570.html

Just trying to think what might be satisfying and give that resistance of finger picking ... hard to think of something that gives the right kind of sensory feedback!

OH also picks his fingers to the quick so maybe I should try these on him too....

Well here DS is super excited about Bonfire Night. It's so weird he normally hates loud noises e.g. he cries at school when they test the fire alarm but he loves fireworks. We went to 4 displays last year.

Previous Halloweens I have got away with dressing up DS, decorating the living room, dancing to Halloween songs on Youtube and being at home to trick or treaters- I have loved it and DS enjoys handing out the sweets (and eating a lot of them). Last year we went a few doors up the street to one of his class mates to trick or treat and then back home! We may need to actually go out this year though - the main problem (apart from my laziness) is that DS tries to invite himself into other people's houses 'to see their stairs'!

Liv I have heard nothing from the LA since the review in April (which they didn't attend).

Ds likes trick or treating but last year kept on opening people's doors. He opened a door and run into the hallway, the woman was absolutely mortified but not as much as me and dh were! 🙈 I was videoing him knocking on the door to send to my mum, I was holding onto his hood, next thing he was in the house, I watched the video back and Dh said in the back ground. oh for fuck sake not again..

Not sure what we are doing this year, maybe take him around the block for half hour and then home, I've bought him a few treats already and a Halloween twisty straw cup (he loves these cups) so might let him take our Halloween bowl to the door to give some sweets out from our house this year.

No Halloween party for our school but I wouldn't take him anyway. My idea of absolute hell ds running wild in one of those! He went to a party earlier this year and kept going behind the DJ area and switching all the dials messing about and trying to steal the prizes, I spent more time behind there than the DJ did

Ds has had his reading level upped today from pink band level 1 to red band level 2. Really pleased with that! All his books on bug club have changed too. (I wrote a comment in his reading diary asking if he could have more books since he had finished all of his previous books)

Can't say I'm quite as happy at ds pissing around at bed time though, he's in and out his bed like a yo-yo all night. I'm going to see if I can up his melatonin to 3mg as 2mg doesn't seem to be having any effect lately. It's like he hasn't even had it.

Hope everyone is ok.

Any ideas what you are getting dc's for Xmas? Totally not poaching for ideas or anything

We are getting ds a dolls house (he plays with the one at school a lot) and some dolls house furniture - well I will be buying the dolls house when asda get it back in stock! Religiously stalking asda website for said dolls house it's such a bargain for £50!

I'm getting him a toy dyson hoover to match mine, in the hope he leaves mine alone. He's taken to purposely crumbling things up on the floor so he can hoover it up.

He's really into peppa pig at the minute too so I'm going to get him a few peppa pig bits, specifically the grandad dog recovery truck as he keeps playing with his toys pretending to recover all the cars.

Not sure what else really.

I buy him all these toys and they barely get touched so I'm being careful what I buy him this year. Doesn't help having his birthday 3 weeks after Xmas. Although for his birthday I think I'm buying him a telescope! He's obsessed with looking at the moon so I thought that was a good idea.

We haven't got ds draft ehcp back after his review either. Think it's been 7 weeks since ours.

Im not really bothered about it anyway to be truthful. it's a pile of shit! Nothing's changed on it since last year all the targets have been kept the same.

So long as he keeps getting the same amount of funding for school they can use it for a spare LA toilet roll for all I care. LOL

light I love the dinosaurs in clay! DD would like those I think. We did have a scratching mermaids and unicorn book but we lost the tool used to scratch with! Baker Ross are usually good do might order those. We have a Flying Tiger in our nearest town to might send DH at the weekend...

My ds loves Halloween too he actually prefers it to Christmas but he finds all the changes for Christmas and the all the changes to much. this year the school calendar states they will begin the Christmas things half way though December so looks like its going to be 6 weeks of struggling instead of 4 weeks.

We had the meeting today, The school tried to say it was all ds like its ds who wants to change in the corridors, its ds who wants to stay in soiled boxes ect. They tried to say that all the other things i was being told was not true and wouldn't it be nice if they had an account from these people to see whats been said so i gave them 3 emails of parents that felt strongly enough to want me to use them as back up. They tried to tell me that only children with severe complex needs where entitled to a EHCP even though they continued to say that ds personal and social needs impacted on his education. The disability and inclusion manger from our LA told them to get EP imput and update his EP report and to get his IEP sorted and she got them to sort out a communication book and to come up with clothes that are the same colour as uniform but comfortable for him to wear. They did try say staff didn't trust as i asked where the bruises could have come from. Sendiass said he was impressed as he didn't have to say hardly anything as we were being firm but fair he said this is just the beginning to let school jump though the hoops first then he will help us sort out a EHCP.

ah i forgot the money bit haha the head kept going on about how they had to put a extra ta into class to meet ds needs and it was costing the school £600 every week and that she had to go the governors next week for a bursary and if they didn't agree they couldn't afford ds's support.

Sorry I’ve missed putting in replies lately everyone. Working each evening and barely getting time to do anything! We have our first formal appointment in a couple of weeks. The first is a triage apparently, where lots of history is taken and then signposting in to the assumed correct path. Not nervous at all 😬😬😬😬 ! Had parents evening meeting today which went OK. I think the SENCO definitely “gets it” in terms of progression and has a good balance of seeing DDs strengths and areas which challenge. The class teacher is a little laid back for my full liking as her feedback generally seems to be on what she’s observed in the last few days. But overall I think they’re happy to help with concern areas (ultra clinginess, anxiety, controlling other people and things) which impede her social emotional development. So that’s good. Halloween will be interesting and I really hope OK as a month ago a dragon featured in a school play and we’re only just getting over the sleepless nights phase of that. Today she saw a picture of a pumpkin and said it had sharp teeth 🤫 I think she could do without pumpkin nightmares!!! I’m going to find pictures of pretty pumpkins, the ones with pictures carved into them, I think!
DD is technically in reception year now (4.4yrs) at her school and has been just recently saying she doesn’t want to go to big school because of all the other children there. It’s a delicate balance to know whether to do trial days in mainstream and risk causing her anxiety to go up or just say she’ll stay where she is, in this little independent school, and let her have the environment where she can take her time with everything...she cries anywhere typical like playgrounds or soft play and busy places make her act out her sensory needs (bouncing off walls, leaping, shaking her head and arms). She hates when she feels people are looking at her and hides under the desks or chairs or drapes her toy over her eyes...that’s in a class of 8 tops. The feeling I get is that in a class of 25+ she is going to be so anxious all day she may well lose the progress she’s made...

A few of ds’ classmates are having a Halloween party for the class. Their C of E school doesn’t celebrate Halloween. Ds is quite excited by Halloween this year so far. Last year he was a bit freaked out by some of the decorations in shops so we’ll see how it goes. I’m not sure we’ll go trick or treating and he wouldn’t eat the sweets anyway. We are going to go to our first fireworks display though. In previous years he’s slept through it but last year we were able to watch some from aN upstairs window and he was super excited so we said we’d go to one this year. We’ll avoid the huge display in town and go to one in a nearby village. Unfortunately our village doesn’t do one.

I hope everyone’s dc can enjoy the festivities, even if only for a while.

dimples I smiled at your ds wanting to ‘see their stairs’. That’s the sort of thing my ds would do, or similar anyway.

danni likewise, your dh’s comment on that video must make you chuckle now even though it must have been mortifying at the time. Hopefully he’ll be a bit more restrained this year 🙏
Fab about his reading band being changed.

Harley it sounds like the meeting went well from your side and the school got their asses handed to them. Hopefully they will implement the advice of the LA person. Surely the cost of the extra TA as well as them saying that ds’ needs impact his education are enough grounds to support an EHCP?

Furry I hope the first appointment goes well. In our experience the history was very detailed so take notes with you if you need to. I’m glad parents evening was positive.

And Christmas...

Ds has been telling us for months what he wants on his Christmas list. Basically every to he has liked on TV, YouTube or in the Smyth’s toys brochure. I have repeatedly told him he will need to narrow it down for the letter to Father Christmas.

@Open this is our thinking. The LA women was trying to say that only children with very complex needs that had 3 areas of need that impact the childrens education before they are entitiled to a EHCP which i know isn't true. We live in one of the very worst counties for gettinf EHCPs but i got one for a my eldest so have a very good idea on what we are doing.