Primary school Auties: into 2020! - thread 4

[LightTripper]

This is the continuation of the thread for parents and carers of autistic children in Early Years and KS1. Most of us are parents of children in Reception or Year 1, but all welcome!

Here are the links to the previous threads:

Thread 1: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs/3080753-DS-with-ASD-starting-school-Sept-2018-I-am-feeling-overwhelmed

Thread 2: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs/3451020-Reception-auties-2018-19-thread-2

Thread 3: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs/3628263-Auties-transition-to-Year-1-thread-3

Light I hope dd enjoyed her first day back. Very positive comments from the girls that have returned to our school on the class WhatsApp group (no idea how the boys are doing!) so hopefully your dd is the same.

Apparently it was the best day ever: score, 1,110 out of 10. Better than birthday (which was in lockdown) but also even Christmas and Halloween.

So I think that's a win.

Only now she has to wait until Thursday to go again!

That's great news about DD's first day back Light.

I think DS would probably go all as shy re the space questions but we'll see

That’s wonderful Light

Light is she only in two days per week?

Yes! Just Thursdays and Fridays (they had more than 15 kids wanting to go back, so had to split the class - and don't have spare teachers or rooms to do it full time as it's only a tiny school).

How is everyone doing?

I had an email from our SENCO yesterday, following our recent telephone conversation. She had spoken to the link teacher about how we might support the social development areas of ds’ EHCP plus some other ideas. Frankly I was very disappointed. While some of it is useful or can be adapted to be useful, some of it is so basic and stuff we already do (turn taking games etc.) or just so far below ds’ age or ability that I wondered if she knew anything about him at all. It was mostly the standard toolbox that they seem to suggest for all autistic kids - now and next board, visuals, identiplay, that sort of thing. He has never been interested in visuals at home and I have told them this before. Some of it was so babyish.

There are recommendations to meet some of the educational targets when he has already exceeded them (such as they were) and the class teacher should have told her this, if she even asked. Grrr.

I need to compose a reply that says, nicely, thanks but have you got any more suitable ideas?

I pretty sure ds will not be back before September. We need to work with the school on how to get him back, safely, then and also on his EHCP review which I have lots of ideas for. I have never been happy with the educational provision in it. If he has the current year 2 teacher next year then I will feel much happier. She is very experienced and apparently the best teacher in the school. I also vaguely know her so will feel much more comfortable raising issues with her.

Not good here. DS has spent a lot of the day screaming and shouting. I have spoken to SENCO about 4

Hello everyone,
Its been a awfully long time since i have posted unfortunately between janaury and now we have lost 5 family members and the family dog.
Ds is so much better at home schooling and so much clamer. We have had a ep report done which have highlighted needs and provision that no on can imagine. We asked his old school if they could meet need (we were advised to do so) it was advice we were given and they won't even accpet the ep report or provisison and need thats been identified they stand by the fact that they have meet his need and its still our fault.
We put compliants in to the la, child and well being and school due to how we have been treated and the la and child and well being have issued apologise and said staff will be getting further training and be put in the disciplinary process school still stand by there own innocence and now trying to cover there own backs.

I will catch up with posts and post again later but i hope your all doin ok and handling the current situation.

Oops accidentally posted mid message.

Basically I thought the plans for DS were sorted for school but they now have more children than they thought coming back. All of a sudden DS is being treated as a vulnerable child and lumped in with the key workers children rather than with his year group. I'm not sure if I'm going to send him back now - I feel that this is probably part of the school's strategy. I'm really struggling with all the screaming and shouting and consequential baby crying - just want to cry myself

Oh dimples what a difficult day. Any idea what’s going on other than everything else that he’s dealing with?

It’s hard not to feel like that with the school isn’t it? I love our HT and do believe she wants the best for all the children but it still feels like we’re being encouraged not to take him in, even though they haven’t said overtly he can’t. I think I will feel less bad about him missing school if we can start doing some other normal stuff, hopefully the coming weeks will be better. We’ll see.

Harley good to hear from you, I’m glad ds is doing well with home learning. It’s great that you’ve got some acknowledgement of how awful the school were. Are you going to look for a new school or continue to home school for now?

Good to hear from you *Harley" and well done for fighting your corner. Good to hear that things are calmer.

Thanks Open - it's great knowing that other people get it. I was going to say that perhaps DS was triggered by all the calls from school but actually by 10am before any calls he had had 3 wee accidents and several shouting episodes.

In better news Boris's announcement tonight that single parent families can form a bubble with one other household has really thrown me a lifeline. I can't wait for a hug from my Mum. Also brilliant timing as it's DS's birthday on Sunday

dimples that’s great. Hopefully ds can have a lovely, more normal birthday. Hopefully it will be do him a lot of good.

Harley I’m so sorry for your losses. How terrible

And I read the transcript of Boris’ speech. Hopefully good news on schools for September.

Apologies Harley I had meant to send my condolences yesterday but my mind was all over the place. So sorry to read my your news.

dimples I hope you’re having a quieter day!

Much calmer today thanks Open

Lovely to have you back Harley - sorry you've had such a rough time of it lately. Great that DS is doing well at home, and I'm glad you got an apology, even if school are being predictably rigid.

Sounds like things are a bit tricky all round. I think it's just been a hard week somehow. Weather not helping either: my two don't do well with being cooped up!

DD back in school today so hope it went well. We had a tricky Saturday after the good Friday. I think it's really hard for them with this on/off thing, but hopefully she'll settle into it.

Light I hope dd enjoyed her time in school again and had a better transition into the weekend.

dimples I hope ds remained calmer.

The weather was good here and we had a nice, quiet weekend (aren’t they all?).

We got the final EHCP through at last on Saturday. A mere 8 months after I approved the draft and 11 months after our review. It says it’s been updated in light of C19 so I need to check it against the previous version to see what’s changed.

Open it's terrible how late the paperwork is. I never received the plan after the first annual review, currently waiting on updated plan from 2nd annual review (3 months ago). I wonder what the Covid 19 changes are.

It was DS's birthday yesterday. He mostly enjoyed it but it was v draining. He woke DD and I up at 4am to start the celebrating - he was v cross when he asked where the bouncy castle was, 10am delivery seemed perfectly fine when I booked but being asked where it was every minute for 6 hours almost broke me. It was absolutely amazing having my Mum here though.

A very happy belated birthday to minidimples 🎂 🎈

dimples ds would be exactly the same, I will bear that in mind for any future events! Glad he had a mostly lovely day.

I was going to write a longer post but I changed my mind, it just sounded pathetic.

Suffice to say that I have hit a wall today. Ds is so resistant to doing his school work this week. I am so fed up!

I'm sure it wouldn't have sounded pathetic Open - it does seem to be getting harder as time goes on. Hope that tomorrow is easier.

My hopes of DS returning to school next week have been dealt another blow. DD developed a temperature on Monday night. I'm sure that it's not covid as I can't imagine how she could have caught it. The last couple of days have been tricky but DS has generally been good about waiting for things whilst I care for DD. So we are now isolating and I have a home test kit for DD to do in the morning. Literally no idea how I'm going to manage that on my own. Fortunately her temperature has come down now.

It probably would have dimples, plenty of people have it much harder than me. I was just feeling a bit sorry for myself and catastrophising a little. I’m sure I’ll have cheered up tomorrow.

Sorry about dd’s temperature, is she teething? Hopefully the test is -ve and you don’t have to isolate for long. It’s great that ds is being cooperative too.