Primary school auties: summer and beyond - thread 5

[openupmyeagereyes]

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

Thread 4
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs/3748449-Primary-school-Auties-into-2020-thread-4

How awful danni. Hopefully it will get him the provision he needs as quickly as possible though and in a way shows you how amazing you are to manage his behaviour at home with little support!
I agree with the touching thing ds used to like having his hand between my thighs, which I hated but for him it was just another space to squeeze himself into! Lack of boundaries and normal 6 year old curiosity!
Have you had a social care assessment? Might be worth applying for one, as you could then get a budget for respite?

Dimples it's frustrating when they push boundaries in a dangerous way! Ds decided that playing with the kettle was appropriate this morning!

So dd has been made to self isolate for two weeks as someone in her pod has tested positive. Luckily the rest of us can carry on as normal unless she develops symptoms. So hopefully she won't! There goes all my plans for the next week. Also a bit sad as it is dd and ds's birthday this weekend. So no seeing grandparents.

Gosh liv I bet you’re glad ds has school transport. Hopefully she won’t develop any symptoms.

liv I’m sorry that birthday plans have been spoiled, it’s such a shame. Hopefully you can find a way to enjoy them anyway.

danni my goodness! Your dh is right, ds has given the performance of his life for this guy. It is odd but no real reason for this professional to lie either because even without this new behaviour he can recommend the specialist setting. I wonder whether school have been telling you everything? Even so, I think your ds is rather like mine in that he’s the same at home and at school with no masking. It’s all just very odd. I can only imagine how much it has all upset you

My ds tends to verbalise at times when he’s very angry or upset and things get physical. He’ll say he wants to hurt you and then try to hit. I don’t know why he does this and I really hope he grows out of it as he understands how inappropriate it is. Obviously we reinforce that it’s not ok to say these things but so far we’ve not had much luck 😬

Open the reason I am not 100% trusting this guys agenda who went in to ds school yesterday is because he has a contract with ds school he delivers all their send training etc, he told me this himself yesterday and mentioned he receives a fee from ds school for each child he sees and writes reports for, he said something like they get a small discount for this because he’s contracted to do their training already.

Well he was saying how fantastic ds school are, really bigging them up for the first 5 minutes (not disputing that they aren’t great with mainstream pupils - they do have an outstanding ofsted and everyone wants their child at his school) but for SN children or for my ds anyway I don’t think they are that fantastic - look at all the part time illegal time tables for ds for a start, the staff mainly his 1-1’s are really nice but when he’s outside playing all day excluded from assemblies and class activities & just being babysat draining all the staff & all the rest I regularly mention I just don’t know how he can sit there and say they are the best thing since sliced bread. He has no idea what goes on day to day. He was really pally pally with the staff yesterday too.

Basically I’ll cut to the chase I’m even boring myself 😆 last Wednesday when the special school said ds would be a perfect fit, I told the senco by email Wednesday night, Thursday the senco phoned the LA first thing saying we want to change placement, the LA were difficult and said basically ds school need an up to date assessment of ds and they need to gather evidence and prove to the La the special school is more suitable, The LA woman wasn’t very nice to ds’ senco and basically accused her of driving ds out which I’m thinking sendiass has told the LA this as I told sendiass this and she was phoning to speak to the La about ds as she wanted a copy of his ehcp so I know she’s spoken with them (!) I said ds school were the ones who broached me on special school and kept asking me for an answer etc and sendiass said they are wrong for doing that.

So ds school booked this guy for Monday for this up to date assessment, he’s gone in yesterday and done exactly what they needed him to do. Write that ds isn’t suitable for a mainstream school & needs specialist provision (which I totally 100% agree with) but what I think he’s done in this ‘report’ is exaggerate. Because he knows exactly what the LA will say when they read it, he knows what to put he said he’s done it for 28 years.

Some of the stuff he’s come out with yesterday has really pissed me off. Ds has many challenges I know that better than all of them put together, but for ds to put on that performance (he had a book about 4 pages full of things he read out) I don’t believe all that happened in 4 hours.

I don’t trust anyone these days. Don’t know what I can say to who without a) telling b) etc.

Sorry that was getting too long. Lol

Ds teacher came out this morning with his 1-1, I’ve never spoken to her since he’s been in her class (!) she just wanted to check I was ok after yesterday,
I said I’m fine. Just not happy with how he’s worded things, she just stood straight faced didn’t comment she just said we didn’t want you to be upset.

Ds now teacher looked after him during lockdown she was the one in looking after all the kids and she was the one who complained to me about him swearing then another time he’d hit a child with a stick so come to tell me, then another time he kicked a girl and she came out to me, and another time he’d done something and she came out and said she made him say sorry, another time he’d had a lot of wetting accidents, it was about 5 occasions she came out over 6 weeks or so. Fair enough I need to be told things, but I’ve never had this with any of his other teachers.

So when I found out this was ds teacher this year I thought, great! 😒

This morning the other class put their assembly on, ds was last week if you remember, well today’s class has the other special needs boy in, (can you remember when I said, 3 classes all have a special needs boy in each) the other two in the other two classes aren’t as severe as ds but the others have ehcps and 1-1’s and are very different.

Well this boy today is fully included probably more of him in it than the other children! I typed lovely to see xxxxxx being included and enjoying himself, then bottled it and deleted my reply 🤣 They would of known I was being passive aggressive, don’t need any more drama this week.

Sorry open forgot to add, i deffo don’t hear everything from school.

Ds will say to me what did mrs xxxx say today so I’ll say what did mrs xxxx say today and he’ll say - ds you don’t say fucking hell or ds you don’t bite or ds you don’t wee on the carpet another time recently he said what did I do today in the classroom so I said I don’t know ds I wasn’t there what happened? He said smashed all the glass off the window (no idea!) I think a lot they just aren’t telling me. Which is very annoying.

Some days they mention things but I do think they are letting a lot slide, so maybe he was really bad yesterday, but I don’t believe / agree with some of the things.

Apparently ds laid on his back yesterday kicking his legs and said to this guy I’m not doing that I don’t know how to do it you’ll have to do it for me..

No chance that’s not ds style of speech. Put my actual life on that.

Wow, danni, what a rollercoaster. I think I agree I wouldn't 100% trust the guy either, but hopefully his report will do what it needs to do. I guess once you've got the school place sorted you could always send a letter saying you are surprised by those elements as you haven't seen any elements of that or heard anything like that from school? Although it's annoying that the current school still isn't doing its job AT ALL it's good that the new school seem keen to have him and that he would be with a really good teacher. When DD had one of her later assessments there were a few things in it that I just thought were wrong, and when she had her final assessment I did just give them back a copy that corrected the couple of things I thought were wrong, so it could be on her file. Again they had made things sound worse than they really were, and I did wonder at the time whether it was an effort to make sure she got a Dx that they thought would help her. Though in the end she wasn't really near the threshold, so I'm not sure it was necessary. I'm not sure the correction will have done much really, but it feels like if years later your DS or my DD read their file and see stuff that seems out of character it might be good to have a record of your view of it from the time?

We're still doing well, though DD is very tired. Tried a new ballet lesson today which was a bit much for DD. I ended up going in with her (which wasn't really allowed but the teacher was nice) - but DD was so overwhelmed. It's a shame as she used to love ballet, so it would be nice if she could get back into it - but asking her to start again after 6 months of only by Zoom and with a new teacher (the old place meant getting on a busy bus after school which just doesn't seem sensible at the moment, and anyway she was starting to get stressed with the teacher). Anyway, we watched and she seemed to enjoy watching, so we'll talk at the weekend and I'll see if she can give it one more go. But obviously it's not really important in the scheme of things! Just a shame if she loses things she used to enjoy because of Covid and having a big gap.

In better news she seems to be suddenly getting the hang of handwriting and enjoying writing more. Still not loving it or really wanting to write much (which I think is probably partly her hypermobility making her hand physically tired), but at least she seems to be finding it less unpleasant than she was suddenly.

Hope DD stays clear of symptoms Liv, and that your DS continues to settle into his part time schedule open, and that everyone else is doing well!

BTW, there is a quite good online autism course going on this week. Talks are free for 48h from when they are given so some of the ones from Monday have expired but the rest are still up. Probably nothing you couldn't find elsewhere, and maybe more aimed at parents of teenagers, but I've been finding some of it interesting and useful so thought I would add a link: autism-explained.teachable.com/courses/enrolled/1090071

Bloody saga continues with ds & school.

Yesterday me and my mum collected ds from school and I was collared straight away, he’d bit his teacher and his 1-1 and kicked the class TA during the last 45 minutes. I apologised and got him to take him to the car and he tried to bite her again it took me and my mum to get him back to car.

Today I’ve picked him up and he’s been throwing things in the class this morning so he was removed for the other children’s safety, then when they took him back in after lunch he started repeatedly swearing around the other children so he was removed from the class again and not allowed back in the teacher closed the door so the others didn’t hear him, his 1-1 said no work done at all today, he refused so she’s spent the day trying to calm him down 😕

Just after I dropped ds off at school this morning I got a really distressed call from my mum, she’d found my nana (her mum) dead this morning. 😕

Honestly give up.

Oh Danni I'm so sorry to read your news. What a horrific day. Take care

danni I’m so sorry for your loss. How awful for your mum. What an awful week for you

Oh @danni0509 I’m sorry about your nana and sorry, too, you are having such a hard week. Hand hold from me.

Thank you x

Dropped ds off at 8.45am.

9.45am phone call from his teacher, can you pick ds up I’ve spoken to the head and he’s spitting so we need you to collect him. It was in his risk assessment that you would need to take him home for every spitting incident. All our staff have had to get into full ppe.

So I said right okay, but he hasn’t got coronavirus because if he did have he wouldn’t be at school in the first place?

She still wanted him collecting.

As awful as this might sound, I said he’s only been there an hour, try distract him if it doesn’t work ring me back but I’m not coming in every single time he spits, he’d never be at school!

She’s yet to ring me back.

I’m at the point now though were I don’t actually care if I offend them by what I say, every single day there is an issue and it’s really getting me down 😒

I’ve just had to pick ds up, the head phoned me at 11.30 and said he’s had 2-1 all morning they can’t manage at all so I’ve had to go in and bring him home with just me on my own to look after him, but that’s ok!

They don’t want ds at 8.45 now they want him 9.30 and he has to go back in via the office.

They are having an emergency meeting Monday morning and when I drop him off at 9.30 they want to speak to me about what steps are next. I also have a meeting with them Tuesday afternoon about something else.

I just said this won’t be happening again I won’t keep collecting him early. This is an illegal exclusion.

2 staff bought him out head to toe in ppe, I’ve put him in the car drove to a car park and he’s now sat having his pack lunch in the back.

He’d carried on spitting but was also hitting and throwing etc.

I have a feeling Monday they will just say we can’t have him anymore 😔

I’m sorry danni, this must all be so hard for you

It sounds like his behaviour has suddenly deteriorated, have they tried to examine why? Has he changed at home at all?

It sounds like he needs to start at the new school ASAP. I think that’s where your, and their, focus should be.

He’s no worse at home than usual, I don’t even think he’s any worse at school than usual, they’ve always complained about something he’s been doing, they just keep insisting at the minute it’s not safe for anyone with his behaviour which fair enough I realise they have a duty to the other children aswell.

I think the spitting is sending them over the edge with covid (sick of that word!) the teachers came out with him both looking like they’d arrived from out of space, mask visor gloves aprons on etc.

He’s home on his iPad now and being fine.

She said because of the weather (it’s treacherous today) he’s not been able to go out and in yr2 the space he has is too small for him as he’s really active and moves all the time, she said in yr2 they don’t have a lot of space as usually the children are just at tables, she thought that hasn’t helped today and she needs to sort something ASAP as it’s coming up winter and rains like this a lot.

I’ll find out more Monday after this emergency meeting x

Also he had miss xxxxx for 2 years he doesn’t have her now and the 1-1 he has at the minute is not coping with him so he’s having 2-1.

The last one was trained in SN and ds and her got on really well she used to regularly say I don’t know how you manage so she did struggle with him herself but we had no real issues for 2 years when he had her. She was the one who was really gutted when ds had to leave her end of yr1.

The head admitted today the staff are not managing him at all, so will be interesting to see Monday what solution they come up with.

I forgot he had a new 1:1. Possibly that’s it.

Have you called SENDIASS this afternoon?

Yes I phoned this morning, they didn’t answer so I left his case worker an email and she hasn’t replied.

She was supposed to of phoned me last Friday at 11am but didn’t!

She did this before...

The last time she didn’t phone me as arranged I had to phone the sendiass local office and they got her to contact me later the same day.

It’s twice she hasn’t rung as arranged.

Sendiass phoned she’s arranged a meeting for school Tuesday morning.

Oh blimey @danni0509 that is all so tough, so sorry about your nana as well. It does sound like things are hard at school, maybe your DS was freaked by the ppe and it made the situation worse?? Hopefully he'll be able to get a suitable school place soon with staff who understand him and his challenges, support him properly and bring out his positives.
In our news, I bought DS a weighted blanket. Why I didn't do this before is beyond me...! Coupledwith the wobble board, it is calming down the hyperness so much, I'd recommend it! Might get one for myself they are so relaxing!

Good news on the weighted blanket Lottie where did you buy it from? I got one for ds but it was quite expensive, I want one for my mum who has insomnia but don’t want to pay what I did for ds’

I’ve seen one on amazon which has good reviews for an acceptable price. They are so lovely and cozey!

I found a video on YouTube earlier, I typed in sensory music and these came on, I put it on the big tv and ds jumped about for nearly an hour watching these. He’s asked for them again at bedtime he’s still not asleep but knowing him it will get him jumping again so I think I’ll save these for when he needs tiring out. He really enjoyed them but then so did i 🤣

Interesting videos danni, I’m not sure what my ds would think of them. Might try later. Glad sendiass got back to you.

lottie we bought ds a weighted blanket hoping it would help with sleep. For us it was one of the many things we’ve wasted money on but glad yours is proving useful. Ours is a Senso Rex one.

I'm so sorry about you nan danni. I hope this weekend is better after such a stressful week.
I'm sorry the whole school thing is such a nightmare at the moment.

Great about the weighted blanket Lottie. I made some weighted lap pads for my ds and I love using them, super relaxing.

Glad dd is found so well light. Thank you for the link.

We're ok here. Having a nice birthday weekend for the kids. They don't seem too upset about not having visitors!