Primary school auties : spring 2021 and beyond - thread 6

[danni0509]

Hi. New thread.

This is the continuation of the thread for parents / carers of autistic children / children with additional needs. Most of us are parents of children in year 1 / year 2.

Links to old 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

Thread 5 - www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs/3953023-Primary-school-auties-summer-and-beyond-thread-5?pg=1

Everyone welcome x

Danni yes it was me. He is in year 2. In Reception and Year One he was said to be meeting expectations for reading and Maths. His writing is v weak and his Maths which was a relative strength seems to have become v difficult for him

Dimples Ds had his parents phone consultation last Wednesday, she said his writing isn’t even at a reception level and I’m on the phone thinking wtf, so i said right then so what you doing about that? And she just said giving him plenty of opportunities to write with chalk, paint & brushes, air writing, threading beads etc. She said he’s got poor fine motor etc.

Just annoys me how we get to the end of yr 2 and in 3 years the best they can come up with is ‘more opportunity to practise’ I’m not sure if I should be consulting someone about the poor fine motor, may mention it to his new school, his next hospital appointment isn’t due for about 9 months.

His reading is reception level and his maths is also reception level.

She said he’s still on p scales for everything. Quite disheartening, oh well!

He cannot do zips / buttons / dress or anything and only learnt to use a spoon when he was nearly 6.

He’s just seeing a child phycologist at the minute about his adhd and she’s asked for a full cognitive assessment for learning disabilities even though his consultant has already said moderate learning disabilities and she’s mentioned dyspraxia too which makes sense. I have another appointment with her next Thursday.

I’ve been up most of the night with a bad back not able to sleep then just as I was nodding off at 4 this morning ds woke up.

Ds last week of mainstream this week. Can’t wait for him to leave.

(Load more shit with them this past fortnight with him missing out on gymnastics and cricket week for absolutely no reason other than them being arseholes and excluding him as per usual! Then they gave him 5 tango ice lollies on Thursday as he kept crying for them!) never heard anything like it. His 1-1 has been buying penguin bars aswell and he keeps eating them every day (this is in addition to the shed load of tango ice lollies) no wonder ds is such a spoilt brat everytime he kicks off for something they give it straight away or bribe him to be good with sweets. Drives me fucking mental and no amount of times I’ve told them over the years have they listened 😡 I’ve specifically told his new class teacher what they have done for 3 years and it’s not to happen at the new school.

I emailed his new teacher Friday as still not heard from them with any information on drop off times / where to take him etc. They’ve been winding me up! They haven’t even contacted ds current school which is really odd to say he starts next week ds current school have mentioned to me a couple of times that no ones been in touch with them, I thought transitions were supposed to be carefully planned but there has been no such thing and it’s really disappointed me.

His teacher got back to my email the same afternoon, and told me ds is doing 8.50-12.30 for a fortnight then its half term then from 7th June all day with his transport.

Only Difference is they asked me to take him 20 minutes early at 8.50 not 9.10 so he’s settled before the other children arrive when all I’ve ever had from the current school is bring him half hour after the other children as to have him the least amount of time they can iyswim. He’s staying for his lunch from the first day too and somebody will meet me on the car park to take him from me and his class teacher will bring him out to me at 12.30.

Both times I’ve emailed his class teacher he’s replied to me as soon as he can so I’ll try not to worry. His class teacher seems nice.

Ds has been reading about flat Stanley at school and has been really interested in it and enjoyed his 1-1 reading the story to him which is a first and although he isn’t able to hand write his own story his 1-1 did it for him but with what ds told her to write. It was really good and his class teacher said he’d done a fab job explaining his ideas, she phoned me to tell me and read what he had got his 1-1 to write.

He had said something like I want my mummy to put me in an envelope and post me like flat Stanley and I would really like to be posted to my grandads house. He lives at xxx xxxx put a green stamp on the envelope and put me in the post box (he doesn’t live where ds said lol! But least he made an address up!)

So then the celebration assembly the end of that week 3 kids in pink class get an award for their flat Stanley stories. No mention of ds as usual.

Just fuck off!

I’ll skip to my car Friday afternoon once I’ve got him out of that environment. I don’t expect him to get an award for everything just for something! He’d tried his best and it’s just never recognised if she phoned me to tell me he had done a fab job why didn’t he get a mention in the assembly? Instead it’s a rotation of all the other kids in the class and always has been.

Bastards.

Danni, you must be so glad that you're getting him out of there. That is truly awful. It's good that his new teacher got back to you so quickly. Fingers crossed for a smooth transition

dimples I think ds is similar and I wonder how he is going to get on in KS2. Last week for homework we were working on halving and doubling within 20 and he got 10/20 but most of the others he needed to count out (using blocks) and when I asked him the question, such as what is double 8 he would say 9. I'm not sure if he's just not listening to the question properly or genuinely doesn't know. We've worked on these before. His reading is coming on though and he's on turquoise now. He also seems to play almost exclusively with girls, I suspect because they are kinder to him.

danni last time you posted some of your ds' writing it looked pretty good and that was some time ago. Is he really only at reception level?

I'm sorry that they've been excluding him so much, it's absolutely appalling. I will join you on the thread Friday to have a virtual drink with you to celebrate him leaving there. I''m glad the new class teacher seems good. Hopefully the lack of communication is just due to rubbish admin (not that it's an excuse) and they will generally be good otherwise. You also seem to be getting a bit of input from the ADHD diagnosis so hopefully that's going to be useful for you too.

We are having ds' annual review after half term and his Y3 teacher will attend which I'm quite nervous about as I don't know her at all and she seems very strict. He seems to be doing ok at school currently but he's still not always keen to go in the mornings. Sleep still up and down. Yesterday he was up at 3, today at 5.

Open I think his writing is still at reception level because he doesn’t / can’t write sentences. I think it’s more to do with the fact his attention span doesn’t allow. He doesn’t use finger spaces and does random capital letters here there and everywhere and sometimes his letters still take up half the page so she said his writing is still what she expects at reception level, he can form all of his letters and draws a bit but handwriting isn’t his strong point, he doesn’t like it at all, he prefers to draw up his arms / on his face / or on the wall / table.

Ds was up at 4 today, he’s been a total horror! He’s going to bed at 6.30, I’m on countdown.

His teacher still has him on light blue, level 4 for his reading. She has given us the exact same books the last 3 times, ds even said to me ‘not steg and the tar pit again it’s so boring!’

I don’t know why she does it. I mentioned to his 1-1 that he keeps getting the same batch of books on bug club and he’s bored but apparently he keeps getting a few sounds wrong when he does his phonics so she won’t move him up,

Whatever! I just read stuff at home with him, he reads the tiger that came to tea & things like that and he’s always reading words when we are out and about so I’m not too fussed about the books the school provide for now x

I bet you can't wait to get him out.

I've been reading the thread but not really posting. Things are just hitting hard and it's a bit rubbish emotionally. DD's review got a PRB agreed for consult, goodness knows what I will do if that school says no :(

Good luck with the review Open and the drinks on Friday to celebrate Danni's DS's escape sound like an excellent plan!
MumofSend sorry that things have been tough good luck on securing the new placement.
Danni DS's school is terrible with reading books too, like you I have decided to ignore it. I buy/borrow what I think are more appropriate books and detail them in his reading record. I have previously complained and written notes in the record that the books are not challenging enough but it seems to fall on deaf ears.
I am grateful for what has been quite a relaxed weekend here. DS and DD are playing together more and I love to hear them giggling together although DS needs rather close supervision as he rather underestimates his strength/doesn't recognise that she is a toddler.

Mum of send. Was the unit what you wanted? I know you had your heart set on a school I just can’t remember which one it was (I’m assuming the initials stand for pupil referral base? Is that attached to a mainstream school?) we don’t have any units or bases here.

Isn’t it awful what little provision there is for children like ours! I’m really uneasy sending ds to the school we have to send him to because the travelling is down horrid roads, we live in Lincolnshire and they are all bendy country roads where people drive like absolute twats and I keep reading of crashes all the time on these same roads the taxi will take him on 😭 but if he went to the local one we initially wanted it wasn’t country roads but then I’m hearing awful reviews about that one so I’m wondering if we have dodged a bullet.

How’s your ds? Any news on his school for September etc? X

Dimples I’m glad ds and dd are getting on playing nicely, I know what you mean about supervision, ds hasn’t met my nephew yet and he’s a month old! x

Open good luck for your review in June, I hope the teacher is nice and approachable, is ds meeting his ehcp targets? X

Mumofsend I'm sorry that you're having a difficult time. What is a PRB? Hopefully you get the decision that you want.

dimples glad things are going so well at the moment, how lovely the dc are playing together and having fun.

We are lucky that ds' school doesn't use an online programme. The children choose their own books from within their band and ds brings home a decent amount. I also have a Reading Chest subscription so we get books from them too though ds doesn't always read them all.

I need to go through the EHCP and EP report and start making notes for the meeting. It's only scheduled for an hour which I'm not sure will be enough. They are already thinking about transition though and will have him visit the Y3 classroom regularly during the last few weeks of term while the other class are out of the room.

@danni0509 yes its a satellite of a local special school within a mainstream. They do about 5050 specialist and mainstream but very flexible if they aren't managing one day/for a while. It is the only viable option, it is really limited provision here :(

It is awful that there really isn't any choice.

DS is getting ready to start, trying not to worry but that is easier said than done! He has made a little friend at preschool though which is something DD has never managed so I'm hoping they keep him with his friend and that will be a huge help! We have his review in June.

@openupmyeagereyes good luck for the review.

Ds new class teacher just emailed me and asked me to send his swim kit on a Thursday from next week as they use the hydro therapy pool every Thursday morning.

His current school banned him from swimming because he was in nappies at the time and the next year because he needed 1-1 in the pool and none of the 1-1’s wanted to get in the pool he only got to go in twice in the 3 years he’s been there!

He’s going to love it 😍

I’ve just emailed his teacher and said it makes me so happy that he’s being included, I bet he thinks such I’m a dick head! 😂

Mumofsend that sounds like a great option. Fingers crossed for you.

danni that's great. Hopefully he will get lots of therapeutic input there, OT etc. I'm sure you are not the first parent to email the same thing to the teacher. Sad but true.

Thank you, the silence is brutal.

That is amazing @danni0509

Hope all the reviews go well, and counting down the days with you @danni0509! Poor that the new school have not been better at communicating with you but his teacher sounds really on the ball and nice at least! And in terms of communicating with his previous school, I'm not sure I would trust them to give any useful information anyway (not that they shouldn't still have done it of course...)

DD had SALT in today. She had two adults working with her to really work on her attention to try and get an assessment out of her and they managed it. Apparantly her understanding of language is actually really good once you get her attention but her attention skills are so poor there is no way her understanding can be achieved in the classroom. The PRB I want is 10 in the unit for half her time and 30 in the normal class for the other half. SALT thinks she needs far fewer numbers in both :(

Oh gosh - so what is the alternative... I think you said there were not really other settings in your area - so would she need to travel out of area?

Is there a chance that she is overwhelmed in the current setting and that she'd be able to attend better if she was in the PRB half the time (i.e. that it might make the full classroom tolerable)?

@LightTripper I'm not entirely sure. There is a potential in the next LA but it is an hour drive and will cost the La 80k a year before transport costs so convincing them on it will be a challenge.

Possibly if she was less overwhelmed or an alternative is we try and medicate the ADHD but paed and I had already ruled that out.

Oh just to add to my woes, DS has his annual review in June at 9.15 as the only time all professionals can make it. DD goes in 10-10.15. Asked if she can start 9am that day to a resounding no...

Mum that’s rather unhelpful, what are you going to do? I’m sorry there don’t seem to be any good options for dd. Will they put in writing what they think is suitable and then you can look at options?

We had parents’ evening last night. Ds is not at expected levels but his teacher was really positive and he’s making lots of progress which is great