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

Ah @danni0509 we have been on self isolation due to an outbreak at DS's nursery too. We are released on Tuesday.

I've been arguing with the LA who are complete and utter arseholes to put it politely.

I can't find a specialist that can meet DD's needs. I've looked within an hour radius. They want to stick her in one where she would be the only girl. She would have to attend school runs twice a day for DS because of timings at the school she wants to be at and won't understand why she can't. I've been arguing that perhaps we should bring the specialists to her with staff actually trained in her needs at her current school. School have said no because they dont have anyone there with the training she needs. It isnt highly specialist training either. I wrote a 9 page letter to the LA detailing exactly why my child will not be entering the awful school they are intending and why her headteacher currently is a who has let her down and it is very much a case of won't support her rather than can't.

Even if it changes nothing getting it all out was highly therapeutic.

danni we didn’t get dh or ds tested and neither developed symptoms. In hindsight I wish we’d lied and got them both tested so we’d know if they’d had it then. I did distance but only after I got the +ve test as we thought it was just a precaution. Dh and I were erm, intimate, the night before my symptoms started. We also visited my parents the day before and neither of them developed symptoms.

Have you booked a test for yourself? Does dh know if it is the Delta variant? I never knew mine.

Mum sorry you’ve been isolating too and that there’s no suitable provision for dd.

Open same situation here with the intimate situation the night before his positive test. So I will be quite suprised if i don’t test positive.

Public health England have emailed me this morning to ask if I want to do a study where I can be released daily if I can provide them proof of a negative lateral flow daily, they are sending me the tests tomorrow! Happy days! Dh obvs still has to stay home, ds still has to stay home, if I test negative daily I can go about my business as usual so I’m going to need bread and milk daily and as far as Dh is concerned the only shop open is 200 miles away, get me out for a takeaway coffee for an hour at least 🤣

I did a lateral flow that I had here yesterday afternoon and it was negative.

I don’t know the variant he has no one mentioned anything.

Mum of send. That’s ridiculous! They can get a specialist teacher / TA in for dd. They did with ds. The LA pay for it, it is expensive but needs must! I’m sorry you are isolating too x

Also she needs mixed peers,
I wouldn’t be happy to send ds to a school full of girls, the one I looked at last year with the smashed windows was an all boys school.

When we viewed the awful school the head literally described it as the school kids go to when no one else can cope with them. They are used as the fixed term exclusions PRU. They are stating because there are two girls who will be in year 6 when she starts then that will be adequate as she can have opportunities to mix with them at break times.

She is 6 years old, 11 year olds are not a suitable peer group. What happens when they leave.

Arghhhhb

Ds did his SALT blank level 4 activities this morning, he’s getting really good at these, so I have pictures of different scenes and a list of questions to ask him about each picture.

So this morning we did the birthday party one, few kids sat around a table, party food on the table, birthday boy has a badge on and the mum is bringing a cake to the table. Then I ask him the questions on the sheet, who’s birthday is is? How do you know it’s their birthday? How old are they? (There are clues like the boy has a number 6 badge on, there are 6 candles on the cake etc!)

I’ve got loads of different scenes. What I do when he’s answered the questions on the sheet is I write my own questions.

He needs a lot of prompting / asking the question in a different way but he was really struggling with blank level 2 not long back but he’s done fab with blank level 4 recently! But bizarrely he can answer blank level 4 easier than he can answer level 3.

Here is a link to the levels / questions.

salda.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/SALDA-Blanks-level-of-questioning.pdf

Oh no mum, totally not acceptable! Dd is year 1! It’s no way near her peer group. You have every right to be livid.

danni that's great. Is that only because you've been double vaccinated?

Mum I agree. 11yo girls are not suitable peers for your dd. Even if she was keen to play with them, which she might be as our dc often gravitate to older or younger children, they they most likely will not want to play with her.

danni where did you get the pictures for the blank level questions please?

His SALT printed them off open but she got them off twinkl as it says twinkl on the bottom of all the sheets x

Well public health England have really pissed me off. This morning they said sign up to this trial receive a weeks worth of lateral tests, providing test negative each day crack on with your business.

This afternoon got a text to say they have put me in the 50% who they still want to stay in the house and fully isolate but do PCR tests instead!

I want to find Matt Hancock and shove the swab up his arse!

Feck off. I’m off out! I will still do a test every day, makes ZERO sense. They’ve put my name in a hat and pulled it out at random. No wonder no one follows the rules.

It was a random trial so I’m the unlucky fucker who is in the 50% who has to stay in jail for 10 days (with an autistic kid) and trust me this is worse than jail 🤣

I don’t see the problem if I’m negative?! If I was in other random 50% I’d be allowed out.

That awful for them to get your hopes up danni. The problem with the lateral flow tests is that they aren’t very accurate.

@Mumofsend

Have you looked at Section 41 schools and wholly independent schools?

Section 41 special schools:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-special-schools-and-colleges

Independent special schools and colleges:

www.specialneedsguide.co.uk/

@Ellie56 I have. There are two good options for year 4 and one for year 3 that are independent specialist. I suspect it is why the LA are so against my suggestion of staying in mainstream to do another year as they know I will be going for one of these. Instead they are chancing their luck at a shocking maintained specialist

@Mumofsend

You said "I can't find a specialist that can meet DD's needs."

Then you said, "There are two good options for year 4 and one for year 3 that are independent specialist."

If these schools are suitable, what is the problem or is it that your DD not yet old enough to attend one of these schools?

@Ellie56 she is currently in year 1..

Open did u print any sheets off? I don’t think I’m going out now, I’ve got no need to really, I’ve got food etc ds can go play in the back garden, I might stretch to hoovering my car out / washing my car this week (for something to do) at some point but I’ve got private parking bays and no one ever is near our spaces as we live down a dead end so won’t see anybody. I’m bored to death though! Ds went to sleep at 10.20pm and woke up at 5, send them to bed later they will wake up later 🙄 righty o!

School haven’t contacted me at all, no call / email, he’s supposed to be set work when he’s been made to isolate, it’s a legal requirement from a school (including a specialist setting) ive trawled the gov uk website went straight to the specialist bit. He’s supposed to receive 3 hours worth of work a day in some form or another....

Not that he will do 3 hours work or that I can be arsed! But to have no contact when it’s a legal requirement I find a bit shit.

Maybe school will call later? We’ll see.

Dh phoned his work office this morning (he told his manager via text who said to phone the office Monday) anyway he sent proof over (nhs text / email / nhs trace id / date he legally has to isolate until) they requested all this, (4 others are off, Dh caught it at work ffs!) they got back to him and said oh yes we will process your £98 sick pay for next week.

£98? Are they for real! 😆

What is that going to pay for exactly? He’s losing £500 in wages!!!

Unbelievable.

I’ve applied for the covid isolation grant, we get some universal credit (just) so looking at all the criteria he should qualify.

They tell you you can’t leave your house / you can’t go to work / you will be fined if you don’t stay in your house etc etc then they pay you £98? 🤨

danni hopefully the isolation grant will help. That’s £500 I think?

I had a look at the blank level questions. One of them asked why the girl was using scissors to cut the paper!

Ds has not gone in today but I am going to try and take him in at 3:30 for 10 mins after everyone has gone. I just want to get him through the door again 🤞

Open yes it’s £500, I applied on our councils website. Apparently they are quite strict but we seem to meet the criteria. I had to send Dh wage slips over and loads of other info, took me an hour to fill it all out.

I know some of those questions on the blank levels are a bit strange. Ds answers are as equally strange!

I’ve got achey calfs and really sweaty palms, like wet through palms of my hands, it’s so weird. Do you think I’m coming down with something?? Eek!

Good luck for 3.30pm!

I’ve got achey calfs and really sweaty palms, like wet through palms of my hands, it’s so weird. Do you think I’m coming down with something??

It’s possible but would be a big coincidence… did you get a PCR test? If not I think you should.

We had a very positive trip to school this afternoon to see the changes. I’m hoping he goes in for a while tomorrow 🤞

Whoops, sorry. I thought you wrote ‘something else’. I think you should get a test. Hope all ok.