Hello lovely mumsnetters, my son has ASD/PDA and has had a failed transition to secondary school. He startedsecondary in 2019 - a year after he was diagnosed - in a local, but very large comprehensive school. I let him go there as his junior school didn't flag anything up (the usual "he doesn't need an EHCP") and he wanted to be with his friends, a couple of whom were in his class. Then his behaviour started going wrong with meltdowns at home, detentions in school etc. We started thinking about a school move after the 1st term, but lockdown happened in term 2. His behaviour did not improve and in fact got worse with the anxiety of the pandemic and his inability to cope with home learning. The school were not helpful and I applied for an EHCP during the first lockdown, named a different, smaller school with an ASD unit/ARP and he started there in November 2020, but doesn't have an ASD place there yet.
However, he has struggled with school attendance (and again couldn't engage with home learning in the winter lockdown). Every morning it is the same hurdle to overcome. Promises and bribes just don't work. He's had 48% attendance and does no homework despite being very bright, and pretty good at maths (his full scale IQ is 125, 95th percentile)
We're thinking that he does need a special school after all and that boarding would enable them to get a handle on homework and activities of daily living. The school would have the expertise to communicate with him in the way that he needs and he could have some therapies to help with some of his mild sensory issues. I just feel like he is surviving school - at least the meltdowns at home have stopped- but he is not thriving and still says he hates school.
WIBU to try to move him to Swalcliff for year 9? I feel like time is running out and we need to get this right. He wants to work for NASA in rocket design.
Any advice very welcome. Thanks for reading!