Can I ask some advice? Do you think this school is appropriate for ds and more importantly do you think they are meeting his specific needs. To me they aren’t, but I’d like other opinions please.
Ive been to ds school today for a class sharing session, they have never invited us in to the class before, it’s usually the Xmas / Easter fundraiser type events in the hall we’ve been too.
So today was seeing ds ‘work’ and seeing what he enjoyed to do in the class. We came home this morning after drop off and when back early to join him in his class session.
I do apologise in advance if I sound rude at all, genuinely not my intention, please keep in mind ds level of ability, and ds is my only concern, so no offence is intended to any children at a lower level with what I’m going to say.
I arrived and ds was drawing at the table, not on paper, just directly on to the table with a big bingo dabber, he had coloured his whole face in blue dabber and literally looked like a flaming Smurf. (He generally comes home looking like this most days though, various shades of colours)
I got quite a shock at his classroom, it looked like a small prison cell. Quite a small room. And it was in such a state, thousands of pieces of dried pasta just thrown all over the carpet, pencils thrown everywhere, toys just tipped everywhere, looked like TOTAL chaos.
In one corner there was a boy putting big wooden blocks into his mouth, I spotted this and alerted dh who was next to him so I was telling dh to get them off him, and then a member of staff saw and took them from him.
One child was in the outdoor space singing ring around a roses, with a teacher.
One child was building something with Lego, and one was sat in a wheelchair with a book.
Then obviously ds, they had 4 members of staff with the 5 children.
I asked how ds had been today and she said he had had quite a few incidences,
Me and dh were asking ds what he wanted to show us and he was just running from one thing to another tipping things over and being a total PITA writing the word shit with felt tip on all the tables and then he started to shove handfuls of leaves into his mouth (they had a box of leaves they had been doing an autumn activity with) he started spitting pieces of chewed up leaf at the teachers and swearing at them, so I said right ds come show mum and dad the swing outside, as we went to go outside he charged at the boy sat on the floor and starting kicking him really hard and grabbing his hair so I did take ds quite forcefully by the arm outside at this point as he wouldn’t come willingly, the teacher came outside after us and dh said is he like this at school often? (I’m aware he can behave like this and their frequent emails tell me so too but dh wondered if we had unsettled him joining him in his class) And she said yes, pretty much he is like this a lot of the time.
ds class is split in to 2 pathways, the ones capable of work and the ones who aren’t, ds is in the class that is capable of work, in the outdoor area there are 2 doors to each of the classes, they share one outside space, ds kept banging on the other door shouting let me in and the teacher said your not allowed in there are you ds,
so I asked why? She said because he has a few children who he likes to target so they are frightened and ds isn’t allowed to be with them. He was kicking the door so hard. Dh took him away to the swing so I stayed and spoke to the teacher, I asked her some questions about the other children, what are their ages, are their needs similar to ds etc, their ages ranged from 7 to 8, ds being the oldest at almost 10. All had an autism diagnosis, none of the children had needs comparable to ds with certain behaviours and she said he required the most supervision just to ensure that everyone stayed safe, she said ds came from the furthest away and all others bar one lived locally.
I had spoken to all of the children in the room when we arrived, like I said to the boy building the Lego boat ‘wow how good are you building boats’ etc, and I asked the girl what book she was reading, none of them were verbal. I then asked his teacher if the other half of the class in that other room had any verbal children and she said no, all non verbal or pre verbal.
So 9 children plus ds split between two rooms and ds is the only one who can actually talk. He is spending 6 hours a day in a class with 4 other children and he’s the only one with speech.
I then looked at his ‘work’ tracing over letters and simple addition sheets, copying some simple sentences, just basic stuff like that.
I hope I don’t sound rude as I’m aware people don’t like the phrase, it’s outdated etc, but I’m using it anyway, it’s easier for me to describe, but ds really was acting ‘low functioning’ with his behaviours and noises he was making. It’s almost like he copies and just cannot help it. He really is dysregulated in the environment, and it’s not nice to see.
He continued rampaging after the swing, turned his attention on throwing pens and trying to get the boy who he’d kicked earlier, so I looked at the clock it was 2.10pm so I said I’m taking him home now, she got his bags and we left 50 mins early, he continued being a shit all the way to the car, kicking me and dh, gave him his tablet in the car which kept him quiet, we got him home bathed him gave him an early tea, he then had completely calmed down and acted what I would say ‘his normal self’ less of the noises, less of the behaviour, more of the ds that can have a conversation with you and listen to what you are saying. He FaceTimed my mum / then my dad, good as gold for the rest of the evening.
In that class earlier he would not listen to a thing anybody said to him, just wanted to cause as much trouble as possible,
I know why he is targeting certain children, I watched what the other children do when ds is ‘getting them’ they make lots of noise and flail about and it’s that what ds wants to provoke.
Whats the answer?
I don’t feel they meet ds needs, definitely not academically and certainly not behaviourally.
