New headteacher is happy for DS to get run over when in meltdown!

[daisy5678]

I don't think I appreciated until now how good the Infant School have been. We've had our ups and downs with them, but they've always actively wanted J to remain there and tried everything I've suggested. They've taken on board the ADHD and the autism, and they're been really pro-active in getting restraint training, using his full time TA for maximum impact, giving him his own safe, quiet space for when it all gets too much etc.

The Junior school is a whole different ball game. I don't think they want him there. They don't seem to be willing to work with me at all, on point of principle that it's not up to me - despite the fact that I am J's mother, and therefore know him best, as well as being a teacher. These were the highlights of this week's discussions:

1)If he runs out of school and into the road (he is a runner and escaper), we're not following him.

2. No. I'm not having a safe area made for J. There's no space. What will the other children think?

3. He will have to learn to do as we tell him. If we say it's Maths, it's Maths. He'll just have to do as he's told. (Ohhhh...it's just that simple. Stupid me.)

4. He'll have the same sanctions applied as everyone else. He's got to learn to be part of the school.

5. No, he can't necessarily have the teacher that he has had for a whole year and who works with him really well. No, there are no down-sides, but I won't be dictated to about which teacher a child has. No, I know he has autism and hates change and everything around him will be changing and it would make most sense to keep the same teacher (who is happy to have him again) and every person at the transition meeting including CAMHS consultant says that change is difficult and needs to be minimised, but I'm the Head, goddammit, and I will decide.

6. No, I won't let the LEA put a button on the door to slow J down when he wants to run out of schoo. He'll have to learn that he has to stay in his seat in the classroom.

7)We will do our best as long as J will.

8. I know that J does not like being shouted at and reacts really badly, but I will shout at him if he behaves badly.

9. No, none of our staff are trained in restraint. No, I haven't got time for them to be trained in it.

10. We'll just have to hope that he doesn't need restraining.

AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH.

I despair. Part of me just wants to let them start it with their naive little ideas and mess it up - at which point they'll try and exclude him and I will refuse to let them, and mutter about disability discrimination and reasonable adjustments and they'll see that they have messed up royally- but then J will have made a bad start and I can't bear that for him

If only the HT would listen to the Infant School HT, teacher and TA, rather than thinking that he knows best. The Transition meeting was a joke. 6 teachers (including HTs), social worker, me, CAMHS consultant psych, OT, behaviour specialist teacher...all a waste of time. No further on than we were.

Why is everything so complicated? I know that I get a bit stressy at these meetings, and it can get people's backs up, but I do know what I'm talking about, and J should come before people's pride. Also, I find it shocking that there's such a basic lack of knowledge of how autism works - yes, J should do as he's told, but it doesn't work that way.

I can't even think about how next year will be

glad that the LEA/Head of SEN have been helpful, and the EBD school has been ruled out. Of course I can quite see your concern about whether head will behave decently.

Good news! Now just hope the lea give ht whatever er support/training/ he needs to feel positive about supporting your lovely son in school!

Woohoo! Got proposed amended statement today and they've named current school!

It's certainly my thinking, but not the HT's, who thinks that J should just learn to be like all the other children!

The only caveat to the DDA is that the discrimination is not discrimination if it's justified and I think violence to an adult usually is a justifiable reason to exclude. Hence my pleasure that J has all but stopped that (twice in the last 3 months, which is a major improvement).

But minor stuff like shouting or being rude is certainly not something to justify discrimination, which is why the HT is hopping mad that I know the DDA.

Great! (huge sigh of relief)
Hope some autism training for ht can be included!

Oh, he knows everything about autism and, I quote, 'all these people who come in don't tell me anything I don't already know'

The crux of the problem is that 'if there is a scale with manipulativeness at one end and autism at the other (why would there be? ) then J is at the manipulative end'.

Despite a very definite diagnosis with no room for doubt, this HT is convinced that the autism is only there sometimes and not others. No, at other times, the autism disappears, and he just chooses to hit people and get in trouble or chooses not to do his work because he can't be bothered. No, really.

The attitude rubs off on the staff too. I've been at autism training with the SENCO and she was very eye-rolly and tutty and 'we've done all this' (which isn't true).

Oh well - he will hopefully eventually learn about autism from being around all the outreach people whi are in every week, sometimes twice. Fingers crossed!

Everything is recorded (on puter or paper) because I know I may one day need it.

If he does succeed in getting J out (and it would probably be via permanent exclusion for violence towards staff), I would have no hesitation in going public with how it was all decided from the very start, before he ever got to the school, and the attitudes J faced there due to HT and a few others.

Luckily there are also some lovely people there.

My favourite HT quote has the be the one from last summer though, about locking the gates. Have copied from above, just cos it's so good it has to be posted twice:

"Who would lock and unlock the gates? he said. I said the caretaker? {hmm}

He just kept saying, inconvenient, inconvenient.

So I said yes, but not as inconvenient as J being run over and killed.

Well, he said, that might be inconvenient for you, but having the gates locked would be more inconvenient for more people "