Wish me luck - school meeting tomorrow!

[debs40]

I've got a school meeting with SENCO and one of DS's teachers tomorrow.

School have him on SA+ for social communication difficulties (or mumbling??? as his IEP says!).

Anyhooo, had a long battle to get him on SA, then on SA+ and there is still no real provision of any kind for him. I mean nothing at all. No social skills groups, TA time anything

However, TA at Early Bird Plus meeting on Monday recognised they are not doing anything to help and was going to raise all this.

I've got OT and (hopefull) the community paediatrician coming tomorrow (at my request). School seem to hate outside intervention with avengance.

It can go either way......a sudden realisation they need to do something, or the same intransigence I've met so far (he's doing fine academically blah, blah). Make or break

Either way, Stat Ass application here I come.

Big thanks to Attila for marvellous advice and listening ear!!

Best of luck for tomorrow. Will keep everything crossed it goes well.

Thanks!

Good luck for today. i hope they start realising that he needs support and that help start happening for your ds.

Debs

Have just seen your message.

Stick it to them!!.

Let us know the outcome either on here or via e-mail.

Blimey, blimey.... think we got somewhere but mainly because of professionals involved.

Will post later in case it helps others.

Will email Attila!

so glad it went well, the school have put you and your ds through the mill. will indeed help, ds now got a place for next sept, but we have v. unhelpful head (i.e. we have 2 senco for a school of 700 - only as we have to type thing!) academic results ahead of kids welfare. ds got dx PDD-nos/HFA in nov.

Glad it went well. Will look out for your following post.

In short, I have it now confirmed that we are at a shockingly bad school ? despite ?outstanding? Ofsted rating.

I made it clear that the purpose of the meeting was to ensure that school knew and understood DS?s needs ? something they have not demonstrated to date. I told them we were thinking of applying for an SA but they clearly were not happy about that. Wonder whyy?!

Anyway, things would have turned out very differently if it were not for the intervention of the two professionals I had asked to attend. Especially, the community paediatrician who said after they had come up with the ?lots of children don?t like writing? rubbish, that she didn't think they were understanding how complex he was. She explained that everything he does is more difficult him thatn the average child and that we were managing the stress for school. She asked if the had contacted autism outreach (which they had previously refused to do) and when they said no, she said do it, now., if you need help, ask me.

To be frank, I was aghast at a lot of stuff they said that were clear lies, e.g. that he was having TA sessions etc and that he?d raised a problem area for himself in social skills group saying I want to stop licking my hands (a stim for him) and something he would NEVER say. They don?t like it, not him

Provision was set out but it was hard work and without the professionals I would have got nowhere which frankly disgusts me.

Thanks Star - my superstar OT had to leave the meeting before the end but turned to SENCO and said - will you send me the minutes to agree?

He stared blankly at her and said 'oh we don't usually do that but of course' and then we went through with paed what we needed to do. I said I will have a look and agree them or raise anything that was missing.

Looks like they realised how rubbish the school is being