Everyday there is trouble at school. I am soooo tired of it all.

[Chickpeas]

My son is 7 has AS. Academically bright but cannot cope in the 'real world'.
After nearly 2 years of fighting the LEA we got 1;1 for 15 hours in mainstream but he is still struggling.
Everyday there is trouble at school. He gets spat at, hit. etc
Yes, he miscontrues someone bumping into him as a personal attack. But it goes further than that. He never hit anyone until he went to school, he learned to hit at school. He tells me the other kids get away with it but he gets punished.

Every day the same old crying about school, the same old 'Erm excuse me Mrs XX, can I just have a word?' from the teacher.

His outreach worker asked my son to name his problems and they would try to work on them.

1. Class is too noisy, cannot concentrate. (he has auditory hyersensitivity, so a cat farting 10 miles away distracts him). OT suggested ear defenders after assessment. School refused. Outreach said nothing could be done at all.

1. 'The bullying army' , as my son calls them. Please help, he asks outreach.

She says. Make yourself a friendly army to play with! Great. She knows my sons 'obsessive subject' is historical battles and she has basically given him permission to start his own army in school to fight against the 'bullying army'. I have this 'permission' in writing.

Well...

Today he was sent to the head for hitting a child. The child was hitting his friend,who shouted 'help help she's hurting me!. My son went to the rescue and hit the girl even though she was much bigger than him.

Turns out the other kids where only pretending to fight. Mine thought his mate was getting pummelled.

Straight to the headmaster.

The other kids went unpunished.

Now, I don't condone any hitting NT, ASD whatever but why is it always mine that gets pulled up on playground trouble especially now they have told him to start his own army!

Headmaster had a go at him so my son went off and repeatedly smacked his head into a chair, causing bleeding and bruising to his forehead.(he has always banged his head when stressed)

Why Oh Why? I asked him despondently, 'I had to feel the same pain as the girl I'd hit'. He said.

He said he'd had enough and he was going to hang himself. He repeatedly tells me he wants to die, kill himself etc. Has done since he was 5. He says school makes him suicidal.

For God's sake, he is 7 years old and he want to die.

What do I do. I am so upset.

He just cannot fit in.

Chickpeas - you poor thing, it sounds like you are having a nightmare. have you thought about a special school - i think it may be the answer. If there are some in your area, go and have a look and keep an open mind. you will instinctively know if it's right. You may find that being with other kids that may have similar problems to him will be a bit less pressure, and also the teachers have seen all sorts of scenarios with special needs kids. Good luck to you. Also if you have no luck with the LEA just go to their offices and wait until someone sees you. Thats what we did in the end because no-one replied to phone calls or letters so at the end of our tether we just went down there and got it sorted - sometimes you just have to be aggressive with them!

I don't know about England but in this part of Walescertainly, the LEA has to agree before thespecialschool will allow you in- there has to be a strong chance of a placement, in someparts ofWalesaswell (Powys?) SNU's are pretty much being abolished across the board, or at least that is the plan.

if I thought for aminute the LEA will fund it i'd have a home tutor but the chances aremionimal and ds1 woudln't cooperate with me.

I can recommend SOS!SEN as pretty usedul.

I'm in Powys - ds has a statment and full time 121 - at one point in primary school had 2-1 ta's,lol then full time cover 121 in class with
teachers- I have changed my account chickpeas ;)

Powwys has an unusualSn systemdoesn't it?We have a fewpeoplefrom there on my Uni course and the rurality doesmake it vary a bit- I know the courseleader was talking on the radio about plans to integrate all Sn kids into MS as the snu system wsn't working with the distance some kids were having to travel. The repsonse wasn't positive but they got the impression it was a fait accomplit (sp)

lol Powys has very strange disjointed sen provision.

Chickpeas you need some serious support to help adjust your headmasters attitude. he is actually descriminating againt your son - you need to put this in writing saying he needs fiddle toys and ear defenders and you want a written reason '' for the record '' why this is being refused. deal with everything in writing - a paper trail is much less ''deniable'' the LEA's cannoit say you have missinterpreted things etc. You write very well, just make the letters factual If you want to have a chat just email me - I have advocated a few times for friends if tyou feel the need for some RL support

Hope this doesnt sound too pompous ;) I just seam to have a nack for cutting through red tape and bullshit - I smile alot and just keep asking the same questions over and over in a very positive manner lol

Hi everyone and thanks for the input

I am in Rhondda-Cynon-Taf (Mid Glamorgan)and over here we also have to have a referral to a special unit, you cannot elect to go there, nor will they intake without referral. I think all Wales is the same. There are no special schools, only classes attached to a MS school. There is only 1 unit my son would be allowed to attend but it only has 5 places. These are reserved for the profoundly disabled. AS does not meet the criteria.
I spoke to the behaviour support rep yesterday and asked her why she was no longer seeing my ds, she said because he had been referred to ASD outreach he was no longer under her remit. I told her his behaviour had regressed to the same point as a year ago when I removed him from school until 1;1 was provided. She was unaware that his behaviour had regressed but said she will talk to the outreach teacher.
This won't happen til after 1/2 term now, so will have to wait and see.
I also mentioned that he never attained these IEP goals and she agreed. She said that out of all the AS kids she sees, my ds is the worst for social intergration. I bet she won't put that in writing! because that would go a long way to getting a statement.

She described the kids in the ASD unit to me and said it would be no good for my ds. The unit does not focus on academic ability at all but teaches the kids life skills. She said it would be bad for him there because he is a high acheiver.
I asked if he would need support to go to secondary shool and she said she could not see him functioning alone there. Duh! the primary school has less than 200 pupils, the secondary here has approx 1800.
Even though she thinks he will always need support the LEA have put his 1:1 up for review in April (new tax year. No doubt they will try to reduce his hours.
We shall see...

Chickpeas, will you be coming on the meetup in south wales? there'sa thread,have alook.

Mmm, If I could work out where to look for the thread I may. Unfortunately I am a total idiot with these networking sites. I can never find anything members refer to. It's a miracle I got as far as posting a message at all!
I looked on the'local' listing but it says Cardiff is the nearest and I couldn't see any obvious meetup or similar.
Am I looking in the wrong place?

here you go

I can'tnoprmally find them either LOL, I followed a link too. And I have been here in one guise or another since 2001!

Powys has the worst ever SEN system I have ever seen !!!!! Put it this way if I had a child with SEN in Powys I would move ...

Chickpeas no advice realy just good luck realy

lol Cloudhopper - it can be bad but must say with much perserverance we are have had pretty good outcomes re education. I am now looking for some respite via ss so am starting a new adventure