And so it begins

[MiladyDeWinter]

The SENCO at the school where I want DS to start nursery in September when he is three has been very negative. I assured her that he would have some help and that I would be perfectly willing to have him only do those hours.

But she kept telling me to ring the special school 15 miles away (I don't drive) for which children need a proper statement and don't start until five.

That would be great, if that's what he needs, but I don't see why he can't have a few supported hours a week at nursery in the meantime. I get the feeling she is going to put a black mark against his name when it comes to allocating places, and there is no right of appeal for pre-school is there?

I have phoned another local nursery which has places with a view to DS starting in September but this time I haven't said a word about ASD. He hasn't yet been assessed by the Ed Psych but we have until September to get him some hours.

Am I doing the right thing? It feels a bit sneaky, but after the first experience perhaps I need to be

Milady, I would be upfront. We had to do this for choosing schools. We found some wouldn't even let us look round but that told us everything we needed to know about how welcome our DS would be. You need your DS to be in a supportive environment. Don't listen to the SENCO. Look round other nurseries, make them aware of your DS's needs and they will be able to put in place support from outside agencies to support him. Nurseries get inclusion funding for children with SEN so if your DS needed 1:1 support he would get it. Our DS's nursery have been fab - they knew nothing about ASD, but have stepped up to the plate and have worked really hard with him, even though it is hard as he is quite challenging. He is happy there and I am sure that you will find the right one for your DS too!

That's good advice, thanks. I was very tempted when told that there was no right of appeal at this age to point out that disability discrimination is illegal no matter what. But why bother if that's what the attitude is going to be?

I'm really glad it has worked out well for you and your son

agree with thederkin about being upfront. When looking at schools for DS I was v. pessimistic - told them he had severe lang delay and was in the assessment process for ASD (all absolutely true at the time, this was before he had a big spurt of progress between 4 and 5) The senco of one school was amazing, offered to speak to nursery about him, and explained about how the school got extra funding for support (unfortunately there were a lot of other bad things about the school....). Although they shouldn't discriminate in reality, you don't want your kid to go somewhere the staff have a bad attitude to kids with SN. You might want to have a word with the LEA about that pre-school's bad attitude though.....

I would avoid it like the plague. don;t want my children somewhere they are not wanted as I can't see teh staff would do anything other than the statutory minimum to help. Search around anywhere everywhere till you find someone who is enthusiastic and encouraging. they are far more likely to bend over backwards and go the extra mile to help your child

Might be worth ringing your council to see where they recommend, we found out there was an excellent SN/MS mixed preschool round the corner that we didn't even know about!

laumiere - when I tried doing that in my city, the early years inclusion woman told me that all m/s schools take kids with all types of s/n, so she couldn't recommend anything, and as my DS hadn't had his joint clinic assessment she couldn't help me at all . of course the fact I had to apply for school places several months before the assessment was of no concern to her . One of my worst memories of "the system", that.

How negative that SENCO sounds. Honestly she does not deserve the privalige (crap spelling)of having your DS in her nursery and your DS does not need someone like her making judgements.

I'd agree with telling nurseries and getting an honest feel from them about how they are likely to care for your DS. Therre's such good supportive stuff out there to help children with SEN that there is no excuse for a SENCO of all people to be making excuses.

Off topic - will e-mail you for a chat sometime. Head round the diagnosis now.

Phone your local LEA, they might have details of a SN/MS preschool/nursery. My DS1 and DD1 both went to a SN/MS nursery and they came on leaps and bounds. Ihave to go out now but I have experience with a head who didn't want my DD1 in her school, will type it all out later.

total How utterly pants! We went to DS's Portage worker and asked her.