AN/AP teachers what are you providing?

[drspouse]

Massively struggling with my DS who has ADHD and can be very impulsive, he's in Y3 in a PRU.
He's supposed to have a phone call every day from his class teacher, but he's shut down and won't speak to her. He wants to see her guinea pig who comes to school but the teacher says she can't do video calls. He's won't talk to anyone else - wouldn't talk to my mum, rejected a suggestion to talk to his friend from his old school.
We got some worksheets but he can't do some of them and he has such a short attention span. He'll do the reading etc that we normally do at home and he'll play board games too but only 1:1.

Today we let him do what he liked and he got much, much worse, wouldn't go out, talking nonstop like he does when he's anxious.

We have DD at home too, she's 5, and he gets agitated when we do things with her. DH is a keyworker and has a lot of serious calls but I can't really stop them from both exploding when I'm trying to do things with them.

School gave me a five minute explanation of visual timetables and social stories which went over my head but when we tried visual timetables at home before it took us days to get them printed, laminated etc and then both DCs complained the pictures were wrong and that was just for the morning routine! I am trying to work too and I don't have the hours in the day to do that!
What are you providing for your SEND/EHCP pupils? What else can they do for us? I feel like if they could, send us some resources we could make things feel a bit more familiar for him but I have no idea what.
What else can you suggest (that we can actually do!)

The family worker just told us "oh it's hard for everyone" and asked what do we normally do when he has a meltdown... Well he hasn't had one at home for ages!

The children in our SEMH primary have up to an hour of online learning each day and also have a pack of work. There is scheduled daily contact with their class teacher through the online system we ordinarily use in school (not video), parents can use the online chat and have phone numbers of staff to use when they need to. Phone call to the parent at least three times a week.

Some families are sending through photos of things the children have done e.g. Lego creation, a drawing etc. I'm sure if guinea pigs mattered to one of ours, we'd find a way to make that happen even if it was a video clip loaded onto the website or Twitter.

Are you able to speak to his teacher to ask for specific advice now you've had a week of it not really working? Some children who thrive on routine are getting into school uniforms at home, having a timetable or 'now and next' board to follow, using 10min sandtimers so they can see how long they will be spending on each activity. Is your DS someone who is likely to want to replicate the school day? Would the school send through the timetable symbols they use and the usual timetable so you are able to set up his day so it's vaguely similar and so a predictable routine is developed for him e.g. breakfast together then reading for ten minutes, independent Lego time, board game for everyone, independent free play, fruit/snack time, worksheet for everyone, times table rockstar, watch film, lunch time etc etc A lot of what's feasible will depend on the nature of your work and whether or not you will be able to take some time out to set up a new routine.

If your DS won't speak on the phone, I wonder if his teacher would be able to record a message for him that he can access when he's ready? Or could s/he audio record instructions for him explaining that she wants him to play a game with you and his sister then get him to message once he's done it?

He would like a timetable, yes, it's not really feasible for me (it is mainly me due to DH work) to follow what he does at school with DD at home as well. We have a loose timetable which we have used when he was excluded but there was only him and we weren't as busy with work then. Even just doing a worksheet with him either takes 30 seconds (he does as little as possible) or 10 minutes of heavy attention with another 10 of refusing help plus DD needing me as well.
We have had nothing like you mention, we have Class Dojo but it's all the online suggestions that were already on FB, nothing new or at all specific to him. All of it needs HEAVY input from me, including prep time of which I have none obviously.
I will write to the HT and ask what else they can give us. I think video would be better but a recorded video of the guinea pig would be a start!
If we had training, prep time and resources (we are running out of books, we have no maths books or teaching materials, nothing at his level on most things. I know "there's so much online" but when we tried to find a YouTube video on the country he was studying, 10 minutes later we gave up because it was all either for adults or toddlers!
We massively limited his screen time today after our awful two days on Fri and Sat but this of course means having to spend most of the time directly supervising. If we use a video or website to teach him he just gets sucked in and wants to spend the whole day in front of a screen.

I don't think he could access the school message system - he'd be too uncertain, tell me he can't write well enough.

Oh actually I've just noticed they set some Purple Mash activities. DH did them with him but says he couldn't access them.

Definitely contact the school and ask for help. Although we're not able to offer video conferencing at the moment because of limits on the school network as well as safeguarding things that need to be fully explored, we'd definitely want to help if one of our pupils was struggling to access the work that has been set. Does he have fulltime 1:1 support at school? If not, it's likely that he is able to occupy himself and independently access some of the school work that is set. I wonder if the generic work was set because PRUs weren't expecting to close when mainstream schools did and so were still operating at least at the start of last week?

Hopefully the school will be able to drop off or post some resources to you but it might also be worth programming limits onto devices your DS accesses so he can only go on particular websites or it shuts off after X minutes.

Can you show him other Guinea pig videos on YouTube and make up a story that they're all struggling with social distancing to and then start doing Guinea pig themed activities, even maths activities like multiplying or dividing their food etc?
It could be the change of routine, stick to a routine, it will pay off.... Xx

You see Doris that is easy to say but I don't have a folder of guinea pig related maths at my fingertips nor any child free, work free time to come up with it at appropriate levels.
He has almost 1:1 but was easing off it (8 in the class, 3 or 4 adults but one sits next to him). He struggles to focus at the best of times. He also refuses a fair bit at school.
They were supposed to be offering respite 3 mornings a week but they cancelled all their transport so not surprisingly no parents wanted to bring their child an hour to have a two hour session (or two hours if they don't drive). So I don't know what they were planning! I assume some members of staff are in or WFH not sick - they don't use supply so nobody will have been laid off. His class teacher is WFH full time.

SEmummy we do use limits but we can't seem to block a lot of stuff (again, if I had a few weeks I could work out how to block game play videos but not zoo videos but I don't) and he can either get totally obsessed with what time he will be on a screen and go on and on, or get irate when the time is up. It's easier to just leave it out of learning and he does his maths app at 3 pm and then has some fairly young CBeebies stuff to wind down.

HT has replied with some much more helpful suggestions - but I think also under the impression we got much more than we did? E.g. we got a suggested written timetable but it wasn't any use (e.g. an hour for reading!) but no visual timetable.

I work in AP. The trouble is that we had such short notice about the closures that we really had very little time to get anything properly organised. We sent out the same resources to each student within a year group. We spent most time on planning for the year 11s as the priority group. The idea was enough to keep them busy until Easter. Students or parents can contact us if there are any issues and we’ve been responding accordingly. Now that we’re closed and teachers aren’t teaching, they’re working on much more differentiated resources.

Do you use Twinkl? I think you can get a free month at the moment. They have some SEND resources which might help.

I have used Twinkl, we did get a lot of resources from school today which is great. No phone call even from his teacher though we got a message on Class Dojo, though he won't read it so I have to read it to him.
We had a go at visual timetables from Twinkl before and the DCs complained they were all wrong, literal sods. "Mummy I'm wearing the wrong colour jumper". They took ages to get sorted too. But I might find something time consuming for DD.
School are trying to get some more specific social stories sorted, they put one up for everyone on why we are social distancing but it just made me more confused, it looks like an ordinary piece of text with some symbols that didn't seem that clear e.g. there was a picture for "favourite places" that might have been a cafe... Or not... Is that what they are supposed to be? I have no clue!

Hmm we got some social stories through, this is not the one we were sent but they were much longer and had equally strange pictures and to my mind DS (who is 8 and has good language skills) is not going to find the pictures any more helpful than the words, is he?

The ones we had were 2 or 3 pages long and like this one I've attached had a picture (which doesn't seem to have much to do with the word) for almost every word.

Are they really supposed to be like this?
Is there anything else we can ask for instead? I can't see him sitting still for a 3 page story with odd pictures, let alone actually implementing it!

But on the bright side Twinkl does have some phonics and maths that could keep DD occupied for a while.

Hi, I totally understand where ur coming from and how overwhelming this is for sen kids. That social story can be a bit confusing. U could get ur Ds to help you make your own and then they are much more relevant. Using an app like book maker, u take photos of the kids and use them to set the routine. So a photo of the clock at 9 o'clock and a photo of them eating breakfast, continue throughout the day and then the next day tell them to check the book to see what they should be doing. Takes a bit of pressure of u and hopefully with repeated use it will become routine before the novelty wears off!

That all sounds lovely but I'm trying to work and look after two DCs. I literally don't have time to breathe let alone create lovely books!

Yes, that's often how social stories look! The symbols are standard ones from Widgit. There are illustrated social stories on Twinkl and people often make their own using photos. It sounds as though it would be helpful for the school to explain how they would use it with your DS.

Thing is, everyone is struggling at the moment with the situation and lots of parents' workplaces are having to accept that this is a strange situation and is taking some getting used to and that it will take longer for parents of children with additional needs. After this week, schools are unlikely to provide work or resources because it'll be the holiday. If you don't have the time to get things in place this week because you're working, would it be easier to treat this week as holiday too and do whatever you do during school holidays ordinarily?

In school holidays a) I don't work and b) we go out all the time. If it's fine we go to the beach, park, National trust places with parkland. If not it's swimming, trampolining, etc. etc. Both DCs like going to the shops.

So neither of those are going to happen!
I have quite a bit of non-negotiable work that has deadlines that have NOT been changed, or people are relying on me for. People setting up meetings where I can't dial in and then assigning work to me and then asking me why I can't do it! One colleague did kindly ask me if I could do a small job by 4 weeks' time but nobody else even asks. I had a team meeting last Thursday morning and was set a task I haven't had time to get to and I know they will be nagging me if I'm on the meeting this week.
I am also reluctant to explain all the details of my home life to every single colleague; I'm sure they would be sympathetic but there are so many people putting tasks my way so unless I tell them ALL every detail, or get myself signed off, I can't really claim to be "special" with other people having DC at home too.

A few colleagues have kids home but usually they have a non-working partner or their DC are older and/or don't have SEN (e.g. one mum has a single perfect 9 year old who can amuse herself and I assume her DD is still spending part of her time with her dad anyway).

We did mention that the stories seemed awfully long. They just suggested we give them a go. I got the impression they just read them to the DCs? Why do people use such long stories with DCs with short attention spans? It doesn't really make much sense to me.

If they are both home and AREN'T being expected to do school work it is no better (in fact, judging by Friday and Saturday, it's worse). We can keep a lid on things, kind of, by sitting on them both ALL THE BLOOMING TIME. Can't get any work done. Or, we can let them do what they want and in 5 minutes DS has hurt DD (or, frankly, looked at her funny) and she is shrieking. Even if they are watching the TV.

(And I know I've already mentioned it, but DH is a keyworker and DS has an EHCP and we are exactly the kind of people who SHOULD have school provision but we have nothing).

Earlier on you mentioned the offer of respite but that school transport was withdrawn so it would take an hour to get your DS there. Does that mean he's at a school that's not in your home LA?

According to the guidance, there's a certain amount of flexibility in staff being able to be redeployed to different settings so I suppose it's possible that in theory, the SEN department in your LA may consider arranging for your son to attend a more local hub school and be supervised by someone from his PRU/elsewhere. Some of that will depend on how many LAs are involved but it's worth asking.

No, we are close to the school and accepted the offer but everyone else is miles away (huge LEA) so nobody else wanted respite, so they aren't offering.
I rang the Inclusion office for our area and they went "hub? What's one of them?"

They must know about hubs by now - everyone else does! Are any of the local mainstream schools open for keyworker children? Your DD's school? Maybe your DS's headteacher could negotiate something for you with a local mainstream headteacher whose school is already open, offering to provide staff for your DS and then doing so on a rota?

We would love for him to go for respite to DD school but he used to go there and they have a mindset that they can't cope with him. We think he could manage there with a known TA.

One of the teachers rang again about the social stories and did admit perhaps the visuals didn't add much for a good reader like DS ("confused adults" would be nearer to the mark) and were perhaps a bit long and maybe we should just use one as a bedtime story. So DH tried that.
But now this particular teacher is starting to get a bee in her bonnet about us saying DD was struggling having DS home because he's aggressive to her and this particular teacher doesn't seem to get that there's a difference between "is very stressed and has been pushed by DS and was relaxed when she went for respite to her own school" and "is in active physical danger".
And this teacher also thinks it's her job to talk to DD school about DD so now I'm completely paranoid.

What are you feeling paranoid about? If a child is described by parents as being aggressive towards a younger sibling it sounds more serious than 'very stressed and being pushed' and if she's not at risk of physical harm, she may be vulnerable to emotional harm if this continues. Children with EHCPs are meant to have been individually risk-assessed for the risk posed by them being at home vs being in school. If your DS's school has been made aware that his sibling is suffering, his school isn't open and hubs aren't on offer locally, perhaps they will be revising the risk assessment and considering ways to improve the situation e.g. by making provision for your DD to be looked after at her school. Not every vulnerable child being looked after in a school at the moment is vulnerable by virtue of having an EHCP, social worker etc. If you're worried, you could contact your DD's school and talk to someone there about respite for her after the Easter break.

We want DD to be in her school at least for a bit of respite but DS school rang DD school and told them not to take her because the partner of DS class teacher has symptoms after school closed. Then told us "it's so nice your DCs can be at home". If any risk assessment has been done of home vs care we have heard nothing. We weren't asked (DS has been so much better since being at the PRU we'd have said the main risk was to our mental health, not DD, but that has changed since being home).