Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi I am hoping someone out there might have any knowledge or experience regarding the National Autistic society's criteria for their school places.
My 10 year old son is in his last year at primary school and we were very pleased that the NAS opened one of their schools in Chigwell in Essex less than a mile away from our home.
We viewed the school and it is amazing.
We have applied for a place at the school for my son and have been rejected on the basis that he is not academic enough for the school.
My son is a high functioning autistic boy but struggles with basic reading and writing,
My question is why spend so much money on a school for autistic children but only accept the ones that are high achievers, in my experience and after reading up on this subject these are the types of children that do ok in mainstream school as they only struggle with the sociable side of school life and can cope academically with their school work within a mainstream secondary school.
We are now struggling to find a suitable school for my son as special educational needs schools that we have visited that are within 10 miles are not suitable for my son as his needs are not as severe as the children that attend them., therefore we are concerned that he will fall further behind if not challenged.
Any suggestions would be welcome.
NAS24595 said:My question is why spend so much money on a school for autistic children but only accept the ones that are high achievers, in my experience and after reading up on this subject these are the types of children that do ok in mainstream school as they only struggle with the sociable side of school life and can cope academically with their school work within a mainstream secondary school.
The above is quite presumptive - both myself and my brother were very academic, but neither of us coped in mainstream school. I got by through hardly attending, though it significantly affected my mental health, but my brother was educated in a special needs school out of our county, which was 80 miles from our home, but it was the nearest school that could meet his needs. I would say that high achievers perhaps appear to cope better, but frankly mainstream school can cause them a significant level of harm due to their difficulties.
Anyhow, back to your difficulties with your son. I don’t unfortunately know the NAS criteria for school places, but surely this is something you could request? With regards to the rejection, I would be inclined to ask for further information as to the areas they deemed your son to not be academic enough in. If it’s just the reading and writing, then perhaps it would be worth exploring what other factors could be affecting this for your son (such as those Deepthought has mentioned) and you could address these then look at the school place issue again. Further, you could ask the school if they would accept your son if the reading/writing problems were due to another condition.
Failing all that, it looks as though you will have to find another suitable school, though you will sadly likely have to look much further than within 10 miles of where you live (I refer to my comment above about my brother’s school). If you are struggling to find one yourself, try contacting the NAS for assistance and also asking the teachers in the schools who aren’t suitable if they could point you to a school that would be. I know from my own family that it’s a frustrating experience and persistence is key, so I wish you the best with your search.
For now though, if you are worried about your son falling behind, how about arranging some extra work for him, whether that be home tutoring, online classes or extra work with you at home.