HELP!!! I want to cry Secondary Schools for asd child in Hertfordshire.

Hi all,

I'm looking for some advice on secondary schools in the Herts or near surrounding areas for my son age 10. We have to submit a chosen school asap and we are well and truly stuck. My son has autism and attends a mainstream primary school. He is now in the last year, it has taken much fighting to get the school to support us and only now in his final year have they started to help with the provision of a one to one and EHCP. Our son is complex and even though he got his diagnosis age 2 and a half we have had and still have a constant battle with schools and local services to understand his complex nature. Jacob has very high anxiety he is placid and sensitive, when he is confused and doesn't have structure in his day he falls apart. He struggles to communicate his needs or worries to adults and often gets lost due to teachers not picking up on his anxiety levels. He has a complete food and drink phobia and only drinks a special formula called Neocate as he has dairy allergies. He has a diagnosis of Eosinophilic Esophagitis which causes too many white blood cells and he has flare ups which effects his esophagus and causes inflammation. He will only except his formula through a baby bottle with teat. He will not even except water or medication orally, we have to use paracetamol suppositories when he is poorly. Jacob has sensory difficulties, textures, sounds just a couple. He has no local support from any Salt, OT, Physio or Psychologist at present as they have all discharged him due to not knowing how to help with his complex difficulties. Nobody is taking any kind of responsibility or offering any kind of help or support, in fact our community consultant said what we needed was a 'fairy Godmother' so can't even seem to get help from his consultant. Now we have a very clear EHCP with recommendations from Autism Advisory service, things that need to be implemented in the school setting but we have no advice in the EHCP from local services as they have all discharged him. Jacob has no learning difficulties so he doesn't meet the requirements for special schools. He does struggle with learning but thrives when he has one to one and small group/paired learning. Jacob struggles to socialise but has a couple of friends at school who are very placid quiet boys like himself. We know Jacob will not cope in a secondary mainstream he will fall apart and we can see him falling behind socially, emotionally and academically. We have been given a very small list of schools just outside of Hertfordshire eg. Biggleswade, Beford, Camberidge,Luton, these are all mainstream schools with a small provision/small unit for asd children however they are either middle schools (so not suitable) to far to travel or only have a very small provision 8 pupils with asd to make use of the unit and even then he would be expected to still fit in with the mainstream school and with no help in school from OT's etc that you would find in a special school. Jacob needs help with nearly all self help from toileting, washing, dressing. We really don't know where else to go and feel like bashing my head against a brick wall as we have no support, not for lack of trying. I myself am at the point of saying I will home school him as I don't think I could live with myself sending him somewhere he will crumble, the issue here is that we have another child who is severely disabled with Cerebral Palsy and our day to day lives are already exhausting. Please if anyone has any suggestions, advice or ideas they will be greatly received. Sorry this is very long winded, so hard to explain the long journey we have already been on. Thanks.