Coping with Changes Since Covid

COVID restrictions please come back.

I loved the empty buses. 

The increase in Universal credit was just enough to eat and pay rent.

Seeing other people wearing masks and not breathing on me was joyful.

Thank you, your reply has made me think.  My son is in year 9 so Covid has affected all years at school and they have just started discussing options for next year.

There are some things I can understand with my son, like the smell of disposable masks and often places that can be a challenge, but I have to admit I had not thought about the actual constant change of rooms until I read of your challenge,  He did find it easy when they remained in the same area-although they went outside to change over but the break seemed to work well for him. If they change a set room he often gets lost. 

Every time he finds school hard I check his timetable and we have traced common traits or he has admitted things he has found difficult.  The staff members have changed things to fit in with these problems and his year leader and SENCO have communicated with staff on things which are just too hard. He also has help from Teaching Assistants. This term we have found no common patterns and unfortunately he cannot think of anything specific. I like your idea of check lists. 

Having read about the challenges you have found in school it made me think about how much of a challenge school must have been for my son.  I have struggled at times during the pandemic and the weather last year, the current time of the year and the ongoing challenges, so wondering if it is now more just a general fatigue, particularly as he masks to try to fit in. Thank you for giving more to think about as I explore further.

So good personally to read your comment about hot desking. It always felt like I was different and should not have a problem with it, glad to see I am not alone.  

That's okay. Hot-desking sounds like my idea of hell on earth - at least when I was moving around classrooms, I still knew exactly which classroom I was going to be in and when. If you told me that I would have to pick whichever classroom was free when I came in every day, I would quit on the spot!

Regarding your son... I mean, I'm not an expert, I'm not a parent, I'm not a SENCO, most of what I do with my autistic students is just based on what I know that I personally like and don't like. 

With instructions, that can depend on how staff present them. Staff should know that instructions should be presented verbally and in writing, as clear and unambiguous as possible, and that it is good practice to discretely check with any SEN students, and, if they are able, to get them to repeat back to you what they should be doing. I understand he might not feel comfortable with this as it does draw attention to SEN students, but is there the possibility of having a learning support assistant with him in lessons to help ensure that he is doing what he needs to be? Or could teachers produce a checkbox list of tasks for that lesson, so that he can tick them off once they are completed?

A lot of our autistic students (and this autistic teacher!) have found it hard to adjust to being back in school after lockdown, so it is very much not just him - our homes for most of us are our safe space, we know how they work, how they sound, how they smell, we feel comfortable there. And even if we used to feel comfortable at school, it's different now - with all the open doors and windows and air purifiers, it feels different to how we remember, there are different sounds and smells - it is not easy.

Moving between rooms can definitely be an issue - I don't know how old your son is, but if all he has known is primary school where he was always in one classroom, and then the beginning of the last academic year when students weren't moving around, then yes, it will be hard - all the noise and crowding of the corridors, and inevitably coming into physical contact with people when everyone is trying to get everywhere at the same time. Might it be possible for the school to arrange for him to leave lessons 5 minutes early, to avoid all the rush?

Is there a pattern to the days that he is missing? Could it be certain lessons that he is trying to avoid - if he doesn't want to say, school should be able to check his absence against his timetable and tell you = and if so, can you work out why? It could be struggling with the subject or not liking the teacher, but equally it could be that the chairs in that room are uncomfortable, or that the room is noisy - not from behaviour necessarily, it could be the heating or aircon or even the lights buzzing - or that it smells weird. 

I can understand a teenage boy not wanting to take a cuddly toy to school - although I had one that did - but would a more discrete comfort object help? One student I know has a Pokemon model, another has a specific bouncy ball - and lots have fidget cubes and toys and things like that. 

Thank you for your reply Akkrenskarin.  It is good to hear from others who understand what I had thought was individual to me,  

Also wondering if you can give any advice from a personal perspective as I try to support my son. He struggles at school because he has difficulty with instructions, reading and remembering what he has written.  He is at the lower end accademically at his secondary school.

He enjoys sport and playing football with friends at breaktimes, but only staff and one friend knows he has autism, although he is happy for them to know he has ADHD.  He masks a lot and since the first lockdown has struggled with his attendance, missing a day or two most weeks due to anxiety. Before Christmas he made most days but then we were contacted as he was arriving late to most lessons. Reading your reply made me wonder if the constant moving to different rooms could be part of this problem. Unfortunately he would not want to take something for comfort due to peer pressure.  (In contrast when he goes to a Neurodiverse Youth Club he dresses as he feels comfortable and would not feel the same pressure). Since returning to school he has found it difficult again, even missing PE and one of the days he did make it to school he was only able to get to one lesson with support.

I spend a lot of time trying to work out any specific reason why he might be anxious, because at the moment he is unable to say why.  We continue to work with school to try to help him.  Unfortunately the expert from County was no help. Just wondering if you have any suggestions regarding support that may help him or anyone else who understands the difficulty within school either as a staff member or from when they were a pupil..

I sympathise with the desk-changing thing. I'm a teacher in a secondary school - I've been in the same school for 10 years and I've always taught from the same classroom. When we went back in September 2020, as part of the "bubble" thing the students remained in one classroom, and the teachers moved around to them. The head, bless him, knew that this was going to be a massive issue for me, talked me through it and did think about trying to give me one fixed room, but it really wouldn't have worked out. How I coped was by buying myself a wheely crate - it was my classroom on wheels - which had all my stuff in it, so even though I was having to move to different rooms, I still had all my usual things and I knew where everything would be. I even carried my favourite reed diffuser with me so that the room I was in would always smell the way I liked. I can't say I enjoyed the scenario, but it helped a bit. It's also when I started bringing my little emotional support/attachment object with me every single day - it's quite hard to feel too stressed when you have a cute little cuddly plush kiwi bird peeping out of your handbag!