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Further Education for Autistic 16 year old

Geewhizz1999

Hi there, 

I'm really hoping that someone can help. 

My son is 16 and for the last 3 years we have homeschooled him as he was struggling so much in mainstream school.  He has thrived at home as the pressure was taken off him and we could work at a pace that suited him and on a one to one basis.

We put his GCSEs back a year, so this year he is hoping to do a Maths, Chemistry and Physics iGCSE and is having ongoing tutoring to work towards this. 

He is a very clever lad and exceptionally smart when it comes to Maths and science, as a lot of autistic kids are, however he has always struggled with English and particularly any kind of writing.  He would never be able to write an essay and any work he does is always with the minimum amount of writing he can get away with.  

Now that he is 16 and knowing he was entering year 12 and required to stay in education, we have spent the last few months searching for some form of further education for him, something like an online course that he can do at his own pace, to learn a skill that would help him in the future when it comes to getting a job. But everything I am finding, requires large amounts of coursework or essays which he simply couldn't do.  I am getting so stressed and so confused by it all... hence finally thinking to ask on this community. :)

He learns amazing well and is so so clever but to put the information onto paper is another story. 

Can anyone help? 

Are there courses out there that cater for our autistic children and adults? 

His interests are Maths, Chemistry, Physics, animation, computer coding, design, problem solving, things along those routes. 

He does 5-6 hours of his iGCSE work a week across 2-3 days (depending how he is coping), so I am looking for something to work alongside that. Something he could do at his own pace on the other days.

And as a separate question... is there anything around where autistic teens can get work experience? 

Thanks so much for your help!  I look forward to hearing your valuable input. 

Kindest regards, 

Hayley 

 

  •  Further education colleges and sixth-form colleges (colleges) are able to enrol and receive funding from the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) for students aged 14 to 16 years old.

  • in reply to Peter

    Hi Peter, 

    Thanks for your response.  

    He doesn't want to go to uni so thankfully that won't be an issue. 

    I've managed to find an online college (through the National Autistic Society's website) who look really good. But I will look into adult/community colleges in the area, so thank you for that suggestion! :) 

  • in reply to Ann :)

    Hi Ann, 

    Thank you so much for your response!  You have given me lots of things to think about!  I never thought to approach labs etc! What a brilliant idea.  Funnily enough, we were looking at a forensic science course for him. 

    I've managed to find a remote computer science course that looks really good, and they take on a lot of people with SENs so I think we are going to start him there for the learning side.  But I am definitely going to ask around to see if he could get some sort of work experience at a local lab or something. 

    He doesn't really know which direction he wants to go at the moment, so we are trying different areas to see which ones he really takes too.

    Thank you again for you help!!  It is very much appreciated Slight smile

  • First as unfair as it seems if he has aspirations towards uni he’ll need his GCSE English.

    secondly can I encourage you to consider adult / community college. Being 16 they should now be able to take him. They did me at that age. It’s a bit more flexible since a lot of the people taking courses have full / part time jobs. It’s also a bit less regimented, more oriented to self study. After all most of the people there are their because they’ve chosen to be not because they’re truant if they don’t turn up.

  • Hi :) It sounds like he would make a great scientist, computer scientist, mathematician, or anything else he is interested in :) (I am a neurobiologist myself). In terms of courses, you could look on Coursera: There are lots of online courses on there on all kinds of topics and I think some of them are free (there used to be free ones at least a few years ago)- https://www.coursera.org/ 

    The other idea could be to take some short courses through the Open University. When I was at school I took some modules from the Open University as I loved biology and was curious and wanted to learn more (and extremely bored with the school curriculum)- At the time you could do individual modules/short courses (I did Forensic science and a Genetics course) and I was able to enroll despite not having a high school diploma (though I think I needed my teacher to write some sort of explanation for it to be approved). You do have to pay  for these courses though. 

    In terms of other courses/things he could do to expand his interests, I am sure there are lots of coding/computational projects/ skills/courses you can get involved in remotely, but I am unfortunately not the right person to ask for that- maybe someone else will be able to point you in the right direction there- Is there any topic in particular that he is interested in ? I have a lot of scientist, mathematician and computer scientist friends and if you want I could as them if they have any ideas in terms of courses? 

    In terms of work experience specifically for autistic people, again I am not sure- though if he likes the sciences, approaching a lab/ research institute about an internship/student project could be an idea- he might still be a little young, but you can always ask if that is something he would like- I had very positive experiences with internships in labs (I am autistic too though at the time I did not know it)- I thrive much better in the environment of academia than any other environment. I was 17 when I did my first internship. And especially if he is interested in the computational side, approaching a lab/ research institute or university could be nice- they can sometimes offer some projects to interested students, including projects that can be done remotely- and in my experience many scientists are very happy to help when approached by someone who is interested.

    I am not sure if any of this is helpful and I'm sorry that it has turned out so science centered- that's all I know about unfortunately. I do love science though.