My daughter is 11 and as yet without a diagnosis. We are part way through the assessment process but have been advised to use ASD strategies to support her in school.
School refusal became an issue about 18 months ago resulting in her not attending school from Nov 2019 at all. However, she has now started a new school (secondary) and desperately wants to go but finds its extremely difficult to cope. Since the start of term,3rd Sept, she has attended for 5.5 days but her anxiety towards school is increasing again.
At her primary school the approach was get her in there by any means necessary which we all found traumatic so I refused to physically drag her there kicking and screaming when she was so distraught and in my opinion terrified. The plan at secondary was for her to start the day in nurture to ease into the day. Yesterday was day one and she was more settled after the day than previous days.
This morning though I managed to get her to the school car park but she refused to get out of the car. The sendco and lady from nurture met us in the car park and tried to coax her in this wasn’t successful after half an hour so they used Team Teach to get her into school she was as you can imagine incredibly distressed and I hated having to leave her there like that.
the sendco called a short time later to tell me she had settled down to her activities in nurture. She then asked if I was ok with the way they got her into school and if I’m honest I’m don’t feel happy about it. I don’t know whether it has destroyed the trust she was forming with the nurture teacher and school and I worry about the long term impact of her being taken into school this way.
i would appreciate advice from anyone who has had experience with this as the best way to move forward. Whether using Team Teach will, as the sendco believes, break the cycle of school refusal and help her feel safe or as I believe cause more damage as she is dragged away from me in a state of distress.
thanks