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Turned Away from School

Breizh

Hello all,

As I mentioned in the Introduction message I posted last week we arrived in Bristol from France in August with our 7 year old son who has ASD.

We are currently trying to find a school for him and we have just been turned away by a school in which were supposed to have a place as notified by the City Council Admissions department.

The headmaster clearly does not want our son in his school and plays the guilt angle on us: 'I do not have resources available and if I accept your son - which I cannot technically decline - I'll have to deprive another child with SEN in the class of half of the support time he is currently getting in order to look after yours'.

I suppose we could force our way in and impose our son on that school but we feel that if the staff does not want him we are headed for failure right from the start.

Reading the comments on this discussion board I understand that SEN are difficult to get for some autistic children.

We have an ASD diagnosis from a French child pshychiatrist. Would this help obtaining a statement in UK?

Does the educational system in UK require a child to be in a school before applying for SEN, or can it be done even if we do not currently have a school place?

Thanks for any help,

Breizh 

Parents

  • I'm certainly going to report this to the council's school admissions department.

    We had a bad feeling with this person right from the start during the interview. I don't know how the admission process should normally work but refusal was made up front, without a look at our son or at the work he did previously (writing, math). 

    Obviously language is going to be a significant difficulty and I'm not sure French-speaking assistance can be easily found to help with Benoit's speech delay.

    We have contacts with two more mainstream schools who do manage their own admissions. One of them at least seems to show some interest in trying to see what can be done to addess Benoit's needs.

    We are to meet the other school on Thursday (Head Teacher and Senco). If we hit the budget wall again I fear we may have to keep our son out of school altogether.

    Breizh

Reply

  • I'm certainly going to report this to the council's school admissions department.

    We had a bad feeling with this person right from the start during the interview. I don't know how the admission process should normally work but refusal was made up front, without a look at our son or at the work he did previously (writing, math). 

    Obviously language is going to be a significant difficulty and I'm not sure French-speaking assistance can be easily found to help with Benoit's speech delay.

    We have contacts with two more mainstream schools who do manage their own admissions. One of them at least seems to show some interest in trying to see what can be done to addess Benoit's needs.

    We are to meet the other school on Thursday (Head Teacher and Senco). If we hit the budget wall again I fear we may have to keep our son out of school altogether.

    Breizh

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