Published on 12, July, 2020
My daughter had to leave mainstream school due to anxiety and depression as a result of masking for many years. She attended a smaller provision for children unable to access education due to mental or physical illness. Her attendance was still patchy, but she managed to sit her GCSE'S.
The next stage now is 6th Form College. She has a couple of options of courses to do, but will obviously have to attend the college. She has been looking forward to it, but yesterday was registration day (which she wanted to attend in person) and she had a panic attack on the way there.
Without getting bogged down in the details of reasonable adjustments etc, the reality is she may not be able to attend. Does anyone know What? Where? If? there is an alternative to physically attending 6th form?
I have contacted careers advisor who said she could do Maths and English on line course. But this is a functional skills one and she is beyond that, in "normal" circumstances she is very academic. I want her to feel she is moving forward without feeling overwhelmed.
Any advice would be appreciated, thanks in advance.
Thanks for your recent replies and not so recent. I posted this about a year ago now, so things have moved on. My daughter attended adult evening classes ( thank you Peter for the suggestion) to resit her GCSE Maths, which I am delighted to say she passed. This is the same college that she is now happily attending with her peers to sit her A levels. Having the chance to familiarise herself with the surroundings, doing something that she didn't find too taxing certainly helped and boosted her confidence. The college have been superb and so much more supportive than her secondary school.
However, evening classes were not offered to us as an option and it was only by being persistent that this was agreed. My advice to anyone reading this is look for an alternative and keep going until "they" run out of reasons to refuse.
Hi Penny, hopefully, some of the things that Eunice Mod recommends will work out well for your daughter, its so much better to find people who your daughter can feel comfortable with, but if she can’t, there are options for working alone that are infinitely preferable to working in a hostile environment. So, if the worse comes to the worst, then the revision texts for the exam will give your daughter the basics of what she needs to get through to pass the exam with A’s. If she reads those, she will get the essentials to pass the exams with A’s, and cut out the teachers who are just waffling to justify their salary - I understand that inspirational teachers exist, and they can make a huge difference, but I didn’t have any and I just figured it out. Ideally she’ll read the texts and then start to fill out the required stuff with the things that really tweak her own curiosity if she feels so inclined, to round out the curriculum with stuff that actually is inspiring. But probably the greatest thing your daughter can find is an environment that she feels comfortable in, take it from me, failing all your exams and feeling comfortable socially is infinitely preferable to getting straight A’s and feeling isolated. On the matter of panic attacks, its good - better than your daughter acting like some kind of robotic semi-human, which from experience, is what happened to me when I refused to acknowledge I was feeling something - panic attacks are just a way that your daughter’s body is telling her that there are things, emotionally, that she needs to pay attention to, in order to be a functioning human being rather than a robot that obeys the rules - when she becomes more fully herself, the panic attacks will lessen or disappear, this could take a year, or a lifetime, its impossible to predict - try not to be too narrow in your aspirations for her, or too judgement in your expectations of yourself, for what you ought to do for her - life is infinitely varied but we tend to look down very narrow tunnels in our expectations, in the end love is more important than anything else. Best of luck.
Penny Drop said:I have contacted careers advisor who said she could do Maths and English on line course. But this is a functional skills one and she is beyond that, in "normal"
Is that the best advice they could give.
I suggest try the open university and do the studying from home and online.
Thanks!
Adult college is an option. It offers the same courses but you are a bit less like cattle being herded.
Thank you that's very helpful
Hello,
Thanks for your reply. She is very good at writing and would like to pursue a career down that route. We are trying to put everything in place to enable her to attend college as we all know getting out each day with a purpose will be really good for her and it's what she wants. Experience has taught me to be realistic and have a back up plan though.
Hiya,
is there any accommodations that could be put in place for her? let her know that 6th form is a lot different to 'school', the timetable has a lot less on it, and people are a lot nicer and more supportive (in my experience)
what does she want to do? i know that you can do A-levels online, and basically teach yourself
good luck xx
Dear Penny,
Thank you for sharing your concern with us. While waiting for the community to respond, you may like to look at our page about education, https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/education.
There're schools which offer post-16 education, see for example, https://www.autism.org.uk/our-schools/sybil-elgar/about-us/curriculum/our-post-16-offer.
Thank you. I hope this helps.
Best regards,
Eunice Mod