16 year old...autistic..aspergers..etc etc..advice please for home schooling..college..

Good to see some insight into the college system. I think though it varies a lot, and your college sounds pretty switched on to disability support, from the provisions you describe.

I think a lot of colleges fall well short of this. Concern should apply to both secondary colleges and Further Education colleges, and to Universities.  Towards the latter end teaching staff cannot talk to parents because the contract is with the student and it breaches confidentiality. Support staff may be able to talk to parents.

The other thing is what is communicated between the disability support team and the tutor/lecturer working directly with the student. This remains problemmatic. Because of the Social Model a lot of universities try to work on the principle that disability support sorts out the reasonable adjustments, and the teaching staff shouldn't need to get involved.

It just doesn't work that way and invariably leads to disaster. Teaching staff are not just going into a teaching room and talking, they are often in one-to-one roles and they are assessors (marking coursework). In the latter I've seen so many strategies where the markers get bald instructions about allowances for a given student as if that is all the marker needs to know.

Students often assume their teachers know their problems when even internally that information is only passed on on a need to know basis, and the information the teacher gets may be very uninformative. This leads to very strange discussions between tutor and teacher.

Quiet places are rare, and privacy to unwind even rarer. Amnazing the number of colleges and universities that put up an area of seats in a busy corridor as a designated "quiet place". Or seats outside are used by smokers. Or that hardly used room supposedly set aside is where staff go to eat their sandwiches, or where a class is taken to when there's a double booking.  Another daft thing is the designated refuge in event of fire is also the designated quiet place when these are often next to the fire alarm.

On the student retention side of things these days resources are tight and many institutions are thinking time lost chasing after disabled students is less time trying to keep the majority enrolled. And despite all the scare stories few colleges have been prosecuted or sued for failing to support a disabled student. So provisions hard won are now unravelling.

Good though that you've demonstrated how a good college responds.

Good to see some insight into the college system. I think though it varies a lot, and your college sounds pretty switched on to disability support, from the provisions you describe.

I think a lot of colleges fall well short of this. Concern should apply to both secondary colleges and Further Education colleges, and to Universities.  Towards the latter end teaching staff cannot talk to parents because the contract is with the student and it breaches confidentiality. Support staff may be able to talk to parents.

The other thing is what is communicated between the disability support team and the tutor/lecturer working directly with the student. This remains problemmatic. Because of the Social Model a lot of universities try to work on the principle that disability support sorts out the reasonable adjustments, and the teaching staff shouldn't need to get involved.

It just doesn't work that way and invariably leads to disaster. Teaching staff are not just going into a teaching room and talking, they are often in one-to-one roles and they are assessors (marking coursework). In the latter I've seen so many strategies where the markers get bald instructions about allowances for a given student as if that is all the marker needs to know.

Students often assume their teachers know their problems when even internally that information is only passed on on a need to know basis, and the information the teacher gets may be very uninformative. This leads to very strange discussions between tutor and teacher.

Quiet places are rare, and privacy to unwind even rarer. Amnazing the number of colleges and universities that put up an area of seats in a busy corridor as a designated "quiet place". Or seats outside are used by smokers. Or that hardly used room supposedly set aside is where staff go to eat their sandwiches, or where a class is taken to when there's a double booking.  Another daft thing is the designated refuge in event of fire is also the designated quiet place when these are often next to the fire alarm.

On the student retention side of things these days resources are tight and many institutions are thinking time lost chasing after disabled students is less time trying to keep the majority enrolled. And despite all the scare stories few colleges have been prosecuted or sued for failing to support a disabled student. So provisions hard won are now unravelling.

Good though that you've demonstrated how a good college responds.