Help Needed - ASD Girl & Schooling

Hello there,

I desperately would like your opinion on wether we should keep my daughter in a mainstream school or move to a specialist school [Edited by moderator]. Any advice and opinions will be greatly appreciated.

There are 3 options to consider. 1) Continue on in to the feeder mainstream with her friends, 2 of which she’s very close to. They’d be a good handover/transition programme. It’s local and we have a group of mums that meet regularly (good for play dates for her etc)

2) An independent specialist speech and language school (an hours commute in rush hour) but excellent provision. Very small class sizes and continues till age 16. Although there would be only one girl in her class and few in the whole school.

 3) A private school who accept and have some experience of ASD (LEA have alluded that they’d fund as cheaper than specialist). Which will be smaller class sizes and still amongst typically developing peers.

My issue is that I feel the specialist school [Edited by moderator] will effect her social development negatively, as there will be no typically developing peers and she learns so much from them. The friends she chooses are always the most outgoing/ intelligent ones and she’s only interested in girls! The specialist school has a few girls, but is vastly populated by boys. I’m also not sure she’ll fit in there, but I think I may in denial about how much her ASD effects her (she’s amazing at masking and is very socially appropriate). She’s a very vibrant girl who her school as described as very socially motivated. She’s clever (scored high on non-verbal reasoning assessment, but very behind academically which is effecting her confidence. (She received an EHCP and 1:1 support about 9 months ago). She presents with poor attention/focus, a significant language disorder (although only specialists would/have picked it up, as she compensates using context and clues). She has some sensory needs, but they’re not very significant. She completed a trial at Blossom House and enjoyed it, although she said that some of the children worried her as she thought they "had something wrong with their brain". She also said,  some of them made loud noises all of a sudden and she "wanted to try and stay away from them" I explained to her that there wasn't something "wrong" with them, but she said they still worried her.

I never hear any success stories about ASD girls in mainstream, they’re all sad stories about mental health issues brought on by stress etc. She’s coping in mainstream  now, but it’s a very small, nurturing infant school, I don’t know how well she’ll cope as she moves up in to keystage 3.  I really don’t know what to do, but I so want to do right by her.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks in advance. 

[Edited by Ayshe mod]