Published on 12, July, 2020
I am on the search for whether there are actually special schools out there anywhere in the UK that fulfil the needs and academic potential of kids with ASD when they are predicted to get straight 8+'s (A's in old money) based on SAT's and cognitive scores.
Having looked at every special school (whether state or independent) within about 30 miles of me I haven't found any that give me a great deal of confidence.
My son is a Year 7 (just going into 8) boy with High Functioning ASD who is refusing school and has just (today) been approved for an EHC assessment so I am trying to work out options depending on what comes back.
I am expecting the recommendation to be that he has some reintegration work followed by extra support in hs present mainstream school.
Although this is probably the best chance he would have resultswise, I doubt this will work for him as he is not keen to return (even though it has a tiny 3 place ASD provision onsite he could go into - he sees this as a prison for weird kids!). He doesn't have 'behavioural problems' as such, but will meltdown if a specific type of situation occurs (say every 3 weeks or so in school) and and it does scare them a bit as he is 6ft tall!
A possible second path could be some home tutoring/online learning combined with me continuing to deliver his education (this isn't ideal for many reasons, mostly because I fear the lack of socialisation).
Our big issue is that academically he is off the scale (KS2 SAT's at the highest national standardised score or a point off, CAT test 137 etc) so I am concerned that from what I can see he is only likely to achieve that potential in a mainstream setting, though I doubt he can deal with that on an emotional level.
So I guess my questions are:
Has anyone faced this situation, what did you do, and did it get you a positive outcome?
Are you in this or a similar situation now, and what are you doing/planning to do?
Does anyone have a high achieving child attending a Special School and is actually fullfilling that potential by beng on track to get some really good results (or has a child that has done so)?
If so where is this school, and does it specialise in high functioning/high achieving, or cater for a wide range of disabilities?
Any other relevent comments or advice welcome!
Thanks all for your advice - it seems little has changed over the years and I think your experiences are still very valid in the current climate.
I am expecting the EHCP to come back saying support in mainstream school, which in actual fact will translate to what we are doing now as I can't see him willing to go back in (so a continuation of work sent home which I augment with online/workbooks + series record on BBC Four for anything interesting!). They may send a tutor to aid reintegration..... this would be avery long term process, something that the Educational Psychologist and I agree on.
Unusually there is a special school about 8 miles away that has a mainstream supported ASD unit attached to it, so maybe we will get lucky.
I think our biggest obstacle is that my son is still in denial (even though we had a diagnosis at 8) and getting help makes it too real, so he is not keen on any intervention/assistance at all really, and puberty doesn't help! As alluded to in one post, mental health is the most important thing and that is also where my priority lies.