Leaving school

PRUs are not prisons. Educational establishments are not allowed to prevent students from leaving unless there is a Deprivation of Liberty Order or similar. Staff are not allowed to use restraint to prevent a student from leaving. They will risk assess and contact the parent, emergency services etc. as necessary.  The police may have powers to return truants to school under s16 Crime and Disorder Act, but there is nothing to prevent them from just walking out again. Legally, it is the parent's duty under s444 Education Act 1996 to ensure their child attends school regularly.

Thanks Peter

I doubt that. 'Imagination" comes in many forms. imagining the right series of chess moves requires imagination. Imaging the gearing mechanism to move an object requires imagination. When they talk about imagination in autism they're usually talking about imagining social narratives. I bet if we gave her a rock and asked her to imagine what happened to it over the last 10000 years she's do much better. Likewise science, real science, isn't written with words, its written with maths and formula. When was the last time you saw a physicist or chemist write out a paragraph on a black board? It's all equations, diagrams and formula punctuated by the odd one or 2 sentence long note. Maybe they should be teaching her science in a more quantitative manor.

Yes, she is very lucky and we are getting to the bottom of her behaviour now...

So, she is in a PRU and receiving a more or less normal education just as in a mainstream school.

She's very lucky.

In the 1970s I spent a year in a 'special school' and the educational content of that school was ZERO.  The staff had given up and we were considered write-offs.

Hiya, she is 14 and with her grades, she is very smart with math but struggles with English and Science due to lack of imagination and writing long paragraphs and things like that but teachers are trying many ways to help and now are going to use visual pictures to see if that helps. 

My next question is what does leaving the school actually mean.  Does she go far or does she stay in the vicinity of the school?

What's the physical size of the school and it's boundary.

In my middle and secondary schools we were theoretically not allowed out.  But the gates were always open and many kids went to the local shops for snacks.  Although they usually didn't go more than a couple of hundred yards from the school gate.

How old is she? Is she getting good grades?

When I was 16, I used to sneak out of school sometimes and go off on adventures, mostly during lunch hours but I was often late for class. I was a straight A student so somehow got away with it. I was extremely bored and lonely and found school easy, so my sneaking out didn't affect my grades. Luckily my teachers trusted me because I was way smarter than all the other kids lol

She said she likes school and is happy to go and teachers say overall she is happy and that she wants to up her time going to school (she's on a reduced timetable). So, I don't really understand some of the behaviour, especially leaving. She hated Mainstream and used to wander round the school every day, but this isn't mainstream and she's happy so it's confusing. 

I'm speaking from my experiences.  For me school was a toxic environment, I just wanted to get out.

Ask her how she feels about school.

Thanks again. 

I don't know about that, I think that they could open them to a lot of legal issues if they started physically stopping kids from leaving the grounds especially kids that are on the spectrum that would be a question for the school it's self, maybe call the helpline on NAS they might be able to tell you. The helpline is being turned off soon so don't leave it too late.

Can they physically stop her from leaving? 

Thank you! xx 

You're welcome hopefully it'll get better as she gets older too and she gets a better understanding of things good luck!

Thanks O, this may help. She used to be running off all the time last year, especially when upset, and mainly in summer and always came into contact with emergency services, which made issues worse. Anyways, since she isn't allowed to be alone much, if there is a teacher with her and she goes up to the gate, they will ask her "........Where are you going?" and she'll just reply with "home", or "I'm bored" or now "to the shop". I've found out that she doesn't want to come home but just wants to wander somewhere and she doesn't like shops. Teacher's tell her that they need to keep her safe and ask her what's wrong and make sure she's alright, because she doesn't know that she is about to have a full blown meltdown or something. Luckily the school know the very first warning signs, the very little ones I even miss. 

Overall, I will inform her teacher's about this or even a visual 'STOP' sign on the gate or on the door for her since she understands them a lot better. 

Thanks, O. This is definitely helpful. 

Please let me know if this is helpful I'm not sure if it will be for your particular situation with regard to this problem in this post.

When I was younger I had a hard time understanding WHY I wasn't allowed to do things because the authority figures in my life didn't explain to me the actual reason why I couldn't do something and I always NEEDED a reason or I would just not obey certain things they would just say something like "because I said so" and that really aggravates me still today when I don't understand things that NT's do as I've gotten older and just learnt things over time I can adapt better now.

I also had an issue actually recognising who were authority figures (and still do a bit now I have to kick myself I would get into arguments with my teachers for example at school as a result).

So maybe just as a suggestion explain to her and give a proper reason as to why she can't just wonder off you could say " ...insert her name... you can't do that what if you get lost and we need to find you, and make sure you're safe" or "You need to tell someone where you are going so we can make sure you safe because anything can happen we need to make sure you're safe etc". You can obviously word it however you want for whatever situation happens.

Again I don't know if that might a be good solution you know your daughter better than anyone and how she thinks she might understand better if she gets an explanation. If not just ignore me haha

O

Apparently the students don't leave or truant much. The head teacher watches the gate and it's in clear view of the other classrooms. If they do jump it, you have to walk through the car park (which is quiet) and past reception and the staff area, so they can also see and let the teachers know the student has left. So the exits are all in view. Most of the students are there for 6-8 weeks and because of anxiety or medical conditions which mainstream schools can't handle, including pregnancy. Otherwise is just mainly because of other issues or behavioural issues or awaiting places at schools. 

This is a PRU right? One of the major reasons they get referrals is truancy. If they can't even keep track of students leaving school grounds they're an incompetent PRU. On the other hand playing devils advocate maybe the gate is the week spot they deliberately left in their perimeter to encourage students trying to escape to use that exit. That way if the gate is carefully watched it's harder for a student to leave with out them knowing?

To be honest, she likes the school, the teachers are great and always have back up plans and are great with dealing with issues. Unfortunately it's a PRU so there's a lot of challenging behaviour but there's also a lot of anxious students and many waiting places at other school (my daughter is). School is trying their best...