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Special or Mainstream - which school is best?!

SusieL

HI - I'm new on here and have a dilemma I wonder if anyone could advise on please?

Our little boy is 5 - he has a diagnosis of autism and hypotonia. He started at our local mainstream primary school in September 2012. His Class teacher is also the Deputy Head and the SENCO at the school - she is fabulous and is doing all she can to include Jack in all that the class do. He has his one to one learning sessions and has a TA during lesson time and a lady that looks after him at lunchtimes. He has settled into the school better than we imagined - despite a rocky start when his newly appointed TA left before the new term even started and he had to attend part time until a replacement could be found. The second TA was amazing with him and used to working with autistic children - unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstance, he had to leave at Christmas. The TA who looks after him now isn't trained to work with autistic children but she is fabulous and very willing to learn everything she can to help him.

However, looking forward to September 2013 - I wonder if Jack will cope in Year 1 in a more formal learning environment that isn't sympathetic to a child with learning difficulties. We're now wondering if mainstream school is the right/best choice for Jack - are we being fair to him and would he be better off in a Special School? Has anyone else moved their child from mainstream to special - or, indeed, the other way round and for what reason? Any advice, comments would be most welcome. Thanks. x

Parents

  • my 4  children all have ASC,all have been removed from mainstream school as the environment there was very difficult for them, i found that teachers showed very little understanding or empathy towards the needs of my children, and they  spent the vast majority of the time really quite distressed there. Bullying was also a big problem. My youngest daughter also spent some time within a special school, she has also been removed due to staff again showing little understanding and by the headteachers own admission having no consistency and in dire need of staff training.

    My personal experience of education has been that its a god awfull let down,it has been nothing short of a nightmare for the kids and also for myself having to constantly battle and fight for everything.I found i was repeating  mysef over and over to schools and having no joy at all. i honestly dont believe that things will improve any time soon particularly with all of the cuts.

    When the negative experiences outweigh the positive benefits of attending school its time to give it up. i now home educate my children and all the stress is gone and the kids are much much happier. I understand that this is not for everyone, so my advice would be to speak with other parents who have children with ASC in the school  to see how good the school are at addressing their concerns and listening to them, find out as much as you can about how often they recieve up to date training, whether they have a high turnover of TAs as the changing faces  can be very unsettling, find out what will happen if your child does become distressed and whether an appropriatley qualified member of staff will be there to understand and deal with these kinds of situations. This advice stands for both special and mainstream, dont persume unless you opt for an Autism specific school that a special school will particularly be any better as they are often geared up to deal with moderate or severe learning difficulties and can themselves have difficulties with the Autism side if things . The key to your childs success will be in having really good  and understanding staff who will try to understand your childs  view of the world.

    As lou31 says there is no right or wrong, all you can do is what you think is best for your child after all you know him better that anyone.

    good luck

     

     

Reply

  • my 4  children all have ASC,all have been removed from mainstream school as the environment there was very difficult for them, i found that teachers showed very little understanding or empathy towards the needs of my children, and they  spent the vast majority of the time really quite distressed there. Bullying was also a big problem. My youngest daughter also spent some time within a special school, she has also been removed due to staff again showing little understanding and by the headteachers own admission having no consistency and in dire need of staff training.

    My personal experience of education has been that its a god awfull let down,it has been nothing short of a nightmare for the kids and also for myself having to constantly battle and fight for everything.I found i was repeating  mysef over and over to schools and having no joy at all. i honestly dont believe that things will improve any time soon particularly with all of the cuts.

    When the negative experiences outweigh the positive benefits of attending school its time to give it up. i now home educate my children and all the stress is gone and the kids are much much happier. I understand that this is not for everyone, so my advice would be to speak with other parents who have children with ASC in the school  to see how good the school are at addressing their concerns and listening to them, find out as much as you can about how often they recieve up to date training, whether they have a high turnover of TAs as the changing faces  can be very unsettling, find out what will happen if your child does become distressed and whether an appropriatley qualified member of staff will be there to understand and deal with these kinds of situations. This advice stands for both special and mainstream, dont persume unless you opt for an Autism specific school that a special school will particularly be any better as they are often geared up to deal with moderate or severe learning difficulties and can themselves have difficulties with the Autism side if things . The key to your childs success will be in having really good  and understanding staff who will try to understand your childs  view of the world.

    As lou31 says there is no right or wrong, all you can do is what you think is best for your child after all you know him better that anyone.

    good luck

     

     

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