Daughter struggling to attend school, EW potentially pursuing prosecution

Hi - so sorry to hear of your daughters struggles - it sounds very familiar and I sympathise - it is so stressful and exhausting to go through for everyone.  

For someone to suggest to you that there is no point in an EHCP due to poor school attendance is crazy and wrong - the EHCP should be helping to provide education that is accessible.  If the child can't access education at school then the provision should be for EOTAS (Education Otherwise Than At School) that they can access.  This is what we were awarded but we had to go to tribunal to get it.  We used video as evidence to show the extreme trauma our son experienced in trying to attend school - but we had to film it ourselves as the school were not allowed to, so we filmed with the SENCO in attendance and the school gave evidence to the tribunal to support that our son  could not access education at school and that it wasn't reasonable to expect him or the school to manage the situation.  We were awarded an EHCP  to help with homeschooling and some mental health support.

We too waited for schools to sort out EHCP provision, but with hindsight, we should have made our own application for an EHCP straight away without waiting for the school to get round to it, and then appealed the inevitable refusal and gone sraight to tribunal.  We were daunted by the idea of tribunal but having done it once would definitely do so again.  

I can't offer any easy solutions but here is our experience.  Our son (autistic with selective mutism), having never found school easy or a good fit,  crashed out of school in year 7 as puberty loomed, and never really managed to get back in again.   I'm sure this isn't what you will want to hear but there is good news - after years of bumbling along feeling our way without having a clue, and finding everything an uphill battle, we have now started to come out of the woods and our son has found his mojo and even applied to university and actually wants to go.  How that will all work out is another matter but at least it promises the start of a new journey and allows him to experience a bit of success for a while...

Initially after crashing out in year 7 he was so depressd and anxious he couldn't manage much so he was totally out of school, to the extent of not even having a school place to try to go to. He did a bit of art and some coding as that is what he loves and is good at.  He also played an awful lot of computer games which we really worried about, but he found a supportive online friendship group which has actually really helped.  Also computing is 'his thing' and what he wants to study and the field he hopes to work in one day.  After a while of 'no pressure to perform' he relaxed and was able to re-engage a bit.

For a few terms of years 8/9 he managed at a special needs school and enjoyed having some company but was bored and not engaged.  We hoped the school would help us get an EHCP - but they didn't even attempt it. In hindsight if we could have found some sort of community engagement to provide some company for him, homeschooling would have been just as good an option as the SEN school and a lot cheaper as we had to self fund.

He managed a couple of terms at a mainstream scool in year 10.  We went this route thinking it would help get an EHCP.  Wrong!  The school took three terms to apply for an EHCP and didn't even have him on the SEN register which we were slow to pick up on...  He  struggled in group lessons for subjects that he finds difficult such as english language as his expressive language is weak, and subjects with project and group based work as his executive funtion is poor.  He ended up having quite severe mental health issues and becoming a full blown school refuser again and back at 'square one' re mental health - in fact it was worse teh second time around - so for us not a good decision to try to re-engage with mainstream.

Our exerience is the same as others have posted - that 'strategies' and pressure to attend school didn't work and just made things much worse and made him feel like a failure.  All the school failures traumatised him, and I wish we'd found the courage sooner to pull him out, take all the pressure off, and keep him out.  We have friends with autistic kids who managed school ok but our son struggled a lot with 'demand pressure / presure to perform' and school did him no favours at all.

As with your daughter, our son has never been able to explain in words what isn't working and what is causing his anxiety, and I dont think he ever will be able to voice his feelings very well.  Sometimes when he was younger I could get him to draw pictures to ilustrate his distress which helped me understand a bit.  Now he might use a very brief text message, but usually just hopes I will 'guess' correctly!  Professionals kept telling us to just find what he was good at and let him excel at that - which we listened to but didn't really hear and continued to worry about getting GCSEs and A levels and following the 'traditional' education path as we thought this was the best route to independence in the long term.  With hind sight I wish we could have relaxed about the academics more - as a previous poster has said, you can catch up on academics easily enough but recovery from mental health issues is so hard and slow and the effects of the trauma of school 'failures' are long lasting. 

So anyway, we limped through GCSEs with no school attendance throughout year 11 at all.  and ended up late in the day using online tuition to catch up which worked surpisingly well for subjects that suited (in our case maths and sciences) as the camera was off and communication was via instant messaging, and all lessons were recorded so could be replayed / caught up on later.  We used Academy21 which is designed for local authorities to use for kids exclued from / out of school.  He managed to get a few GCSEs which had to be supervised at home becasue of mental health. 

He had to start A levels online due to Covid - but found that actually helped because the camera could be off to share documents and also instant messaging as an alternative to speaking was an option.   Instant messaging was a life saver too when there were issues with a particular teacher and our son reverted to being mute.  A levels have been easier than GCSEs as he has been able to choose all the subjects and specialise in what he is interested in. He has now gained sufficiently in confidence to attend a (very) small but mainstream tuition college for A levels, has attended university open days, applied to university and is even excited about going - something which even 6 months ago we never dreamed possible.  He is a year or so behind his peers but taking an alternative and slower route seems to be coming through for him - whether he will manage university is entirely another matter.  He does though now at least believe he has a good chance of getting his A levels this year or next and wants to give university a go even if it takes another year or so of preparation - and more importantly, now that he has been offered a place at university he no longer feels a complete failure.

The only thing that has worked for us has been to go with our gut feeling - and we have been slow to trust this - I wish we had been braver sooner.  And we are still learning - no doubt university and the world of work will be another test...  Good luck in your journey with your daughter.

Hi - so sorry to hear of your daughters struggles - it sounds very familiar and I sympathise - it is so stressful and exhausting to go through for everyone.  

For someone to suggest to you that there is no point in an EHCP due to poor school attendance is crazy and wrong - the EHCP should be helping to provide education that is accessible.  If the child can't access education at school then the provision should be for EOTAS (Education Otherwise Than At School) that they can access.  This is what we were awarded but we had to go to tribunal to get it.  We used video as evidence to show the extreme trauma our son experienced in trying to attend school - but we had to film it ourselves as the school were not allowed to, so we filmed with the SENCO in attendance and the school gave evidence to the tribunal to support that our son  could not access education at school and that it wasn't reasonable to expect him or the school to manage the situation.  We were awarded an EHCP  to help with homeschooling and some mental health support.

We too waited for schools to sort out EHCP provision, but with hindsight, we should have made our own application for an EHCP straight away without waiting for the school to get round to it, and then appealed the inevitable refusal and gone sraight to tribunal.  We were daunted by the idea of tribunal but having done it once would definitely do so again.  

I can't offer any easy solutions but here is our experience.  Our son (autistic with selective mutism), having never found school easy or a good fit,  crashed out of school in year 7 as puberty loomed, and never really managed to get back in again.   I'm sure this isn't what you will want to hear but there is good news - after years of bumbling along feeling our way without having a clue, and finding everything an uphill battle, we have now started to come out of the woods and our son has found his mojo and even applied to university and actually wants to go.  How that will all work out is another matter but at least it promises the start of a new journey and allows him to experience a bit of success for a while...

Initially after crashing out in year 7 he was so depressd and anxious he couldn't manage much so he was totally out of school, to the extent of not even having a school place to try to go to. He did a bit of art and some coding as that is what he loves and is good at.  He also played an awful lot of computer games which we really worried about, but he found a supportive online friendship group which has actually really helped.  Also computing is 'his thing' and what he wants to study and the field he hopes to work in one day.  After a while of 'no pressure to perform' he relaxed and was able to re-engage a bit.

For a few terms of years 8/9 he managed at a special needs school and enjoyed having some company but was bored and not engaged.  We hoped the school would help us get an EHCP - but they didn't even attempt it. In hindsight if we could have found some sort of community engagement to provide some company for him, homeschooling would have been just as good an option as the SEN school and a lot cheaper as we had to self fund.

He managed a couple of terms at a mainstream scool in year 10.  We went this route thinking it would help get an EHCP.  Wrong!  The school took three terms to apply for an EHCP and didn't even have him on the SEN register which we were slow to pick up on...  He  struggled in group lessons for subjects that he finds difficult such as english language as his expressive language is weak, and subjects with project and group based work as his executive funtion is poor.  He ended up having quite severe mental health issues and becoming a full blown school refuser again and back at 'square one' re mental health - in fact it was worse teh second time around - so for us not a good decision to try to re-engage with mainstream.

Our exerience is the same as others have posted - that 'strategies' and pressure to attend school didn't work and just made things much worse and made him feel like a failure.  All the school failures traumatised him, and I wish we'd found the courage sooner to pull him out, take all the pressure off, and keep him out.  We have friends with autistic kids who managed school ok but our son struggled a lot with 'demand pressure / presure to perform' and school did him no favours at all.

As with your daughter, our son has never been able to explain in words what isn't working and what is causing his anxiety, and I dont think he ever will be able to voice his feelings very well.  Sometimes when he was younger I could get him to draw pictures to ilustrate his distress which helped me understand a bit.  Now he might use a very brief text message, but usually just hopes I will 'guess' correctly!  Professionals kept telling us to just find what he was good at and let him excel at that - which we listened to but didn't really hear and continued to worry about getting GCSEs and A levels and following the 'traditional' education path as we thought this was the best route to independence in the long term.  With hind sight I wish we could have relaxed about the academics more - as a previous poster has said, you can catch up on academics easily enough but recovery from mental health issues is so hard and slow and the effects of the trauma of school 'failures' are long lasting. 

So anyway, we limped through GCSEs with no school attendance throughout year 11 at all.  and ended up late in the day using online tuition to catch up which worked surpisingly well for subjects that suited (in our case maths and sciences) as the camera was off and communication was via instant messaging, and all lessons were recorded so could be replayed / caught up on later.  We used Academy21 which is designed for local authorities to use for kids exclued from / out of school.  He managed to get a few GCSEs which had to be supervised at home becasue of mental health. 

He had to start A levels online due to Covid - but found that actually helped because the camera could be off to share documents and also instant messaging as an alternative to speaking was an option.   Instant messaging was a life saver too when there were issues with a particular teacher and our son reverted to being mute.  A levels have been easier than GCSEs as he has been able to choose all the subjects and specialise in what he is interested in. He has now gained sufficiently in confidence to attend a (very) small but mainstream tuition college for A levels, has attended university open days, applied to university and is even excited about going - something which even 6 months ago we never dreamed possible.  He is a year or so behind his peers but taking an alternative and slower route seems to be coming through for him - whether he will manage university is entirely another matter.  He does though now at least believe he has a good chance of getting his A levels this year or next and wants to give university a go even if it takes another year or so of preparation - and more importantly, now that he has been offered a place at university he no longer feels a complete failure.

The only thing that has worked for us has been to go with our gut feeling - and we have been slow to trust this - I wish we had been braver sooner.  And we are still learning - no doubt university and the world of work will be another test...  Good luck in your journey with your daughter.

Sorry for being slow to reply, thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed response. I'm still a little concerned at the lack of EHCP to be honest, although things are looking more positive now. It's still in the back of my mind though, we'll definitely start pushing for one again if we start to feel like we're running out of options again. Thank you for sharing your story, I hope your son continues to get some positives!

It’s fascinating to hear about your son’s story. So many aspects of it connect my son’s situation. I totally agree about wishing you’d followed your gut instinct - I wish I had too. The thing is we are learning as we go and so often don’t have the confidence early on to go against what schools are telling us. I remember my son’s Primary school staff and Ed. psychs telling us “there’s not much point trying to get an EHCP - it wouldn’t make much difference” - which was absolute rubbish! I didn’t even have access to the internet when my son started school so researching these things myself was very difficult. 

I’m so glad that your son has got things back on track now with his education - I hope Uni goes well for him.