I feel like my child's school hides the kids with autism.

This can actually be classified as the school stigmatising, shaming, and shunning the autistic children as well as being discriminatory. 

Everyone deserves to be seen no matter what they've achieved. Everyone's a genius if we judge them by their talents, what would we think of Einstein if we judged him by his dancing skills? I don't think we would see him as an expert. 

The education system is to focused on the deficit approach instead of looking at their abilities. If you can, record on your phone images or a video of what your child can do and ask the Head teacher why don't people get to see their talents?

You could point out to them just how lame and stupid grades are, point out all they passed was a memory test as these standardised tests are unrealistic, lack mundane realism, are just recalling what they were told during the year, no collaboration, no reasoning, no analysing, and no skills for real life situations. Let them see they're shouting out to the public;

"Look at us, this year we got an A* at a useless memory test, our A*s are going to be useless when we grow up."

In my view, academics are grossly overrated. 

I think you should talk to other parents of autistic kids at your school and then meet with the head.

Yes there are sensory and communication challenges but autistic kids have right to participate. I'm intrigued as to why they are all in one class. I get that it may be easier to manage the environment, but at the end of the day they are going to have to live in a majority neurotypical world. There should be an opportunity for NT kids to learn about autism and how to respect difference, as much as for autistic kids to find strategies to negotiate life without heavily masking.

At the end of the day, it's discriminatory to exclude the autistic kids and everyone misses out.

As for the nativity play.... When I got my diagnosis, (I was 56), my mother cried. "But, you could have had the 'help' when you were at school"; she said. Well, there wasn't any in the 70s, but if 'help' had looked like exclusion from the school play, no thanks! That kind of 'help' I would not have needed. I was VERY good at drama and often in a lead role! The respect I got for my contribution, helped end the bullying.

How dare they exclude the autistic kids. 

I have a feeling they may not have anyone who understands autism for the production and rather than possibly take on a complex unknown situation that could potentially be overwhelming, may have found themselves frozen over what to do. Mind, this all needs to change. I'm trying to work on ways to make Autism easy to understand. 

Society is funny. I have a gluten allergy and have noticed most places now just simply avoid having GF options as they've realised it's a serious health concern and not a 'lifestyle'. This is somewhat part of life. I just find my tribe and get on with things. 

See if you can text the other parents and maybe take the children carolling together. Or arrange to sing around a tree or at a space everyone feels comfortable in.

Hope you manage to get some sense out of the school soon. Seems a shame for him to miss out if he enjoys Christmas 

Thanks for the reply. I would love to get to know the other parents and maybe have an opportunity to chat through a coffee morning or something like that. Most of the children go home via taxi so I've only ever met 2 of the parents. The one didn't want to chat which is ok by me and the other lady seems very lovely and we do have a small chat when we are at the gates together. The class finishes earlier than school so I'm usually stood at the gate on my own. I do wish things could be very different for individuals on the spectrum . I have autism and I am proud of my individuality and my differences. I dont think it should be hidden as I feel it is being to some degree. 

Thanks for the reply. There isn't much communication really so it's hard to know what's going on unless I ask which I do. My little one is none verbal so I don't know what is happening unless I'm told by the teachers. Before this unit opened my child would be involved in nativities etc and it did upset him that he wasn't. He repeats things that he hears and was singing the songs in the Christmas production so why they didn't include him I just don't know. I did bring it up at parents evening but it wasn't fully addressed. I do understand the difficulties surrounding routine changes especially at Christmas. I just feel like there is a lack of inclusion for activities I know my child would enjoy.

Oh I managed to delete my reply, it looked like it posted twice but they both went.

Do you know if the children want to be involved? Christmas in particular can be a really chaotic time with carol concerts and nativities and parties. It can be noisy, bright and very busy in the schools. The school may have found that the autistic children react better to having minimal disruption to their routines. Maybe it would be fairer for them to give the children a choice though, especially at Christmas. Are there confidentiality and safeguarding issues with posting photos of children with the obvious link to the unit? These are things the school should be communicating with you though if you’ve raised concerns

I think society might be going through a transitional time where no one knows what autism actually is and what to do. There's a bit of a general feeling of "damned if I do, damned if I don't". But not giving Autistic Children the option is probably also a result of not wanting to be cancelled like Sia for "Autism Moms" who are clueless about ABA and using their child to virtue signal. 

Is it possible to create a community with the other parents of Autistic children and do something collective? I would just do this. It will possibly be better for everyone involved and will actually facilitate building real community. This would relieve pressure off kids who don't want to participate and might actually turn out much better than what the school would do anyway :)