Transition to University

Hi De-De

I'm not sure that I have any specific advice to offer you that will help, but I can tell you a bit more about my son's circumstances.

My son had a particularly traumatic time in mainstream schools.  He has always been bright but suffered at school because he was unable to get anything down on paper which they could assess.  As a result he was streamed in the lowest groups and was getting more & more angry & frustrated.  To cut a long story short at senior school he just 'crumpled' one day and practically started hybernating.  From this we got a diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome and a referral to a specialist finally gave us the dyslexia & dyspraxia diagnosis with a high IQ.  After many months off school we started to get him back for a few hours, then days etc.  Then he stopped attending again and we were back to square one.  He was referred to CAMHS and had a brilliant person who worked with him gaining his trust and who looked at the previous specialists report and said he had asperger's syndrome.  We then communicated all this to the school and the LEA who by this time were getting involved due to his non-attendance.

Because my son was finding it so traumatic to go into the school (he felt bullied by his year head - who actually pushed for us to be prosecuted over my son's non attendance (the headmaster put a stop to this)), we were able to access the LEA's ESTMAA service for children who have anxiety.  Through this we were given 5 hours of tuition a week from tutors which my son was able to use to study for a limited number of GCSE's.  He had tuition in English, Mathematics & Science, which he went to the local library to have on a regular basis.  Because Maths & Science were easy subjects for him he was able to get good GCSE passes in these.  He did not sit GCSE English because he would not have been able to get enough down on paper, so I took him to sit the City & Guilds Literacy Certificate which is the equivalent of a GCSE pass.  This is a multiple choice paper done on a computer.

With these he had enough passes to get into college for a BTEC National Diploma in Media Production.  The course was very practical, and required a lot of course work, but he had the assistance of helpers at college to make notes and I gave him a lot of help at home by typing work out for him for his folders which had to be submitted for assessment.  He still had a number of problems at college, so it certainly wasn't easy.  These were mainly about team working which he finds particularly difficult.

To return to your own situation I would say, check out all the possible assistance available from your LEA and the health service.  In retrospect if my son had remained in school I would have been arguing for him to do fewer subjects than the norm, concentrating on the ones he was passionate about.  The 1:1 tutoring my son had in the end was very time limited, but also worth twice as much as it was so personalised to him and his learning styles.

I would also try to find out your son's preferred learning style.  My son is very visual, learning from TV, and can absorb things from radio or audio books.  He will struggle forever if you ask him to read a book because he has to go over sentences again and again.  My son never got to grips with the dictation software on the computer but I'm going to have to force him to try again with it at University.  If you could get your son to tackle this now this may help him with exams and course work.  I would also suggest trying a touch typing course.  My son struggles with handwriting.  It can take him several minutes just to write his signature.  However he can type with two fingers relatively easily, though my attempts so far to get him to learn touch typing have been resisted.

Above all I would say it is also necessary to get a sense of proportion.  When my son was doing his GCSE's I told him that though it was important then, by a few years time no one would be particularly interested in his exam results, how many he had, or the particular grades, by the time he had moved onto the next level.

You can probably see from my comments why I say that my son has managed to 'survive' school and college, and why we both approach him going to University with some trepidation.  However I think universities are a little more set up to accommodate different types of learners and learning styles.  University learning is more about independent thinking and encourages the sort of discussion and debate that my son thrives on.  School is more about learning the answer which someone else has already decided is right.  This is a challenge to my son - he will argue til the cows come home - and thereby annoyed the school teachers because they might appear less than 'perfect' in front of the other students.

I therefore think that whatever you decide to do with your son you need to play on his strengths - both in terms of his subject passions, as well as the way he likes to learn.  You may find that you need to educate his school to look more 'outside the box' in the way he is taught.  I found my son's school very rigid in its methods and too much like a sausage factory where everyone needs to be turned out to conform to the same standards, shape and size.  

I hope this helps a little.  There are some good people out there who care and do want to help in the right way.  We struck lucky with two people from CAMHS and ESTMAA services who went out of their ways to help.  

Come back to me if you've any more questions you think I can help with.

Hi De-De

I'm not sure that I have any specific advice to offer you that will help, but I can tell you a bit more about my son's circumstances.

My son had a particularly traumatic time in mainstream schools.  He has always been bright but suffered at school because he was unable to get anything down on paper which they could assess.  As a result he was streamed in the lowest groups and was getting more & more angry & frustrated.  To cut a long story short at senior school he just 'crumpled' one day and practically started hybernating.  From this we got a diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome and a referral to a specialist finally gave us the dyslexia & dyspraxia diagnosis with a high IQ.  After many months off school we started to get him back for a few hours, then days etc.  Then he stopped attending again and we were back to square one.  He was referred to CAMHS and had a brilliant person who worked with him gaining his trust and who looked at the previous specialists report and said he had asperger's syndrome.  We then communicated all this to the school and the LEA who by this time were getting involved due to his non-attendance.

Because my son was finding it so traumatic to go into the school (he felt bullied by his year head - who actually pushed for us to be prosecuted over my son's non attendance (the headmaster put a stop to this)), we were able to access the LEA's ESTMAA service for children who have anxiety.  Through this we were given 5 hours of tuition a week from tutors which my son was able to use to study for a limited number of GCSE's.  He had tuition in English, Mathematics & Science, which he went to the local library to have on a regular basis.  Because Maths & Science were easy subjects for him he was able to get good GCSE passes in these.  He did not sit GCSE English because he would not have been able to get enough down on paper, so I took him to sit the City & Guilds Literacy Certificate which is the equivalent of a GCSE pass.  This is a multiple choice paper done on a computer.

With these he had enough passes to get into college for a BTEC National Diploma in Media Production.  The course was very practical, and required a lot of course work, but he had the assistance of helpers at college to make notes and I gave him a lot of help at home by typing work out for him for his folders which had to be submitted for assessment.  He still had a number of problems at college, so it certainly wasn't easy.  These were mainly about team working which he finds particularly difficult.

To return to your own situation I would say, check out all the possible assistance available from your LEA and the health service.  In retrospect if my son had remained in school I would have been arguing for him to do fewer subjects than the norm, concentrating on the ones he was passionate about.  The 1:1 tutoring my son had in the end was very time limited, but also worth twice as much as it was so personalised to him and his learning styles.

I would also try to find out your son's preferred learning style.  My son is very visual, learning from TV, and can absorb things from radio or audio books.  He will struggle forever if you ask him to read a book because he has to go over sentences again and again.  My son never got to grips with the dictation software on the computer but I'm going to have to force him to try again with it at University.  If you could get your son to tackle this now this may help him with exams and course work.  I would also suggest trying a touch typing course.  My son struggles with handwriting.  It can take him several minutes just to write his signature.  However he can type with two fingers relatively easily, though my attempts so far to get him to learn touch typing have been resisted.

Above all I would say it is also necessary to get a sense of proportion.  When my son was doing his GCSE's I told him that though it was important then, by a few years time no one would be particularly interested in his exam results, how many he had, or the particular grades, by the time he had moved onto the next level.

You can probably see from my comments why I say that my son has managed to 'survive' school and college, and why we both approach him going to University with some trepidation.  However I think universities are a little more set up to accommodate different types of learners and learning styles.  University learning is more about independent thinking and encourages the sort of discussion and debate that my son thrives on.  School is more about learning the answer which someone else has already decided is right.  This is a challenge to my son - he will argue til the cows come home - and thereby annoyed the school teachers because they might appear less than 'perfect' in front of the other students.

I therefore think that whatever you decide to do with your son you need to play on his strengths - both in terms of his subject passions, as well as the way he likes to learn.  You may find that you need to educate his school to look more 'outside the box' in the way he is taught.  I found my son's school very rigid in its methods and too much like a sausage factory where everyone needs to be turned out to conform to the same standards, shape and size.  

I hope this helps a little.  There are some good people out there who care and do want to help in the right way.  We struck lucky with two people from CAMHS and ESTMAA services who went out of their ways to help.  

Come back to me if you've any more questions you think I can help with.