I'm still finding my way around things but how do I go about getting a statement for my son and can a school refuse to do a statement?
Our 5 year old son was diagnosed on the spectrum in July 2015 but we had suspicions since aged 3. During his time in reception year at school he did amazing! He went from being very difficult to understand to someone who can have a conversation about what interests him, his reading ability is far greater than either of us parents. In school he was a bright and popular child, at home he was still a bright child but sadly the kids on the street we live on have always refused to play.
Since going back to school into year one we've noticed a big change. He will no longer tell us about school, he won't read school books and is genuinely not himself. As the weeks have gone on he's begun to wake up at 2am, coming in our bed complaining of nightmares of people picking on him which we have since found out is actually being bullied at school then trying to find reasons not to go to school. I've asked him if he finds school easy or hard, his answer is its hard as his teacher says too many words and he can't understand (she's also Australian so it's a new accent for him to get used to) until the teacher starts teaching with pictures then he can understand.
We arranged a meeting with the school to discuss these problems along with a few other issues we have and we've been told that they're going to make a book with him so he can show us what he does at school so he can relate home and school together and they're going to monitor the bullying but said they'd struggle to help with other problems such as toilet use (he always needs someone with him whilst using the toilet and cleaning himself, scared of hand dryers etc). This made me wonder if they helped during his reception year.
We've since gone on and found a local school which is for children with disabilities and have all the help on site that we could ask for to hopefully make our sons learning a lot more enjoyable and not a stressful time for us as parents but we've been told for him to get a place, we need a statement to even get on the admission list but now we have no idea how we get this statement or if the school can turn down doing it.... any advise would be appreciated. I'd happily take my son out of school and home teach him but I personally would struggle to teach him within the curriculum guidelines especially as I didn't do well at school and also we would rather he had the chance to mix with others as he doesn't get to mix with anyone outside of school
