Ok we have our first Taf in December, school bout in a private Ot and are buying in a private Ed pych, my son sees the peadatrician every 4 months, salt and audiologist.
My son is regulary threatening to kill himself and trying too, school know this, my son is getting massibley anxious about school too so is kicking off most morning.
What is going on? surely he should still be on an iep?
Hi NarniaAspie,
Not sure if your situation has eased a little since your post. I just wanted to say that I am a new-ish SENCO in my school and all the new Code of Practice changes are still being worked out in some schools and Local Authorities, it's tricky. My advice, if you haven't already done so, is to contact your Local Authority and see if they have parental partners on the SEND team who can advise you on what support your child should be receiving if they do not have a Statement or Education Health Care Plan. As far as I was aware, schools have to put in support for individuals in the first place, using their own funding (always a tricky issue) and then in future and if appropriate apply for an EHC plan, so support should be being offered if there is not EHC in place. Also check out your school website. It is now necessary that all schools should put information regarding SEN, known as a Local offer/ school report. Within this your child's school should state how they support children with needs in their school and how the Local Authority supports children, regardless of if the child has a Statement or EHC plan. Hope this was helpful?!
Unfortunately the more he displays different behaviour, such as distress, the more ribbing he will get. It is a vicious circle.
It is altogether saddening that you have to leave your son at the school gates in an environment where he is vulnerable and where you cannot be confident that the teachers understand.
Teachers cannot see everything. If his classmates think there is sport in making fun of him, or getting him worked up, they will find plenty of opportunities. The pressure he goes through at school is going to be reflected in desperate responses at home. He may later be able to conform in school and keep a low profile but that may make reactions worse at home as others report.
I endured this kind of bullying from the start of primary through to the end of my secondary education. Changing schools made no odds as the word got around very quickly. Even when I tried to go to college one day a week, contemporaries from a school I had gone to, turned up and told everyone about me.
I get very agitated by loud noises, sudden movements, too much going on. My peers found they could work me up to an explosive response just by making loud noises behind me, crowding round and waving their arms in my face, shouting and jostling.
To the school teachers I wasn't being physically bullied, I was over-reacting to teasing. I'm big enough, I should have been able to fight back. That just made it more entertaining.
That was my day, everyday. Break times, classrooms without the teacher, changing rooms, corridors, toilets, I was the target for collective entertainment. I didn't have a diagnisis (diagnosed mid fifties). I didn't have an excuse. I was deemed immature and weak willed. It was deemed to be my fault.
I don't know what happens now in schools. With a diagnosis surely there is protection from this kind of bullying. I do wonder.
So I suggest again, why can we not have Enter & View in schools. Local NAS branches, if not too resource strapped, might be able to do this.
I dont know Longman, i do know we had another hellish morning this morning, its getting really draining, i lost my mother 5 weeks ago, she got buried 2 weeks ago, ive not been able to grieve because ive been too busy sorting my son out, which i dont mind. The day before her funeral he has a massive meltdown where he was extremley violent again, which happens quite often.
This morning i got a few punches in the face and had to try and bribe him to go in or threaten him with losing his xbox if he diddnt, it shouldnt have to be like this, anyway a teacher came out as i was having a go at this other child who was stood there when my son was kicking off saying ha ha ha, so i said to the child i will be telling your teacher, i thought what a little **** and then my son said he was going to kill himself! anyway teache took us both in and had a chat with him, then i left, but i hate leaving him like that.
There probably needs to be another way of addressing this.
Autism is still little understood. So it is easy to see why, in a resource constrained environment, someone decides that they have to concentrate on "really needy" children, simply because the underlying nature of autism difficulties is not sufficiently appparent (I blame the parroting of the Triad of Impairments - it doesn't cover many real issues and it is too complex to get the important points across to teachers).
The current assumption is schools provide support, on their own terms. Indeed schools are very defensive against external interference. They insist on being the experts in teaching children with disabilities. If they aren't getting it right then there are grounds for more intervention.
Funding any change in tactics is going to be tricky. Maybe it will take a few better off parents to get this started, and though they may be sending their children to better schools, the problems may occur there. The other option is getting volunteers for this.
Local authorities have volunteers for the "Enter and View" scheme. Enter and View is used to assess care homes, hospices, special schools etc. Basically volunteers with some training go into places where disabled or elderly are cared for to make sure things are going appropriately. The resource is stretched but this is a model that could be adapted to support autistic children in mainstream schools.
Basically a case needs to be made for observers to go into schools to assess whether autism affected pupils are being effectively supported.
I anticipate this might only have to be done a few times for many schools to get worried.
But why shouldn't a parent be allowed to send someone to school with their child to make sure they are being properly treated in schools?
Its disgusting isnt it? Longman, not right at all......................
Narnia we have that with my son, hes constantly feeling sick and anxious ect.
I dont know i really dont xxxx budgets eh? just means more and more children are going to suffer.
My daughter has also been taken off IEP this school year, yet is is having a lot more problems than last year. We are always having meltdown and and her aniexiety is so bad she is making her self sick.
We have been told it is the new SEN reform, ASD children no longer get extra help unless they have a statement or the new Health Care Plan thing.
I could not believe it when we were told that by the SENCO.
We have so much capacity to sustain repeated insults.
By insults I don't mean just words. I'm using it the medical context. Constant negative, harsh, punitive or otherwise damaging events mount up and cause long term distress, imbalance, internal conflict and fear.
A child ought to be able to go to school without a continual barrage of knocks and hurts. But children on the spectrum get exactly that.
Little wonder so many children get so muddled and depressed and scared their education suffers. All for want of a little more vigilence from teaching staff in schools.
OK I know teaching staff are incredibly stretched by all the new assessments being dreamt up and all the paperwork and other pressures that aren't letting them do what they are there for. The system is crumbling.
But kids on the autistic spectrum do need someone in school environments looking out for them.
It is not right that any child should feel suicidal.
Yeh he is having issues with another child, but apparently my son has been caught having a go at this child, my son screamed in his face, which is totally wrong but apprently this child is hitting him all the time.
Said child did get told off the other day.
