please could some-one help us!

Sad reading, but not surprising.  I'm a support worker in the ASD department of a big secondary school.  No names, no pack drill, as they say.

Most of the mainstream teachers I've met appear quite clueless about Autistic Spectrum disorders and their classes are too large, their time too much occupied, to begin to do very much in the way of providing differentiated learning.

When ASD children struggle to learn they get put with others who struggle to learn, which means they find themselves in the same lower sets as children who routinely misbehave - often a far from ideal environment.  If they're 'lucky' they get 1 to 1 support, and if they're very lucky they may get 1 to 1 support from someone who has a clue what they are doing.

League tables and the results orientation behind them can create their own dynamic.  Monday's task must be completed by Tuesday's lesson, Tuesday's homework by Thursday and so on, and in trying to help the child 'reach' those targets the support worker does more and more of the work themselves.  You are showing the student what to do, you are explaining, and you are often either telling the child what to write or writing it (scribing) for them, yet often, 20 minutes later, what they have 'learned' has been totally forgotten.  That is probably the main way the misleading grades appear.

A year or two back I attended one of those tutor/parent/child meetings where parents are told what grades their children are anticipated to achieve.  Dad nodded sagaciously as he listened and then, when I asked him what he thought to it all afterwards, he answered "bollocks".  Mum and dad knew that the predicted grades were nonsensical.

I lost my own 'special' child to different disabilities a good number of years ago.  Perhaps that is partly why I value other 'special children' - though in fact it is all children - so very much.  I can't say I'm happy at what schools appear to be doing either to or for them.

Sad reading, but not surprising.  I'm a support worker in the ASD department of a big secondary school.  No names, no pack drill, as they say.

Most of the mainstream teachers I've met appear quite clueless about Autistic Spectrum disorders and their classes are too large, their time too much occupied, to begin to do very much in the way of providing differentiated learning.

When ASD children struggle to learn they get put with others who struggle to learn, which means they find themselves in the same lower sets as children who routinely misbehave - often a far from ideal environment.  If they're 'lucky' they get 1 to 1 support, and if they're very lucky they may get 1 to 1 support from someone who has a clue what they are doing.

League tables and the results orientation behind them can create their own dynamic.  Monday's task must be completed by Tuesday's lesson, Tuesday's homework by Thursday and so on, and in trying to help the child 'reach' those targets the support worker does more and more of the work themselves.  You are showing the student what to do, you are explaining, and you are often either telling the child what to write or writing it (scribing) for them, yet often, 20 minutes later, what they have 'learned' has been totally forgotten.  That is probably the main way the misleading grades appear.

A year or two back I attended one of those tutor/parent/child meetings where parents are told what grades their children are anticipated to achieve.  Dad nodded sagaciously as he listened and then, when I asked him what he thought to it all afterwards, he answered "bollocks".  Mum and dad knew that the predicted grades were nonsensical.

I lost my own 'special' child to different disabilities a good number of years ago.  Perhaps that is partly why I value other 'special children' - though in fact it is all children - so very much.  I can't say I'm happy at what schools appear to be doing either to or for them.