Starting school/school hours

Zziggi

apples1 wrote:

I am finding hard to know if this is an issue of disability or not. I have read the post (although quite quickly) but I'm not sure. If the issue is that your child has a disability that means for reasons of his disability he needs to leave school early (to avoid crowds or whatever) then I'm sure the school should and would accomodate for that.

If the issue is that you are a working Mum and do not finish work in time to collect your child and have not or cannot arranged an alternative (childminder, friend or whatever) to collect them for you then I don't really see why the school should say yes.

Please accept my appologies if I have mis-read or misinterpreted the facts of your case.

Apples1, you are right in your understanding of the situation. There are several reasons; (1) son's disability. (2) mitagating circumstances - OH disabled so it's not like i can easily get him to collect DS. (3) logisitcal problem (which is not the school problem but they could be sympathetic). I suppose the biggest problem is the logistical one. DS *could* cope with the noise & hussle & bussle but would find it difficult. I suppose if i were wanting to find reasons to persuade the Head then the logical position to take is to emphasize the disability issue rather than the logistical one. But it does feel a little like playing the 'disability card'.

Zziggi

black-saturn wrote:

BTW, don't just shoot me down, I'm not the only one with this opinion on this thread.

I wasn't going to.:D My comments about Social Services were a bit tongue-in-cheek (but doesn't translate well via the internet).

foreverskint

Hope you can get this worked out.....

Level one SEN means that your DS needs a little support with his schooling, maybe academically (sp) or socially. It is the lowest level of special educational needs, and a lot of children, maybe are on this level or level two for a couple of years, and then never have any further schooling issues.

Its not a bad thing for your son, my two daughters were on SEN 2 for two years, but are now very bright and doing really well in secondary school.

HTH

apples1

Zziggi wrote:

Apples1, you are right in your understanding of the situation. There are several reasons; (1) son's disability. (2) mitagating circumstances - OH disabled so it's not like i can easily get him to collect DS. (3) logisitcal problem (which is not the school problem but they could be sympathetic). I suppose the biggest problem is the logistical one. DS *could* cope with the noise & hussle & bussle but would find it difficult. I suppose if i were wanting to find reasons to persuade the Head then the logical position to take is to emphasize the disability issue rather than the logistical one. But it does feel a little like playing the 'disability card'.

I think it would be unfair and not very ethical to emphasise the "disability one" when the real issue is logistical. In addition if it were down to a your sons "disability" that he didn't like crowds etc then your request to have him collected late looks a bit odd as he would be present at school during collection time and drop off time when there would be"crowds".

I have made my point about your mitigating circumstances regarding your husband in my previous post.

I hope you can work something out without feeling it appropriate to play that card to the school.

Zziggi

apples1 wrote:

I think it would be unfair and not very ethical to emphasise the "disability one" when the real issue is logistical. In addition if it were down to a your sons "disability" that he didn't like crowds etc then your request to have him collected late looks a bit odd as he would be present at school during collection time and drop off time when there would be"crowds".

Yes I agree. You are of course right. Like I said before, It doesn't look good and doesn't present the family in a very good light.

apples1 wrote:

I hope you can work something out without feeling it appropriate to play that card to the school.

Thanks, so do I.

funky-footprints

Im not realy in a similar predicament to you zziggi but mums in my sons school are and they have found a way to over come it. There is a school bus that picks up about 15 mintues after school time actually finished. School finish is staggered at my sons school with reception, and year one finishing at 3.20 and the remainder of school finishing at 3.30, this is supposed to help the car park problems, but it doesnt as
anycase that is why the bus i later ..the children that go on the bus are taken to the school hall along with any children whoses mums are late so quite a few working mums get around it that way. they arent supposed to but the school cant realy do aything about it.

Rachie_B

sorry you are in this position

but i really dont think the school / head is going to budge on this one for many reasons ,stated in this thread already

are you sure you cant finish work early ? / start earlier etc ?

im sure once your son starts there you will make friends with mums who would be willing to wait with him until a carer was able to fetch him ,so it may only be a few weeks whereby you need to finish work early

would you employer be understanding about this ? have you asked them

black-saturn

Could you not put an advert in a shop window or something asking for someone to wait with your son after school for say £10 per week?

Savvy_Sue

From what you've now said, it might be worth stressing the temporary need for DS to be picked up early - that he won't like the hustle and bustle, it will stress him a great deal at an already stressed time etc. But if you go for it as a temporary solution then you will have to work on a permanent one!

black-saturn

Maybe your son should be at a special school? If he doesn't like hustle and bustle he won't like it in school either.