Primary School Says I am Totally Wrong About them Not Meeting My Son's Needs

Grumpysally

May be the welfare officer will be a blessing in disguise and they will recognise your struggles and offer support.
My thoughts are, try and give yourself a bit of a breathing space over the holidays. I don't think you will get anything useful from the school so close to breaking up for summer.
Try and get some more support from NAS. Use the information they have sent you and check out their other sources of information. Be in a well informed position in September.

And most importantly, please don't give up. You sound emotionally exhausted. Try and look after yourself and enjoy the school holiday with your son.

I met someone the other day who has a child with ASD, she was telling me what a fight she had to get help. Sadly it seems to be a common experience.

I wish you all the best.

udanoka_bolokov

Are they educating children with special needs in mainstream schools now? They used to go to special schools, which were more cut out for the children's extra needs. I can't see how putting them in mainstream school is going to cause anything but grief and anguish all round.

Andypandyboy

There are very few schools for special needs chidren now. Inclusion into mainstream education has been the name of the game for quite a few years now.

udanoka_bolokov

Andypandyboy wrote: »

There are very few schools for special needs chidren now. Inclusion into mainstream education has been the name of the game for quite a few years now.

Crazy. I find that quite sad, actually.

Thinking back, my cousin had what you'd now call learning difficulties (called ESN at the time) and her life was an absolute misery in a mainstream school. The kids picked on her, even the teachers picked on her! She was transferred to a special school and got on better there.

Andypandyboy

Op, from the last sentence of the letter it appears that you were advised to go down the EHC route but didn't?

"If the school continues with their current attitude, then you might want to reconsider applying for an EHC needs assessment, as I previously advised."

Why did you decide on that course of action? EHC plans are very comprehensive and multi agency, they have to be followed by the school so there is no wiggle room for them.

Anything under 84% attendance is an auto trigger for the EW service, but they are there to help not harm all parties. So nothing to get worked up about from that perspective.

You really cannot give up, and I am sure you won't however down you are feeling about it now. Take some time, regroup and ask for help from CAB, or a local Autism group. Help is out there you just have to find the strength to access it.

susancs

deannatrois wrote: »

This might clarify some of the points raised in previous posts.

Re the point about whether its a good thing for a child to use different methods to solve a maths question to an 'approved one' , the SEND code of practice does strongly advise the use of 'diversity in teaching methods' when a child is having problems using one method . This means allowing a child to use different methods to SOLVE a question. Obviously if that method isn't working no one would recommend it be used. But if one method makes sense to a child and another doesn't, and they can work the problem out, then a school should allow that child to continue to use the method even if its not the 'approved' method. My son is corrected if he doesn't use the approved method, one method only. This is not diversity in teaching methods that should be used.

However, there will be some of you that will be glad to hear I am now being threatened with an Education Welfare Officer and penalties because of his 79.8% attendance. And I am a basket case apparently. So there you go. I give up. Been dealing with this for fifteen years. There has to be an end point. I've reached it. But who knows the information above might be useful to someone. I hope so.

OP, as said previously the LEA Education Welfare Officer will get involved when attendance drops and they will be looking at strategies to help improve your child's attendance. I hope that you get a good EWO who works with you and the school.

A friend of mine has a child who has a condition that means he is in pain a lot of the day, has autonomic dysfunction, eating issues and irritable bowel and also ASD. His attendance slipped in his first year of secondary school as he could not cope with the noise, smells in school as well as the pain, plus bowel issues. The EWO helped draw up strategies with parents and the school, plus he did have an education health and care plan. It did improve his attendance, but ultimately his parents decided to home educate him. He is a bright lad and they use DLA benefit they receive to pay for a tutor for a couple of hours a week, along with text books, internet learning etc. Both parents work, but he is best in the evening so they support his learning after work. They do use a range of methods, but they hope he will do GCSEs so they recognise that he needs to be able to use a recognised method in subjects such as maths that will allow an examiner to give extra marks for the working out, even if the answer is not correct, for the working out. The reason they decided to home educate was that the school could not meet his very individual needs. My friend and her husband were made to feel like bad parents, when in fact they are very loving and caring parents. They attended lots of meetings (lots of time off work), which went over the same old ground. Despite working with the school, they kept getting threatened with court action. Every time their child had diarrhea with pains and time off, they had to take him to the G.P. and get a note, so much so the G.P, put in a complaint as it was part of the child's condition. They came to the conclusion that the S.E.N. funding given to mainstream schools was not sufficient to provide adequate individual support for children with more complex needs.

The lad is doing really well according to the tutor and the LEA "monitoring education provision" staff have been very complimentary about the high levels of educational achievement the child demonstrates compared to his peers. He only does a couple of hours a day due to his medical condition. They also have two older children, so have some awareness of educational expectations. They were nervous about taking him out of mainstream schooling as there is little support and they are not teachers. A year down the line the family say it was the best decision for their family.

Nicki

The fact that OP has apparently refused to let her child be assessed for an EHCP is a key piece of info she left out of her earlier posts.

Mainstream schools are so underfunded at the moment that they can't give individual attention to children on an ongoing basis without the extra money which the EHCP brings to the school for that purpose. Without the funding for some 1:1 support, the child has to slot in to which ever group in the class best meets his achievement, in this case apparently the middle group despite his absence record, and be taught by the same methods as everyone else in that group.

If OP thinks his diagnosis means he needs differentiated teaching in some areas, then the way to achieve this is to allow an EHCP to be made, and the school will then have the funding to put that in place. If she sees other children in the school being supported 1:1, that is most likely to be the reason why and the parents of those children will not be happy if time is taken from their child to support OP's child 1:1!

Speaking as the parent of a child with an EHCP and two who do not, I can't understand the reluctance of parents to do this. Any stigma is entirely in their own heads as other children and parents will not know one is in place unless the OP chooses to share this, nor will future employers, etc. The struggle to get one put in place when it is much needed is another story, but the letter which OP quoted doesn't suggest that is the case here.

Andypandyboy

I agree, which was why I picked up on that sentence. The EHCP is such a useful document and travels with the child from school to school and later to college with additions/deletions as needed as they age.

So many people have to struggle to be offered one, if the offer is there, a real solution or at least the light at the end of the tunnel, is already on the table.

missbiggles1

susancs wrote: »

OP, after your assessment revealed that your son is doing well educationally but has some gaps in his mathematical skills, which could possibly be as a result of missing lessons, the main issue seems to be dealing with his refusal to go to school.

My daughter had a child with ASD in her class in school (who is now at Oxford University). In primary and at the start of secondary school he had telephone numbers, arranged via the school, of a few classmates he could ring if he struggled with understanding homework, which could cause a meltdown at home and him not wanting to go to school. My daughter was one of those who used to talk him through it over the phone at secondary school (with skype I would imagine this is easier now). In primary school he had buddies who called for him on the way to school, again arranged via the school. In secondary school he was met at the school gate. The buddies were given strategies to use with him when he was starting to get a melt down, but they always loved what they consider his quirkiness. As the years went on, he often supported DD through her teenage dramas so it was a two way friendship. They are both 19 now and have continued to have a close friendship (as he does with his other buddies) even though at different universities.

In maths often a school will have to teach consistant methods as these will be built on over the years. The 9 times tables method I would imagine is the well known one of using finger counting from the left hand e.g for 2X9 put down the 2nd finger for tens, one ten before that for tens and count the remaining 8 fingers so you have 18, 4x9 put down the fourth finger and 3 before for tens (30) and count the remaining 6 so you have 36. The issue with that is that you can only do it until 10x9. It also can only be done with the 9 times tables. The CPG revision books explain a lot of concepts such as decimals in a fun easy way. Here is the year 5 one on Amazon. You could spend some of the summer holidays doing the book together ( I did that with DD2 when she had a poor teacher one year in secondary school).
https://www.amazon.co.uk/KS2-Maths-Targeted-Study-Book/dp/1847621929/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1467528474&sr=8-2&keywords=cgp+year+5+maths

What's wrong with simply learning them by heart?

theoretica

missbiggles1 wrote: »

What's wrong with simply learning them by heart?

Nothing is wrong with that - but some people find it much harder than others do.