scatty

Hello again, not visited here for a long time, but our education issues continue....... Condensed version of events so far My son is almost 12. He has a history of struggling in mainstream school, first with the transition between infant and junior school (eventually got permanently excluded because of violent and dangerous behaviour), then had a managed move to another school, didn't work for the same reasons. Eventually almost a year later he started at a specialist unit for ASD children - worked brilliantly! He stayed there for 17 months and then it was closing and they said that he should go back into mainstream. This worked for 5 months. After the summer holiday and move up to year 6 he refused for 3 months. We got into trouble as they said we weren't trying to get him there, we're using his autism as an excuse, we were bad parents. 3 of our children were put on a child protection plan, we were told if we didn't get him back to school they would prosecute us and remove the children. We managed to get him to school, he refused to get out of the car for hours, would only stay in school with me in the room, hit teachers, walked out, damaged property etc etc. (everyone told us we were great parents and they could see we were trying everything.....child protection was removed) They put him on a part time time table, in a room on his own with a teaching assistant, doing cookery, art and science projects. He didn't make it back into the classroom at all or move on, everyone agreed that mainstream was not appropriate. In September the LA said he should start at our local academy, even though we have stacks of evidence that he would not cope, the academy have said they couldn't offer him the high level of support that he needs etc. my son is refusing again. In this time he has had about 4 separate hr long sessions with an outreach worker, but only went into the school for 20 minutes and wouldn't go back. The LA say that he has a place at this school, has manged in mainstream in yr 5, managed the transition day and is refusing to go. I have sent them numerous emails, reminding hem of all the evidence etc. I think that he needs specialist provision, though our LA havent anywhere that they could send him in this county, so i have named an independantly maintained school in the next county. I have lodged an appeal, due to be heard in Feb 2013. I am representing myself and feel confident that we have enough evidence. The LA have said they will get a ed psych report. I have been told to get a private ed psych report, I phoned up about it today and it's going to cost £1200! I also want to contact a solicitor as I feel that the LA should be offering my son more than the 4 hrs chat times with the outreach teacher that they have offered him. My husband works and so we are not entitled to legal aid. The LA should have responded to the appeal by yesterday, but of course they didn't. Has anyone got any advice for me? Should I just try to drag my son to the school (doubtful that I could....) and then leave them to deal with it to prove he can't cope? Am I doing the right thing in asking a solicitor to get involved (I think they would call the LA for a judicial review) I'm feeling slightly out of my depth here xxxx Thanks in advance if you have managed to get through this! xxxx

Hi all, I posted on here a while ago about my ds aged 8 who was having problems at school. The school ended up permantently excluding him in October, they then withdrew it and tried a managed move. This started in January and was extended for a couple of weeks, but in the end it was agreed that it wasn't working either (ds is violent and escaped all the time, he never even made it into the classroom with other children and just was with two adults for 1 and 1/2 hrs a day) So the LA decided that mainstream education wasn't appropriate and since 11th March, ds has been out of school. They are looking at home tutors but they are refusing to work with ds because of his challenging behaviour. I am so disgusted by how this has gone as no one contacts me unless I keep phoning and we haven't been kept informed. It seems to me that the LA are now concentrating on the home tutors and forgetting that this is only meant to be a short term solution until they find something else. I want to complain but I don't know who to complain to. I could add so much more but kept it brief as breastfeeding my little one and chaos is going on here (as usual) Many thanks for any replies.....

Thanks for that. I did buy him some wipes a while ago, but he doesn't seem to like using them either. I also got roll on and spray deoderant in case the roll on was too wet or something. I don't know what the answer is .....at the moment his skin is really bad and this morning I tried to explain how washing stops the dirt plugging your pores in your skin up etc. He cried and then I cried and now I feel like the worst mum in the world. I didn't want to hurt his feelings, but I thought explaining would help

I'm sure this has been done before and everyone tells me that teenage boys are not keen on washing anyway! My ds is 14 now and every single day we have a battle to get him to sort himself out in the mornings and evenings. In the mornings I ask him to wash his face, brush his teeth, brush his hair, use deoderant and get dressed. In the evenings have a shower and use deoderant. Apart from the actual battle to get him to leave the PC/ games console to do these things, he just won't do them. He comes out of the bathroom having only brushed his teeth (not very well at that) so I send him back in and still he comes out with his face unwashed etc. In the shower he doesn't wash, despite being in there for ages, a lot of the time he still smells when he comes out. He won't look at visual timetables. I have stood in there with him no end of times and told him step by step what to do. He just gets offended at me telling him, even though I tell him I am helping him. I booked him in for an appointment with the hygenist at the dentist thinking that he might listen to someone else and it worked a bit as he has been brushing his teeth better since. This is making me so stressed and I can't seem to get through to him. He just rolls his eyes and I guess he thinks that I am nagging him (and I am) but if he did it I wouldn't have to tell him. I don't want him to get called names at school or anything. Is it too much to ask that he just does these things? Any advice appreciated

My son was permanently excluded this morning. He had only been in school for 30 minutes when the head phoned me to go in as he had hit the TA. He has been excluded for a day/2 days nearly every week for a while now. Always for hitting staff/dangerous behaviour ie throwing chairs. I have supported the school and done everything I possibly can to help. I requested that his annual review be brought forward and we had that a couple of weeks ago. I know I could have appealed against the exclusions on discrimination grounds, but I'm not sure what the point would be? The school have been constantly inconsistant and I am sure that this has contributed to the worsening of his behaviour. For the last 6 weeks he has been in isolation with 1-1 support, although they have only in the last week and a half put in any structure (strangely it was just before his annual review!). He is just as bad at home, and is violent towards all of us daily. We can't let my 2 yr old in the same room as him and he smashes stuff up/swears at us all the time. I am expecting a baby in 7 weeks and everyone keeps saying that he shouldn't keep kicking and punching me, but what am I meant to do...get rid of him! Someone please tell me that this is for the best. In a way I feel quite relieved as it is now out of my hands, as it has been obvious that the school can't cope with his behaviour, but I was reluctant to move him to a new school of my own accord in case it made everything worse, but I am worried about what will happen. TIA x

Thank you all so much for replies. Yesterday he went into school ok, but refused to go back into school after first break ( the school guessed this would happen and were going to try to keep him in at break, but I guess he didn't want to stay in!). I was away for the day, so they called my dh to the school as my son climbed the gate into the street again.�They had an emergency meeting and the head, class teacher, SSC teacher and advisory teacher were there along with my husband. They decided again that he will be in the SSC (special support class) in the morning, mainstream with support in the afternoon. This had already been decided, but I think he is refusing to go into the SSC and they can't make him I suppose. They are putting in place visual support/timetables, home school diary etc. All of these are on his statement so he should already have them! He had missed the induction day last term as he was off sick and I had asked the infant school if they could arrange for him to go another day, have photos of the teachers/classroom etc, which they agreed to, but it never happened, I think because they though he didn't need it! The school are now thinking that this is the problem as he had no gentle transition, but I think its a bit late now IYKWIM. So we will see how it goes on Monday. If it all goes wrong again, I will be asking for an emergency statement review and a multi agency meeting. You have all told me stuff that I hadn't thought of so thanks for that. I never knew about the exclusion thing.I am reluctant to send him part time as I am not sure that he would ever go full time, but I will consider it if things continue to get worse. His behaviour at home is so manic and aggressive that I don't think I could cope with it. I had never even considered a Special school placement for him as he is so able, when they diagnosed him they just said that he has autistic spectrum disorder, but I would put him at the high funtioning end........having said that i know that it doesn't make things easier for him, but it does mean that we can't access support from social services etc as (in their own words) he doesn't fit the criteria as he is not severly autistic enough! Thanks again everyone, you have been so helpful...why couldn't any of the numerous professionals that I phoned have told me any of this? Any more input gratefully received

Whoops I didn't even say Hello! I think maybe I should've posted this in Education??????? Off to bed now

My son recently started junior school. The infant school is just next door and he has had a really good year two there, mainly due I think to his teacher who was great with him. Anyway I think we were lulled into a false sense of security, although his behaviour at home is always very difficult, I think his teacher struggled at times to accept that there is anything wrong with him. He has a statement and get 20 hrs access to support. Fast forward to this term...we have had increasing problems getting him into school, starting with him refusing to leave the house, more recently he will leave the house but not get out of the car at the school. I have been parking in the school car park and the first time asked for someone to come out to help. We then had several hours of me, TA, other staff, head teacher all trying persuade him out of the car. Eventually he came out willingly and the head suggested I stay in school with him for 10 minutes until he calmed down. I did this but when I went to leave he ran out of the school onto the car park sat down and wouldn't move. In the end I had to try to drag him back into the school, he was kickingh,punching swearing etc. I am also 6 months pregnant and struggled to get him back in as he is very big for his age, probably the size of an average 11 yr old, but I was worried about the cars coming and going. Once I got him back in the school we took him to the nuture room until we both calmed down and I then tried to leave again. He went mad and after I left, the TA left him in the room ( I presume while she got help) He then barracaded himself in and stayed ther until after lunchtime. The next day he refused to get out of the car again, this time the staff left me to it as the are unable to physically help anyway. After an hour I managed to get him out of the car, he then tried to run out of the gate, luckily a workman blocked his way. Eventually again I had to try to drag him in, he was punching, kicking, biting me, swearing etc.. A TA came out to carry his bag for me, but he kicked her and she ran back in. I managed to get him in there to have him kicking and punching me and calling me every name under the sun in front of the whole school who were then going into assembly. I left in tears again, it was about 11am again. The school have tried to make some changes, he has job sharing teachers that were being inconsistent, and 5 different TA's in and out at different times. They changed to 2 TA's one am and one pm, the teachers were to be more consistent, and they were going to review the behaviour policy for him as he was getting into trouble every 3 seconds. But then the TA that got kicked has gone off sick with stress and he is refusing to do any work in class, laying on the the floor etc etc. The head phoned me Wednesday night to say the for the next couple of weeks he would need to go in the SSC in the mornings and then be in mainstream with a single TA in the afternoon. Thursday he went into school, refused to go into the SSC, spent the morning in his normal classroom but didn't do any work. The afternoon he refused to go back in the school (I think after lunch) and spent the afternoon trying to climb on the school roof (he can do this easily as he is a great climber) and the school didnt tell me this but he also climbed over the school gate and ran up the road and climbed in the next gate. The head has said that if this happens again they will be phoning me to come and collect him (which is what he wants!) He is saying he is doing the same tomorrow, he hates the school and wants to go to another school..... I have phoned social services (several times-they say they will phone back but don't) the LEA, local ASD suppot group, UNISAFE asking for advise, but either they can't give any or suggest stuff we have already tried. What can I do???? He is 7 years old for Gods sake and yet seems to be just running things his way, both at school and at home. This is what he wants as he has a huge control thing going on. If the school say he has to come home, he will do the same stuff everytime to get home (I have told them this) I don't want to send him to another school (another thing the school have said) as I think this will just make things worse...what if he doesn't like the next school...and its the whole change that has kicked him off in the first place. I am at a loss and don't know where to turn next, he is just as out of control outside school as he is in and a lot of the time his behaviour is just dangerous (ie threatening to throw himself out of the car as we drove home because I wouldn't buy him an ice lolly). I also have a 13 yr old also with ADHD/ASD and a 2 yr old (being assessed). Life is chaos to say the least. The older two fight physically all the time. Sorry its so long and well done if you got to the end.

My ds (ASD, ADHD....) is just like this too. He will keep on eating until he is looking really uncomfortable and huffing and puffing, and i will say 'you are full up now' and he pushes his tummy and says 'no I'm not there's still room'. He has no idea that he is full and all the signals that we would feel, he doesn't notice/or understand. He is a very big boy and is about 5' 4" and weighs about 8 1/2 stone, maybe more. He's 10 and much bigger than average. We have to be so careful about what we say to him as he takes offence at the slightest comment and telling him that he doesn't need to eat any more as he is full, he interprets as us saying he is fat. Of course I have never said this! I know that children at school call him fat and I'm aware that him being a bit overweight is just something else for other kids to pick on him about, as if he hasn't got enough already He also likes routines, so will expect the same amount of food ie 3 pieces of pizza, and heaven forbid anyone that says he can't have 3 pieces! He always expects to have something for dessert, even if he has stuffed himself. We tried to think of ways around this, so now we use a smaller dinner plate (less food on it, but it still looks full) and if we have pizza we cut smaller slices so that he can still have 3. It just took a bit of re-thinking. During the day he doesn't eat much at all as he takes medication for his ADHD, but once this wears off, I have to limit him. I try not to buy too much of the things that he really likes (or I hide them) as if he knows that something is there, he will just get fixated on it and will just keep wanting it, even waking up in the night just because he wants to eat it. If he has eaten lots and still wants more I say he can only have fruit. If we go anywhere we also have to be careful, my husband made the mistake of once letting him have a large popcorn and large drink when they went to the cinema and now he has to have the same everytime they go.....have you seen the size of the large popcorns...they are like buckets! This has been a really hard one to deal with. I went with him last time and told him that he could only have a large if he shared it with me, then i had to stuff as much popcorn down my throat, so that he would have less to eat At one point we went to the park everyday after school, as he would charge around and the exercise would wear off some of the extra food that he would eat later. He isn't keen on going to the park anymore, but it worked for a while. We also got a big trampoline and he will spend ages on there. On the other hand my 4 yr old ds (ASD,ADHD) is the opposite, he has no idea when he is hungry and at times we have to work really hard to get him to eat anything. He still has obsessions with certain foods and there are certain things that we just don't buy anymore (Partyrings biscuits!) as he wouldn't be happy until he has eaten all of them. Then he will go for days without eating and won't be tempted by anything. I don't know which is worse really Don't know if any of that helps, Take care Scatty