Re-entering school - advice please

[whizz]

Hi. I need some advice please and I am sorry this will be long reading.

 

Our son age 13 has Autism and Epilepsy. He has moderate to severe learning difficulties. We also have a daughter of 15 who shows traits of Aspergers and is gifted in Art and she has battled depression, self harm, acne since age 11 and is wonderful with our son, although she feels the strain.

 

Over the last year and a half we have been home educating our son as his last residential placement broke down badly. He started to have seizures after a bad fall being woken from a fire alarm going off when he was asleep at night time (this was the first week of boarding). From then on he was extremely anxious and traumatised by the alarm going off and every time he was going across to the accommodation of the school each day he would be sick and his behaviour would deteriorate. School were trying their best to help him but his anxiety culminated in him smashing up his classroom in Nov 07 and biting his teacher (this is soooooo not like our son) and basically he had a breakdown.

 

We went to our GP to try and get him to give our son a sick note to take him out of school for a break but our GP refused and said "he should be in school". We were furious that he cast his own opinion on our son. We just then took him out completely, we had absolutely no choice at all and we could not stand by and see him suffer any longer. All of last year at home he was recovering from the breakdown, crying every night, having to take out batteries from our home smoke alarms etc. He needed MASSIVE amounts of reassurances from us that he would never go back to that school ever again, every day, which was totally draining on us all. We told him he was safe now.

 

So now residential is a total no go for our son and we can't blame him. The fear of alarms has set in in his mind and that's the way it is. We have visited two SLD day schools in our area without our son (there are no other LEA schools suitable), well one is in our catchment area and the other a little outside but both within half an hours drive. He would need a taxi each day with an escort.

 

We took our son to see a private psychiatrist last October as we needed a psychiatric evaluation done (because of no sick note covering school absence) and because of the trauma our son had suffered over 4 years at this school (which was autism specific independent) and family medical history, he was given a diagnosis of pre pubertal early onset bipolar disorder. I was not surprised as I myself was diagnosed with Bipolar disorder type 2 (not the severe type) in 2006 after suffering years of depression since my sons birth, so I had suspected that the stress and trauma of attending this school and then going residential tipped him over the edge. His moods are extremely erratic. Our son is on Tegretol 600mg a day for the epilepsy (3 tonic clonic seizures in a year and a half) and Risperdone 1mg a day for self harm (since age 6).

 

Puberty has most certainly set in and our sons behaviour has got alot worse in the last few weeks. He is at respite today but I need some advice as to where to go from here. We have chosen the school that is out of catchment area as its homely, not all autism specific (they have 10 pupils with autism and the rest have other disabilities including physical), do not have the TEACHH system but do use PECS which is enough for our son and they do lots of activities and exercise too. I now have to let the LEA know our intentions for our sons future and need to formally write a letter to say we no longer wish to home educate (he has not been de-registered from the other school yet as the home ed team from LEA are coming out to see us again in October - then he will be de-regged).

 

So I feel I basically have to prove again that his old school cannot meet his needs (his LEA officer still thinks they can as a day pupil and he is totally and utterly useless). I need to ask for a change in part 4 of his statement to read the new school and to re-iterate that we do not want residential for the next 6 years of our sons education!!! Maybe I am being a little negative perhaps and it might be plan sailing and he will get a place, on the other hand it could be a total nightmare and they will dig their heels in and we would have to appeal. I do not see the sense in them keeping the autism place open all this time and it costing them £48,000 a year (day pupil fee) when an LA run school will be a hell of a lot cheaper!!

 

I also know for a fact that my illness has recently got worse as well and have had to increase my own medication to be able to cope with everything and I am not sure whether to mention this in my letter, that I am now unable to cope but I did in the beginning because our son was so ill?

 

Thanks for reading this through.

[Kazzen161]

You will be arguing that the residental school is no longer suitable, which might be a bit difficult if you convinced the LA that he did need it in the first place. However, you have a chance if the new school is cheaper - lol!

 

Is the new school a LA special school or an independent school? Your LA will not be able to force another LA to give your child a place (even if they agree with you). Have you asked if they have a place for your child for Sept? Have you asked if they take children from your LA?

 

Are you sure that he has not been deregistered yet/will not be in Sept? I think it will be harder to get things sorted once he is deregistered.

 

Why did the fire alarms go off so often at the residential school? My son was at one for 5 years, and they only had one at night time in all that time.