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scootbabe66

Hi everyone..just finding my way around the forums!

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Hi ..

I am a mum to three boys with autism..they all have a diagnosis of asd and my eldest has epilepsy and asthma. All the boys attend a special school locally although my eldest is now 17 and is starting college to do an nvq1 in I.T. in september and James one of the 10 year old twins has recently started home education whilst we await a new school place. The other twin is quite happy with his placement at his existing school.

We were filmed by the bbc for a documentary about james and his dancing last year so I am excited about that coming on tv..may6th..election night..lol on bbc three. It would be lovely to chat to other parents/kids on here who have experience of home education and also of moving a child from special education to mainstream school with support...I would also be interested to hear from anyone who has tried flexi schooling..as this is an option I am considering at the moment.

Hopefully I will be active ont he forums...time permitting...speak to you all soon!

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Hi ..

I am a mum to three boys with autism..they all have a diagnosis of asd and my eldest has epilepsy and asthma. All the boys attend a special school locally although my eldest is now 17 and is starting college to do an nvq1 in I.T. in september and James one of the 10 year old twins has recently started home education whilst we await a new school place. The other twin is quite happy with his placement at his existing school.

We were filmed by the bbc for a documentary about james and his dancing last year so I am excited about that coming on tv..may6th..election night..lol on bbc three. It would be lovely to chat to other parents/kids on here who have experience of home education and also of moving a child from special education to mainstream school with support...I would also be interested to hear from anyone who has tried flexi schooling..as this is an option I am considering at the moment.

Hopefully I will be active ont he forums...time permitting...speak to you all soon!

Hi

welcome.I have four boys,second son is six and has Aspergers and my third son is undergoing assesment.

Not sure much about going from special to mainstream but I am doing flexi schooling with my son at the moment.I thought at the start it was going well but then things went downhill.The school also take advantage sometimes asking me to fetch him 1hr earlier than normal because he isnt working or disrupting the other kids.

 

However all kids are so different,your son may be just fine :)

 

Hope it all goes well for you and your boys.

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Welcome to the forum. Was it your son that was in the Sky TV dance competition?

yes..that was jimmy...lol

He never wanted to enter a competition beofre..well not a tv one..but he wants to go to ballet school and tuition fees are enormous..the prize money would have pid for 3 years of tuition if he was offered a place at ballet school...so he decided to have a go..he did brilliantly to get to the last 98 shortlisted from thousands but sadly didnt get a chance of the prize money...theres always next year!

He actually quite enjoyed the audition process and the live judging...but the round dancefloor really put him off!

I asked him if he wanted to try out for bgt..but i dont think he is ready for simon cowell yet! He has grown in confidence so much over the last year and I dont want to risk him losing what progress he has made. Maybe next year or the year after he will be ready..he just wants to show the judges what he can do and be judged alongside mainstream kids...but it seems the production teams of these shows are more interested in his condition than his dancing..that annoys him sometimes and he cant understand why people are interested in his autism..he finds that strange...i suppose for him it is just last weeks news..he has lived with it all his life...its nothing special..that is what he would say.

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yes..that was jimmy...lol

He never wanted to enter a competition beofre..well not a tv one..but he wants to go to ballet school and tuition fees are enormous..the prize money would have pid for 3 years of tuition if he was offered a place at ballet school...so he decided to have a go..he did brilliantly to get to the last 98 shortlisted from thousands but sadly didnt get a chance of the prize money...theres always next year!

He actually quite enjoyed the audition process and the live judging...but the round dancefloor really put him off!

I asked him if he wanted to try out for bgt..but i dont think he is ready for simon cowell yet! He has grown in confidence so much over the last year and I dont want to risk him losing what progress he has made. Maybe next year or the year after he will be ready..he just wants to show the judges what he can do and be judged alongside mainstream kids...but it seems the production teams of these shows are more interested in his condition than his dancing..that annoys him sometimes and he cant understand why people are interested in his autism..he finds that strange...i suppose for him it is just last weeks news..he has lived with it all his life...its nothing special..that is what he would say.

Cool - he was great, we were rooting for him in our house. Something like the cost of ballet school would never have occurred to me to have been so prohibative. I hope he can pursue his dream.

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Cool - he was great, we were rooting for him in our house. Something like the cost of ballet school would never have occurred to me to have been so prohibative. I hope he can pursue his dream.

I just watched it on You Tube.He is great.Have you tried applying for a bursary and scholarship for a dance school?Most of them have this,given his talent I am sure they will want him and then you wont need to pay any fees.

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in our area of the north east there arent that many ballet schools who do rad ballet. james wants desperately to go to elmhurst at birmingham to board out there...if he was accepted at an audition he may be entitled to a grant or bursary..but

1. there are only a handful of kids who get accepted each year..you ahve to be in the top of that handful to get offered a funded place...so chances are really small as jimmy has no where near their experience of ballet..he ahs only done ballet fo r less than a year...but he is flying through his grades at the moment and still determined to be ready for an audition by later half of this year..

2. there are only a handful of dance schools who are full time for kids 11-16..the only other 2 i know of are the london royal ballet school..but that is a little far away from us (i'd like him to come home at weekends) as we are in the north east and there is elmhurst at birmingham and hammond at chester..all of tehm ae centres of excellence for gifted children..i am not sure they will consider james to be gifted compared to the other auditionees.

 

i have tried my best to prepare him for the worst news at audition (that he is not getting olffered a place)...but all the same we dont want to go for the audition feeling like he is defeated before he dances...it is a fine balancing act..but i know he will be gutted if they say no. His dream is to dance with the bolshoi ballet...but in order to realize that..you really do need top notch training from an early age.

I know very little about the dance and entertainment world..never had any personal inspirations to be on stage or perform anywhere. i just want to do my best for james..so it is a case of leaving no stone unturned in a search for the right training but the truth is that the right training costs a small fortune and is out of reach of regular parents like us..even to keep james dancing as he is at the moment without thinking about full time schools of dance, it is really difficult and i really dont know how much longer we can afford the lessons and fees and costumes for the big competitions and the travel and accomodation and also ballet fees and ballet uniforms...

James's dancing has caused problems for his twin brother who feels a bit neglected...and my eldest who is also autistic never complains but i know he must feel a bit jealous of the attention james gets and the time we give to his dancing..the documentary will show this and how volatile the family relationships can be at times...we tried to show an honest and true picture of our lives..or as true as it can be when being filmed for a documentary.

In a way the best thing to happen would be for james to win some money and go for an audition and be accepted and heve the means to pay for it...that will make him happy and tehn throught he week i could give the other two the much needed one to one attention they have missed over the last couple of years..although i sometimes question if they have really missed out..i tend to over compensate them with attention and games for their xboxes...i think i am the one losing out!...but hey no one ever said that being a paernt was easy and i know that if james did get into a residential dance school, i wouldnt know what had hit me..i wasnt expecting to lose any of the kids just yet..and i will miss him the most probably..it is like he is entering an exclusive world..a world that i wont be privvy to...i am scared he will grow away from us..but i cant stop him trying to achieve his dreams..if i held him back or didnt support him fully he would resent me for that..i think i would resent myself for that.

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Hi as well as bursaries, there are charities that given grants for supporting children in private schools, for various reasons, including disability. I'm sure if you contacted the place that you are talking about they could supply you with the list.

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Hi as well as bursaries, there are charities that given grants for supporting children in private schools, for various reasons, including disability. I'm sure if you contacted the place that you are talking about they could supply you with the list.

I will be contacting the school in the next few weeks to ask more about any bursaries etc that are available...but i have already asked education department locally and they said they wouldnt pay any funds towards james going to school in birmingham because they can supply his needs in this area..that is the way they look at it...they arent interested in his need to dance..only in his formal education....i also contacted our local council to ask if there was any help towards james and his current training costs for dancing..but unfortunately they checked and there is nothing for him available.

The worst thing is i am discussing all this stuff about bursaries and grants for elmhurst and he might not even get in..still have to get through the interview process...lol...but you have to look ahead when there is so much money involved.

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Welcome Scootbabe. We don't get BBC 3 so will be stuck with the election I fear. :wacko:

 

I really hope your son can achieve his dreams. Billy Elliott (the stage musical) is inspirational - if you and he can get down to London it's well worth seeing!

 

K x

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