workingmum Report post Posted October 25, 2011 Can anyone help please - any suggestions will be fantastic - how were school trips accomodated for your DC, - how were your DC/s prepared for school trips. did it help at all. - Have you decided that there is too much hassle and exempted your child from going on school trips. Should an extra member of staff with adequate knowledge of ASD accompany DC on school trips. Are the preparation the school makes adequate ? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mishmash Report post Posted October 25, 2011 Hi, for my son (9) he recently had a school trip to the New Forest (it's where we live and he's terrified of the forest unless it's the bits he knows). What I did was get the school to show him pics of last year's trip. I then found out exactly where they were going and we went there on our own a few times - that did seem to help as he knew his way around. In the end I also went with them. Hope this helps. Mish Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cmuir Report post Posted October 25, 2011 Hi When my son was younger, school trips used to fill me with dread. I don't think there's any quick fix or easy answer, and all kids are different. For us though, I found that social stories helped. I used to find out as much as I could and draw little stick men, etc and illustrate what the events were going to be. R also had a full-time LA, which helped a lot too. Admittedly, there was one occasion when I kept him off school as I felt it would be too stressful. However, when I think how kiddo was when he was e.g. 4.5 to his he is now (10), he's made masses of progress because I felt that by avoiding difficult situations, R was never going to be able to overcome or cope with them. Certainly hasn't been easy (and still isn't!), but I think by giving firm boundaries/consequences/rules and by preparing kiddo as much as possible, I think it's helped massively. Sadly, although I think ASD kids should have extra support, it doesn't always work out that way. I also think that because of staff shortages that the onus can be put on parents to accompany the child. Not saying that parents shouldn't, but I think it can get difficult because it's often an easy option for the school (and the child) and it can become an expectation which doesn't resolve ztaffing/support issues. I found that my son behaved really badly whenever I was present in school, and I felt it was more beneficial to kiddo if I stayed away (it became confusing to R (and me!) about who should dish out the boundaries, etc in school). Hope that makes sense. Best wishes. Caroline. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sally44 Report post Posted October 25, 2011 Up to end year 2 my son was mainstream and any school trips were a nightmare. He was never prepared. I often had to go. And he often was not allowed to go, or stay for the duration. We had one instance where the whole of year 2 were staying somewhere overnight and I wanted my son to have the chance of staying too. But the school thought it was too great a risk and said they did not have the staff to supervise him. So it was decided that he would go and stay until around 8.00pm, and then I would go and collect him. I told him about this a number of times. We visited the place, so he was familiar with it. But on the day he was fine up until all the children were allocated beds and he wasn't. He was told by his teacher that he was not sleeping over and he got so upset and angry, that staff told me they moved him into another room and hand had two members of staff with him, but that no-one went near to him because they felt he would attack them. I was so upset about this. I felt this incident really scared him and from then on he knew he was different, and different in a way that was bad, because he felt inferior to the other kids. This was actually disability discrimination and he could and should have been allowed to go. On other trips he has been brilliant and coped well. On others it has been very difficult, especially if it involved alot of last minute changes or plans being made, or it involved going outside into wet or muddy conditions. It was much better when he moved to another school in year 3. He went on all the trips, but they didn't have an overnight one because many more of the children in his class were now ASD and so it seemed that that kind of trip was no longer an option. What I think should have happened is that he should have been included. He should have been prepared with pictures and photos in school as well as me taking him to visit the actual place. He should have been allowed to attempt anything he wanted on the understanding that IF he felt he could not do it or wanted to go home that school would phone me and I would collect him. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Suze Report post Posted October 26, 2011 During primary yrs my ds went on day trips which were ok.However residentials were alot harder and he and we decieded not to do them.He could,nt stand most of the kids at school so spending more time with them would have been torture.The sleeping arrangements for one thing were too much for him.Staff were prepared to support him adequately but he really did,nt want to do it.At high school he did day trips no problem with an LSA , but did,nt do any residentials. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
KezT Report post Posted October 27, 2011 In Primary school his LSA always accompanied him - he was also usually driven to the ones the other kids walked to. Plenty of forewarning and 1:1 supportmeant he went on all the day trips with few major problems... Residentials were much harder and not very sucessful generally:( Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
