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mummyoffive

back to school

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Its back to school for my 12 year old daughter today...i must say i cant help but worry about her when she is at school especially now she is in high school...and i do feel for her when she come home and she looks like she has had the life sucked out of her....and all she wants to do is get her comfy pj's on and get herself comfy on the sofa in the conservatory....when it comes to school she does try it on...im not well....do i have to go....i dont want to go....this has been going on since she was able to speak age 5 but i have always managed to talk her round.....but i do know all that could change one day....i do think about if one day she turns round and says she isnt going and no matter what you say she isnt going to go....what do you do ?

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yes please i am in that situation with 11 year old doesnt matter what i say just wont go!!!have tried everything but cant find anyhting that works,wouldnt be so bad but she wants to go but cant and cant tell me why!!!so if anyone has an answer i would love to hear any advise,as you can gather mine didnt go this morning!!!

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Hi ladies I am so sorry to hear that both of you have had problems regarding your kids not wanting to go to school. I have been through so I know what you are going through and to be honest there isn't really anything you can do. I struggled for years getting Glen to go to school and in the end I couldn't do it anymore, he was just too big and strong for me and would attack me physically so I ended keeping him at him. I do feel for you both I really do but don't really have an advice apart from the fact if I had my time over again I would definitely not have 'forced' my son to go to School, I feel really guilty that I continually did that until I couldn't do it anymore.

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What you need to do is get a copy of the Special Educational Needs Code of Practice. You can download it from the top of the Education forum, under Educational Publications.

 

This will tell you all you need to know about the SEN graduated response.

 

If a child has special needs [and there are different categories of SEN eg. speech and language/social communication; emotional/behavioural; physical; sensory] then the school is supposed to take steps to identify and meet those needs.

 

Firstly that would be by putting the child on School Action, then School Action Plus. At SA+ the school should seek outside advice from the educational psychologist and the speech and language therapist. They should assess/observe the child and give advice to the school on how to meet the child's needs. The school has budgets to do this. It should happen automatically, but often with mainstream schools they don't seem to always be that good at doing it.

 

So I would advise that you firstly make a list of what your daughter is struggling with. Ask her. Also does she have a diagnosis? Because to get a diagnosis she must have clinically significant differences [ie. SEN] to even get a diagnosis. How are those needs currently being met in school?

 

So with your list, you can arrange a meeting with the SENCO [and can contact the LA parent partnership for advice and to come and support you during meetings].

 

Ask the school what needs they feel she has and what level of support she is receiving currently ie. is she on SA or SA+, and how many hours of support or additional staffing hours are dedicated to meeting her needs. Have they referred her to EP and SALT? And if not ask them to do it.

 

Your LA also has an autism advisory or outreach teacher. Contact them and speak to this teacher about your concerns. Ask them if they can go and meet with your daughter. The school must invite them - so at the meeting ask school to also contact her [gave them the name and contact details IF they don't have them].

 

If your daughter is struggling those needs MUST, be met. And you need to set it in motion because it is a graduated response eg. if additional support of 5 hours does not work, then the school must increase that support.

 

She should get an Individual Education Plan which will set around 3 targets per term. These should be set to meet her needs, and it should be a SMART target [the parent partnership should tell you what a SMART target means - if not Google IEP SMART targets.

 

Again IF a target is not met for 2 terms, the school should seek advice from the EP or SALT. If you have two lots of IEPs [ie. 6 months], you can ask the LA to assess your daughter for a Statement. A Statement is the ONLY legally binding document where what it contains MUST by law, be provided by the LA.

 

[There is no monetary limit on what a Statement can contain. It must identify each and every need, and each need must be met and provision quantified and specified in terms of hours of support and staffing/professional input. So, if you have a report that says your daughter needs x, y and z, and that is in the Statement, the LA must provide it regardless of cost. That is why getting a Statement is very important. And that is why LA try to get out of issuing them. So if they say "your daughter can get all the support she needs without a Statement", that is essential true. But without a Statement the LA are not legally required to provide it. So if the support were withdrawn you would not be able to do anything about it, other than complain. If that support is detailed in her Statement, you can use Judicial Review which would force the LA to reinstate the provision. A Statement is a legally binding document.]

 

[As an example, my son's Statement needs around £66,000pa to fund it and the LA pays it. That is £50,000 for an independent school, £10,000 for a specialist dyslexia teacher 3 times a week, £6,000 to be taken to/from school by taxi. At this school he receives almost daily input from a Speech Therapist and an Occupational Therapist, that are part of a multi disciplinary team employed on the school site. They also have their own Educational Psychologist that is also working with my son and his anxiety/OCD behaviour.]

 

[My son was mainstream up until he refused school and he became quite ill. He was not suitable for an autism unit or a special school. So an independent school was the ONLY type that could meet his needs, and we proved that at the Educational Tribunal.]

 

If she is showing physical signs of not coping eg. headaches, tummy pains, tics, poor sleep, emotional upsets, withdrawn/depressed etc, ask the GP to refer you to Clinical Psychology or CAHMS that have expertise in working with children on the spectrum. They should detail her difficulties [which you will have noted down over a period of time diary form], and can give advice to school, and you can use all the information you record, and advice you get via meetings [record minutes/letters etc] as evidence towards a Statement.

 

This whole process takes a long time. So start it now, because as you say, if she deteriorates she could be out of school while all this is going on.

 

My son did refuse school in year 5 of primary school. He was out of school for a year. He did have a Statement, but it needed to provide more support for him. We ended up going to an Educational Tribunal, and we won an independent ASD specific school for him for children who are around average cognitive ability, but who cannot cope mainstream. My son is now nearly back in school full time.

 

Things can go down hill very quickly. How she is responding to school is quite typical for a child with an ASD that is not coping. You need to start getting those needs identified and met. Unfortunately no-one is going to do this without you project managing it yourself [otherwise they would have done it by now].

 

Basically you need to get the SEN Code of practice and read it. And then start having meetings in school to get them to do what they should do via School Action/School Action Plus.

 

If they refuse, for whatever reason, come back here and tell us "why" they refused. And we can tell you what to do in that case.

 

If she is in a mainstream school she is high functioning. But that does not mean she has no needs. She may have social communication/friendship; emotional/anxiety; and sensory issues that make school very difficult to cope with every day.

Edited by Sally44

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Another thing that should be discussed is whether she should have a reduced timetable. The Educational Psychologist should advise on that. For example, is she struggles with languages [and if she has an ASD she will struggle even with English - google Semantic Pragmatic Speech Disorder], the EP may recommend that she drops French. There maybe other lessons she could/should drop. But again the EP should advise on that, and also on additional support she may need in the other lessons. That could be via 1:1 therapy, additional time with the teacher before/after lessons, a place to go to during breaktimes to reduce anxiety, reduced or no homework etc. The flexibility should be to meet her needs, not the needs of the school.

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