Fuming with the school

[LisaKaz75]

My 5 year old as autism and has a statement for 32.5 hours a week. He has a morning one to one and a different afternoon one to one. Since he started school in September he has thrived! He can hold a pen, started to read, but more importantly started to form relationships and interact with staff and other pupils in his class

 

Yesterday at 2.30 i received a phonecall from the head to inform me that as of Monday, Leo was having a new afternoon one to one. In short, the afternoon one to one started the day my son did, and half his contract was for Leo. Now the school has seen he has loads to offer and as the head said to me "he cant just help one child he has the skills to offer support to a group of children!"

 

So he has gone to another part of the school and I am mad and very upset. I can not explain to my son that this teacher is no longer his. Also although a new afternoon one to one has been appointed, he has to bond all over again

 

The main thing this guy did was encourage Leo to be in small groups, and we strongly believe this is why Leos interaction skills have come on so

 

Anyway - can the school just swap and change like that? It seems wrong after 1 term and 2 weeks to take him off my sons provision. Is there anything I can do? I spoke to Leos teacher and she is not happy either. It has been presented to all of us as a done deal

 

Any advice

 

Lisa

[Merry]

I'm not sure if you can do anything to change it....but just because something is legally right, doesn't necessarily make it morally right. And to me, that sounds appalling. Surely they should have consulted you way in advance of this happening so that you and his teacher would have time to prepare him for the change perhaps, and also to allow for some kind of transitional period/handing over period between the two one-to-one support workers? Training does not necessarily produce an amazing teacher...a lot of the time, it's a person's natural ability to connect with children/or the individual child which brings out the best in them. And actually, often it can work both ways. Just like adults have certain people they feel most confident with, so do children, and in some cases, an adult is better at teaching some children than others. Childcare workers and teachers are not allowed to have favourites, but there's no sin as far as i'm concerned in a member of staff having a particular connection with a child who responds well to them....and a golden partnership like that is hard to find. It amazes me that they felt his teacher could be replaced by somebody else so easily but then that's the world we live in. I used to be shocked when I worked in nurseries, that managers would swap staff around between different rooms on a daily basis and give no thought at all to the fact that children need to have opportunities to develop bonds and relationships of some kind, if they are to feel secure....even more so for children with autism. Very sad.

[Suze]

Your sons school obviously don,t know much about autism do they .I would be very upset also.If it were me I would be penning a letter to the head and copying the governors into it also.32.5 hrs a week is alot so your son obviously has a very good statement.I would request an autism advisor go in and do a managed hand over of the old teaching assistant and the new one.Had this been my son he would have regressed from this episode .

[Sally44]

I agree with the above. The whole point of being on the spectrum is that they can have heightened anxiety anyway because things do not make sense to them. So they need consistency. They need to learn to do things explicitly with one person before it can be moved out to other adults or children, otherwise they simply do not manage to generalise that skill into another setting.

 

If this had to happen, then it should have been [and as it has just happened it still should be], a managed transition/changeover.

 

My son went from having one dedicated TA with him in year 3 and 4, to having about 5 different TAs on different days and in different lessons. My son also has faceblindness. He NEVER learnt those other adults names. He never connected with them and he never recognised them, and it was the start of a disasterous decline.

 

Schools often just don't get it. It is the same with feeding children from autism units over to mainstream. They expect the children to somehow 'cope' with this change in environment, peers, teachers, lesson structure etc and actually learn something in those lessons. Mostly it just does not work.

 

As far as the Statement goes you can have something in it like he needs consistent members of staff and therapy team, and that any unavoidable changes must be managed with a detailed and supported transition period.

[Suze]

Sorry Sally ...............hate doing this ....

 

but your comment on feeding kids from autism units to mainstream..........I have to disagree with you as far as my sons experience goes .My son was in a unit and went from constant 1;1support in yr 7 to only support in english and maths for dyslexia ..he was also mentoring younger kids , his experience was hugely positive............however it should be noted he had the same key worker throughout this time who was absolutely brilliant and he is still in contact with her 2 yrs later..........so maybe the key here for Lisas son is the importance of a constant and experienced TA who your son is happy with.Sometimes these people are more important that the educational placement.

[Sally44]

I think it boils down to whether your child is ever happy in school. Mine never was. And changes just made it much worse. And often those children that are not coping mainstream are then moved into a unit which then feeds them back into the environment they could not cope with.

 

If things are working well, then being consistent with staff is going to help continue that.

 

Some years ago, I was asked to be on a Panel with some other parents to discuss how the LA intended to meet the needs of children with autism. I was very concerned at their plans, which they will be putting in place over the coming years. And they did not listen to us as parents. Their "Vision" for children with autism who were not coping in mainstream was to transport them inbetween different schools for different lesson subjects, and the type of school they would go to would depend on their cognitive ability. So they somehow expected autistic children to meet in one school and then be bused around each day to 2, 3 or 4 different sites. They were trying to be economic with buildings and resources. But I just could not see it working for the vast majority of those kids. It was additional anxiety on top of everything else they were trying to cope with.

Edited January 20, 2013 by Sally44

[Sally44]

The only other thing I would add is that it also depends on the wording of he Statement.

If it says he will have one constant TA throughout the day. [and remember the wording has to be legally binding and so you need advice on that]. Then the school change it to more than one TA at different times of the day - then that is a change to he Statement and you might be able to use judicial review. But it is about getting the Statement legally binding to begin with and for it to be worded so that the support your son receives is detailed to such an extent that it works. Now the LA or school might argue that there needs to be some flexibility in the Statement. But if you look at the IPSEA website, there is a case law judgement which says "flexibilitty must be built into the Statement FOR HE BENEFIT OF THE CHILD AND NOT OF THE SYSTEM." So any school attempting to make changes to suit themselves, staffing arrangements etc is not a reason to change the Statement. Flexibility must always be for the benefit of the child, for them to access education and for them to make progress. Anything that works against that needs to be amended in the Statement.

[Sally44]

This is a link to the IPSEA website and the page that details a number of cases where 'flexibility' in the Statement is the issue.

 

Once there has been a case law decision that means that all other SEND decisions should fall in line with the same line of thinking UNLESS there is a challenge to that judgement via the high court and another case law decision is taken as the current line of thinking.

 

So when any school or LA are saying they cannot be more specific with the Statement because it needs to be flexible, they are not following case law. So you need to read this.

 

http://www.ipsea.org.uk/Apps/Content/HTML/?id=113

[LisaKaz75]

thanks everyone. There is no specific wording re the one to ones. Luckily the guy who has been moved away wishes to keep a relationship with Leo and also keep things moving forward. The head is not prepared to budge, but has agreed that the old one to one can have lunches and lunch times with Leo, to encourage those playground interactions, and also spend the last 20 minutes of the day reviewing what the new one to one has done and suggesting any changes

I know its not ideal! The new one to one seems very nice, but is inexperienced, so she is glad of the others support. Also both his morning and afternoon one to ones are now in his classroom all day, so can cover and oversee each other. I need to try and see positives in the situation as my anxiety will make Leo anxious and I really dont want that!

We have all agreed to review in 2 weeks to see how things are going.

 

thanks again for all your advice

 

Lisa

 

PS still awaiting input from Parent Partnership and the local autism team, but weather is making things difficult

[oxgirl]

It does sound as if all the TAs want to work together to help your lad, so I would be encouraged by that. It is positive in some ways that your lad doesn't become too dependent upon just one person. I know it is also good to keep continuity going, but change can also be a positive thing for our children to get used to. I hope the new TAs work out well and are just as good at supporting your son as his previous one. If he gets to know all the TAs working in his year group well then it is also an advantage as it won't be such a shock for him if one is ill or absent one day and he has to have another, as he will know the replacement one as well.

 

~ Mel ~