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emotink

Home schooling and benefits

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Not sure if this is the right place to post this but, My son is having major issues around school to the point we are thinking about home schooling. We thought about it in the past but I need to work for financial reasons. Things have taken a turn for the worse with him so we are having to look at it again. It looks as if I can get carers allowence (which will help), and I have just done a online check to see if our child tax credits will go up. They ask if your child is in full time education so, if I do home school him is this classed as 'in fulltime education'?

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Yes I think so, you are just schooling at home.

Do you have DLA for your son? And if you do you might consider letting them know of his deterioration so that his care and mobility can be increased.

If you get DLA you might also be eligible for council tax benefit.

 

But remember that if you take sole responsibility the LA will wash it hands of your son and he won't get access to EP, SALT etc.

 

I think it is possible to do both, ie. part time in school and part at home. In that way you might keep hold of some essential therapy from speech and language therapist and EP.

 

Have you seen clinical psychology or CAHMS about his school refusal and deterioration?

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We are seeing the EP next week and are currently under referal to CAMHS, but have been warned that there is a long wait (est 4-5 mth!!!), the school are refering us to the local Autistic Spectrum team, and the wait for that is currently 8-10 weeks.

He refused School yesterday, but went in today. As he is not currently statemented he 'borrows' someone elses LSA / TA but in Drama and DT today he is on his own which he finds extra hard. When I took him in this morn, the head of the LSA's was in reception so I thought I would have a quick chat and explain his worries for the day. I found her very stern and she gave me the impression that she was too busy to give a damn. Connor started to talk to her but she cut him off saying that she will take him to Drama and started marching off. He really struggles talking about his worries and feelings and brings 'all the bad' home with him and meltsdown. Is it any wonder if the support he is recieving is like that! We really want him to get on at school- we dont care if he doesnt do any exams when the time comes, we want him there for the social skills etc. I worry that if we do home school then we will have closed him off to the world. He has no real friends, rarely someone will call for him but he chooses not to go out but they are welcomed in to play xbox etc. My greatest fear is that if we do this, potentially we will make more / bigger problems for the future as all social skills will be lost, but, the fear in his eyes when I force him into school is breaking my heart. How the hell do we make this decision.

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There are ASD specific independent schools for children capable of taking GCSEs or other exams.

You need to get a Statement of SEN. You can't do that if you home educate him. And unfortunately your child would probably need to be out of school before a tribunal would consider an independent placement anyway. It has to deteriorate to the stage that mainstream is not possible any more.

 

What independent ASD schools are there around you?

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Hi Emotink,

 

What I'd say is that school does not necessarily equal socializing.

 

I home educated for the last two years of my son's primary years, as he just wasn't coping at all. We did want him to have the chance of secondary school and qualifications, etc., so decided to put him into an ASD unit attached to a mainstream secondary school (not many options open to us, tbh). It was the worst decision of our life. Being at that seconeary school was the most isolating and damaging experience of my son's life.

 

When I was home educating he was far more socialized; I took him to regular home education groups (there are bound to be some in your area), he went to social groups and clubs and holiday activities, we could pick and choose the social situations he could cope with and dip in and out of them. When he started at the secondary school, he was shadowed by a TA constantly and in the unit some of the day and taking part in some mainstream lessons. All the time he was there he didn't make a single friend and, looking back, I wished we had continued to home educate. He was far too exhausted after school to attend any groups so was totally alone and lonely.

 

I really believe that being at that school destroyed his self-esteem so much to the point where he is now not capable of making friends. Being at that school taught him that he was weird, that he didn't fit in and that nobody wanted to be his friend; he didn't know this before. He came out with some GCSEs but so what, he is so socially disabled he can't make use of them anyway.

 

Of course, this is only my experience, I just tell you this because I don't buy into the 'going to school helps kids socialize' argument, for some it does totally the opposite.

 

Good luck with your decision.

 

~ Mel ~

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I think it is probably premature to be thinking about home schooling. If he is having problems at school then you would be better first trying to resolve those with the help that is available from external agencies.I think you should first seek to understand what it is that is causing him problems before deciding what the best solution.

 

I don't think you need to "force" him into school - if he refuses to go then don't force him - it adds to your case if he is refusing school. But do make sure that you have discussed his reluctance to go to school with both your GP and the school itself to protect yourself when EWS come knocking.

 

But even if he won't go into school don't go the home education route unless you have to - if you do then the LA will wash its hands of you and you will be on your own. Your son has a right to an appropriate education and the LA has a duty to provide it. There will be schools out there that will work for your son but you will have to go through 1 - 2 years of pain to get there.

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But even if he won't go into school don't go the home education route unless you have to - if you do then the LA will wash its hands of you and you will be on your own. Your son has a right to an appropriate education and the LA has a duty to provide it. There will be schools out there that will work for your son but you will have to go through 1 - 2 years of pain to get there.

 

Many people go into home education because they want to not because they have to. I believe that for some children the LA just cannot provide appropriate placements. They may try their best, but for some it is a matter of being forced to take what is available, in some cases options are very limited and it's a matter of best of a bad lot. A lot of schools do their very best, but simply are not able to provide an atmosphere that works for some children. Putting your child through 1 or 2 years of pain, because it is the child that suffers the pain, is not worth it, in my opinion. The damage that can be done during these times of misery, loneliness and isolation can affect them for the rest of their lives. Some people do find placements where their child can thrive and flourish and be happy and that is fantastic, but some cannot. For some it is the better option to take on the responsibility themselves rather than insisting that the LA must because they have a duty to do it, however inadequately.

 

~ Mel ~

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I agree that the school environment is not necessarily the best place to socialise.

My son is at an ASD specific school now and they do do alot of work with the children on socialisation and communication etc. He also has one night sleepover in school so he does things with the other residential kids and this has been all very positive.

My son did not get any support whilst in mainstream. And remember that having an ASD means you must have problems with speech and language and social communication to get the diagnosis in the first place, and those difficulties are lifelong.

 

It is a real shame there are not enough types of schools for all types of children.

 

I think you can have a mixture of both school education and home education. And the benefit of that might be that he keeps any input with EP or SALT. But again, via mainstream LA professionals or NHS professionals that is very limited. At his ASD independent school those professionals, including OT are employed on site and see the children all the time.

 

But you could seek high rate DLA for care and mobility and use that to buy in any private therapy whereby they gave a programme or advice to you, or saw your son on an agreed basis.

 

I agree with what Oxgirl has said about how you can get other socialising events if you home educate.

 

If he is to remain in school you will need to follow the Statementing process and you will need to try to find an ASD specific school and try to get a placement there, if the mainstream placement breaks down or your son becomes to ill to attend a mainstream school. This process can take a long time ie. 26 weeks to get a Statement, and then lodge an appeal, with is usually set about 4 months in advance. So you are looking at possibily a year of him not coping and the possibility that for most of that time he maybe too ill or anxious or both to attend school at all.

 

But if you do get the right placement, therapy etc, and one that goes up to age 19, you will be amazed to see he progress your child can make. My son was out of school for a year. Last week he went on a school skiing trip to Italy! That is a huge turnaround in 16 months.

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True - I was thinking. Of children with statements who have a wider range of choices available. Without a statement you have less choice of schooling - but even so in most cases there will be more than one option. I think home schooling should usually be the last resort rather than the first alternative.

 

If the child is suffering too much at school I would pull them out (with the necessary support of health professionals) but not formally take responsibility for the education ourselves. Particularly if there are special needs as these are much harder to meet at home.

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You have to be very careful what you do and how you do it. If you just withdraw your child from school, eventhough you may have good reasons for doing so, you can end up with the Educational Welfare Officer on your doorstep.

 

If your child is not coping in school due to their SEN then the school needs to know that. Parents can request a statutory assessment towards a Statement. You usually need your child to be on School Action Plus and to have had at least 2 IEPs, but it is not mandatory.

 

You also need to get a referal to Clinical Psychology as they are the professionals that deal with anxiety. Ask to be referred to a consultant or team that has experience of working with children with an ASD. And keep pushing professionals for their advice, input, therapy etc.

 

As soon as you take your child off he school role you are responsible for them 24/7 and responsible for their education. The LA no longer have to do anything.

 

And if you are home educating you don't have a Statement, so you have no legally binding document that you can use to enforce the provision it contains. So even if NHS professionals are involved there is no way of ensuring they provide what your son needs. Under a Statement the LA is liable to fund anything which is over and above what the NHS typically provides, and they definately have to fund all the provision detailed in he Statement.

 

For some home educating works well. I didn't want to go down that route, but admit that if we had not won our second tribunal I would have had to seriously consider it as an option.

 

Even in a good ASD specific school kids still have problems and upsets. I am currently dealing with my 12 year old son and his "interpretation" of another boy in his class and what he says and does. My son thinks he is being persecuted. And whilslt there is definately some teasing going on, and this other boy does know how to push my son's buttons - it is also about my son not recognising other types of humour and not seeing the wider picture. Growing up isn't easy, especially when you have the types of difficulties that those on the spectrum have regarding social communication.

Edited by Sally44

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We are down in Cornwall and have no ASD specific school in the county. There are a few special schools but they are unsuitable. He had a huge meltdown this morning over what underpants to wear!!! It seems like anything can set him off at the mo. Fingercrossed the EP can help when we see her on Thurs.

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A lot of the best ASD schools are at least partly residential - sometimes for the week and sometimes longer. Although the it seems hard to contemplate sending your child away to school, the experts say that most ASD children thrive in that environment and everyone I know who has sent their child to such a school has very positive things to say about it.

 

I am pretty sure there are independent ASD schools in Cornwall - I think I heard of one near Truro - and there are certainly a few in the West Country.

 

Our son is still at primary but we are seriously considering a residential placement for him when he moves up.

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My son travels about 40-45 minutes by taxi to get to his school. It is the only ASD specific one in our area which is for capable children of around average cognitive ability.

Edited by Sally44

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Hi emotink reading ur post is like u writing a page on my life I'm going through the same with some exceptions my son also called Connor is 14 he has classic asd,adha,Severe behavioural problems and a moderate learning disability and he has a sen and goes to a special school but its been slowly getting worst the is a mixture on special needs and a lot of the children there have adha and quite able Connor doesn't understand the way they are.he won't speak up to the teachers so if there's something he doesn't like or doesn't want to do he would just do and then come home and blame us for sending him there I have now took him out of the school has his emotional state wasn't good and having a year with a nightmare of a teacher then him moving to different teachers for different lessons them losing him in a supermarket and him burning himself three times in cooking and he's been more willing to the these he wouldn't normally want to do but a trip to his psych yesterday knocked us back he was very nasty and kept saying that I wasn't trained and that I would do more damage than good and he would become more stuck his ways and that I should get him back into school after the Easter holidays it was horrible Connor was crying and begging not to put back in school I started crying feeling that I was going to fail my child so what I would say is that the medical professional don't like it at all and look down their nose at you and won't get any help from them x

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Hi emotink reading ur post is like u writing a page on my life I'm going through the same with some exceptions my son also called Connor is 14 he has classic asd,adha,Severe behavioural problems and a moderate learning disability and he has a sen and goes to a special school but its been slowly getting worst the is a mixture on special needs and a lot of the children there have adha and quite able Connor doesn't understand the way they are.he won't speak up to the teachers so if there's something he doesn't like or doesn't want to do he would just do and then come home and blame us for sending him there I have now took him out of the school has his emotional state wasn't good and having a year with a nightmare of a teacher then him moving to different teachers for different lessons them losing him in a supermarket and him burning himself three times in cooking and he's been more willing to the these he wouldn't normally want to do but a trip to his psych yesterday knocked us back he was very nasty and kept saying that I wasn't trained and that I would do more damage than good and he would become more stuck his ways and that I should get him back into school after the Easter holidays it was horrible Connor was crying and begging not to put back in school I started crying feeling that I was going to fail my child so what I would say is that the medical professional don't like it at all and look down their nose at you and won't get any help from them x

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The government is tightening up on benefits. Income Support used to be an ideal benefit for HE educating parents but the government has now almost phased it out for children of school age. At the moment the best option is to become self employed and claim Working Tax Credits. Many HE parents do this because it's the best 'passive' source of income from the government. WTC are administered by HMRC and not the DWP / Job Centre. I suggest that you act quickly because WTC are being replaced by Universal Credit for new claims this October although existing WTC claimants can continue on WTC for the next few years. Universal Credit is very stingy and self employed people will be subject to the wrath of the Job Centre and forced to take up a low paid job if their business doesn't make enough profit.

 

we want him there for the social skills etc. I worry that if we do home school then we will have closed him off to the world. He has no real friends, rarely someone will call for him but he chooses not to go out but they are welcomed in to play xbox etc. My greatest fear is that if we do this, potentially we will make more / bigger problems for the future as all social skills will be lost, but, the fear in his eyes when I force him into school is breaking my heart. How the hell do we make this decision.

 

The social skills is a myth.

 

http://www.aspergersupport.org.uk/articles/socialisation.html

 

I recommend that you get a bit more involved with the HE community and you will realise this. The fact that your son has no real friends at school should have sounded the alarm bells. Many parents have utterly destroyed their children by sending them to school to learn social skills. The damage lasts a lifetime. It would be more productive and beneficial to try and find friends outside of school.

 

I think it is probably premature to be thinking about home schooling.

 

No it isn't. HE is not a one-way ticket. If it doesn't work out then you can always send your kids back to school.

 

But even if he won't go into school don't go the home education route unless you have to - if you do then the LA will wash its hands of you and you will be on your own. Your son has a right to an appropriate education and the LA has a duty to provide it. There will be schools out there that will work for your son but you will have to go through 1 - 2 years of pain to get there.

 

Under the 1996 Education Act, parents are responsible for their child's education. Not the LA or the school. The years of pain battling with the education system are usually not worth it unless there is a totally perfect school and it could lead to long term damage.

 

If the child is suffering too much at school I would pull them out (with the necessary support of health professionals) but not formally take responsibility for the education ourselves.

 

How exactly do you do that? To withdraw a child from a state school you have to send in a letter saying that they are now HE or attend another school.

 

Particularly if there are special needs as these are much harder to meet at home.

 

I disagree with this. Parents and local support groups often know more about how to provide for SEN than schools and LA professionals do.

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Just to expand on the points Canous quoted.

 

Typically an ASD child will have a number of educational needs beyond simply learning - that could be SALT, OT, Sensory and so on. While the LA is responsible for his education they need to provide those therapies as required rather than dependent on the whim of the NHS. If you home educate your child then the LA will not provide any of that, so there is the risk that if you start HE you will miss out on therapies that would help him.

 

The same issue impacts returning from HE into school - you would be unlikely to walk back into mainstream with all the support he needs and so there would be a considerable lag between getting back into school and getting a statement.

 

It is possible for a child to stop attending school without being home educated, for example school refusal (not uncommon with ASD) or to get signed off sick because of "stress" - a sympathetic GP will help by signing him off sick.

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The same issue impacts returning from HE into school - you would be unlikely to walk back into mainstream with all the support he needs and so there would be a considerable lag between getting back into school and getting a statement.

 

Disagree with this, I'm afraid. I HE'd for two years, the last two years of primary, and then got a place with no problem at all at a unit for ASD children attached to a mainstream secondary, statement was still intact and carried on as if no gap in school-eduation. Wish I hadn't, of course, but that's another matter!

 

~ Mel ~

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Disagree with this, I'm afraid. I HE'd for two years, the last two years of primary, and then got a place with no problem at all at a unit for ASD children attached to a mainstream secondary, statement was still intact and carried on as if no gap in school-eduation. Wish I hadn't, of course, but that's another matter!

Sorry - you are right of course. If a statement is in place then the LA does have to maintain the statement but if he is in HE or independent school but they don't need to provide resources.

 

What I was really thinking about was the problems that might be faced for someone who does not yet have a statement To step back into mainstream and then start the process could be very time consuming - they would probably want to spend some time on SA / SAP before you could realistically apply for statutory assessment..

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Just to expand on the points Canous quoted.

 

Typically an ASD child will have a number of educational needs beyond simply learning - that could be SALT, OT, Sensory and so on. While the LA is responsible for his education they need to provide those therapies as required rather than dependent on the whim of the NHS. If you home educate your child then the LA will not provide any of that, so there is the risk that if you start HE you will miss out on therapies that would help him.

 

I am already well aware of this. However, experience has revealed that these therapies are required primarily for coping in a school type setting, so are often no longer required after HE commences.

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I am already well aware of this. However, experience has revealed that these therapies are required primarily for coping in a school type setting, so are often no longer required after HE commences.

We haven't got to that stage yet so can't comment :)

 

It would be nice to think that the therapy will produce such lasting results that it does cease to be necessary.

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It would be nice to think that the therapy will produce such lasting results that it does cease to be necessary.

 

I don't think lasting results is quite the correct terminology. I have heard parents go as far as make references to a life support machine for use at school.

 

The health of most kids with SEN magically improves after beginning HE.

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