IEP for Year 10 student

[Nemesis]

Hi,

I'm new to the forum and would appreciate some advice about my son's IEP. I have read some past threads but they seem to relate to younger children. This is all new to me - please bear with me if I am a little long winded.

DS, who is 15 this week, was diagnosed with Asperger's in December. He has gone on to School Action Plus and I have a meeting at school this week to discuss his IEP. He attends a co-ed grammar school (we started him in a comprehensive in Year 7 but transferred him in year 8 when it became evident that the school could not resolve bullying problems). He is very bright and has no problems academically other than some issues around organization.

His difficulties at school are mainly of a social nature eg he is very unpopular with fellow students as he tends to act as class 'policeman'; he finds team work of any kind very difficult; he often becomes distressed in class for various reasons and has some difficulty concealing this.

His school have been very supportive since his diagnosis. He has been allocated a mentor who is a full time paid staff member whose sole role is student support. This has given DS somewhere to turn when is distressed and he has found this very helpful.

Other ideas that have so far been discussed with school are

- the provision in some lessons of a support assistant (DS wants them there in the background though not specifically identified with him)

- moving DS to a desk at the front of classes where he feels less vulnerable (and preferably on his own)

- I have also asked school to address the issue of games lessons as DS currently has to play rugby which he hates both because of the team work involved and because his gross motor skills are not great.

 

As I said at the beginning I'm new to all this and I'm not entirely sure what an IEP is meant to encompass. My question (at last ) is does anyone have any other ideas/ suggestions as to things that school could do to help make DS's life easier?

Thanks for reading,

Helen

[LKS]

Hi Nemesis and welcome. Sorry don't have much advice to give as my children are a bit younger. There are many members on here with children your son's age who will help. My son is 11 and has just started secondary school. He finds group work very difficult and on his IEP it says. Please make sure that **** has a role in group or paired work(this is because in group work his contribution is often ignored) He has a pupil profile that all teachers are supposed to have a copy of which states what is likely to cause him stress. He is supposed to be able to leave the room if necessary and make his way to the LRC suite. This can be a problem as he would be unsupervised and there are often classes already in there Fingers crossed we are not having to use this option at the moment. Is your son's organisation causing any significant problems. Does he need extra time to get homework down or to prepare for lessons. Has he been seen by any AS specialist teachers. We had a great one at primary school who helped my son to recognise when it is appropriate to 'tell' and when not. This works quite well most of the time, but my son has a trememdous sense of fair play and finds it hard to deal with events he feels are unfair. Good luck and this forum is the best

[phasmid]

Hi Nemesis, welcome to the forum. Your son is the same age as mine who is also in mainstream. He had similar problems as well. We got round the PE difficulties (these lessons caused HUGE meltdowns) by approaching the school and suggesting flexi-schooling. This saw phas jr withdrawn from school PE lessons and Mrs P either took him swimming, used the school gym with him or used the time for social skills lessons. It was hard work at times, but worth it. He has now re-intergratted back into PE lessons - following a lot of hard work from Mrs P and his PE teacher. The important thing was HE wanted to do this, it wasn't because they made him! They are now trying this approach with other pupils (for different lessons and various reasons) as a result of it working so well for us.

 

It might be worth thinking about and seeing what the school think, be warned though it is a big commitment. Hope that helps a bit.

[Nemesis]

Hi Phas and LKS,

Thanks for the replies.

You're right that I need to address the issue of him leaving classes - I think this has caused problems at times when teachers have not been prepared to let him leave. The pupil profile is a good idea too. His organization is generally fairly good, but a couple of major assignments slipped through the net completely Obviously, this is a major concern now that he has his GCSE coursework to do. I think he feels overwhelmed when he doesn't have a clear plan of what he is meant to be doing and in these cases has tended to 'overlook' the assignment altogether. I suppose this comes down to better communication between us and school.

Games lessons - I did discuss the possibility of me taking him out of school for this with his mentor. I'm hoping school will be open to this idea. Until now I've just told him that NOBODY likes games at school and he just has to get on with it. Now, with his diagnosis, his extreme dislike makes more sense and I do feel rather guilty

The meeting is on Tuesday so I'll let you know how we get on.

Thanks again,

Helen

[phasmid]

An idea for the distress he feels in class might be an 'Exit Card'. Showing this would allow him to leave the room and go to a specified place/person without question. Phas Jr was given one of these when we suggested it in yr7. He never actualy used it but it seems just the knowledge it was there and he could do was enough. It gave him control of the situation. Your son may not be able to verbalise his feelings to the teacher if something has upset him - using one of these cards would mean he wouldn't have to, well not straight away at least. Obviously there would have to be some form of monitoring of it's use so that it was not abused...but it might help take a bit of pressure off him.

[Helen]

Hello Nemesis and welcome,

 

Now that your son has an official dx you could try getting in touch with your LEA's advisory teacher for Autism for some suggestions/support/advice regarding what ought to be included in his IEP (if your LEA doesn't have such a specialist then it may have connections with an autism outreach team). My LEA's autism specialist has been known to provide support not only to statemented children but also to children on the SEN stage School Action+.

 

RE: GCSE exams - does your son tend to panic before exams, does he need extra time to get use to exam conditions, has he been able to complete exam papers within the allocated timeframes? There is a link on here somewhere about exam conditions which may be of some use to you - sorry I can't post it, I lost the link when my PC crashed a few weeks ago, hopefully someone else has it and will post it for you.

[phasmid]

Phas Jr is currently doing his mocks. He is being allowed an extra 5 mins per hour where he can rest. He was also offered the use of a quiet room to do his exams in, as he did in his SATs, he has turned that down but is being sat at the back of the hall in a position he is happy with. I don't know the link Helen means so can't help there, but with his DX your son is entitled to all sorts of help exam wise. Talk to the SENCo and see what they say. Any problems you know where to ask for help.

Edited January 8, 2006 by phasmid

[nellie]

Hi Nemesis and welcome,

 

I'm not sure if this is the link Helen means but it has information on examinations and special arrangements for students with special needs. Look under Info. Sheets.

 

http://www.oaasis.co.uk/

 

Nellie xx

[Helen]

Hi Nemesis and welcome,

 

I'm not sure if this is the link Helen means but it has information on examinations and special arrangements for students with special needs. Look under Info. Sheets.

 

http://www.oaasis.co.uk/

 

Nellie xx

Yes Nellie that's the one!!!!!

 

There is also some information on the NAS website, Special arrangements for examinations : http://www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=364&a=2191 scroll 3/5 down the page.

[Nemesis]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for all the replies - I'm overwhelmed

I've had a quick look at the OAASIS link. It looks great - loads of information. Now I know what I'll be doing with the rest of my day

I don't think exams are a big problem. DS had to compete against nearly 20 others for the grammar school place in year 8 and that went okay. However, both he and I have stumbled along this far assuming that a lot of his difficulties were 'normal' (he's our eldest and our only boy) and just doing our best to manage them. Now that we're talking about it there have been lots of surprises for me in terms of things that he has been struggling to manage. So, I'll ask him about that one too.

Thanks again,

Helen

[phasmid]

We are in the same position. Phas Jr is our eldest and therefore we were unable to judge his development against another child. Had he been our second, third or fourth then we would have picked up on things an awful lot quicker. Like yourself we got a lot of things right as we went along just by gut instinct. We got other stuff horibbly wrong too! Once we had got his dx we awere able to react accordingly and there were times where we would have got it wrong without that dx.

[Nemesis]

Hi,

I've got loads of info from the OAASIS and NAS links - thanks Helen for suggesting those. They've given me lots of ideas and raised lots of questions for me.

Phas, it's nice to know we're not alone in coming to this diagnosis relatively late. How old was Phas Jr when he was dxed? It is hard to look back and think of all the things we would have done differently if only we had known. AS was mentioned by a psychologist when we sought help with DS's toileting years ago - but in a 'well I don't think he's got Asperger's' sort of way. And it was so much harder to find information about it then. Still, better late than never

Nemesis

[phasmid]

His 'offical' dx came when he was 10/11, although it had been 'mentioned' (dx'd but we were not told of it, at 3).

[Nemesis]

Well I had the meeting at school and thanks to you guys I felt really well prepared - with a list of what I felt the issues were for DS and suggestions for action as well as a load of articles I'd printed off in support about AS and education and exams.

I can honestly say that school were fantastic - really open to my ideas and the SENCO took copies of all the downloads as well. As a result of the meeting we've agreed various things including

- DS is to have an exit card as suggested by Phasmid

- he's to be allowed to leave classes a couple of minutes early to miss the crush in the corridor which he hates

- much closer monitoring of assignments, with written instructions given to DS etc

- no more games lessons (I undertook to make sure he gets his 2 hours exercise out of school which he already does)

- school are going to provide him with a laptop to use in lessons (he hates writing and his work is really messy)

- the SENCO is looking into exam arrangments (one of the OAASIS articles had LOADS of information on this)

- a written pupil profile to be given to all staff dealing with him explaining his areas of vulnerability and the special arrangements in place

and lots more besides but I won't bore you with it all Of course, now we have to get it put into action but I've been picking up Phasmid's suggestions from other threads as well and have already put into writing to the SENCO everything that was agreed.

 

So I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who replied because I really couldn't have done it without you

Nemesis

[annie]

Hi Nemesis,

 

Well done

 

Sounds like you had a great meeting. It's good that school are open to ideas too.

 

Annie

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[phasmid]

Superb! Well done you, thats the sort od response we like to see happen. Seems the school have really listened and take on board everything you have suggested. Here's hoping they stick with it. Great news.

[Hectorshouse]

Well done nemesis for sticking to your guns, it sounds like the school has taken on board as phas said which is really positive. I am publishing T's Student Information Sheet (SIS) on my blog later today and his IEP, both of these go hand in hand and are circulated to ALL teaching staff that are directly involved with T and his year head and HT and Dep HT etc ...

 

T also has special dispensation for exams/tests .. he has access to a quiet room, a scribe and a reader (where necessary). He took part in his first Science Test last week, and completed 75% of the test and gained 38% as his mark (level 4) this is a huge achievement for T, he has never gained a curriculum mark before because he was simply unable to do the tests with his poor literacy skills, even though he knew the subject and the answers ... he just couldn't write them. The SENCO couldn't understand why this has never been done before at his previous schools, and said all students with dyslexia or assocated learning difficulties or ASD should have this access, and it is all part of the DfEs guidance ... I wish all schools took on board what our SENCO is doing.

 

HHxx

[Helen]

Nemesis,

 

What a result! I'm so pleased for you

[nellie]

Great news. Well done Nemesis and a round of applause to everyone who helped.

[Jill]

Well done to every body that's helped Nemesis & Nemesis herself for sticking to her guns.

 

This is exactly why I subscribe to forums like this - intelligent help from knowledgeable people, coupled with caring and understanding support when needed.

 

You should all feel proud of yourselves that you've made life a little easier for Nemesis' lad AND helped make the school more aware should anything similar hapen again.

 

Brilliant the lot of you

[Nemesis]

Hectorshouse - Well done for your DS - what an achievement! It sounds like you have a good SENCO on the case now

 

This is exactly why I subscribe to forums like this - intelligent help from knowledgeable people, coupled with caring and understanding support when needed.

My sentiments exactly

Thanks again everyone - I really feel as if I have achieved something for my son and I'm hoping it will make life a lot less stressful for him.

Nemesis x