0 comment Sunday, June 15, 2014 | admin
Been having trouble with El Sproggo in school and at home again, to the point even ex is noticing. Generally obnoxious and just not-very-nice stuff, as well as the general need to try and shoehorn a child who has no business in mainstream into mainstream. Blowups happen daily at school, he has homework which is entirely incomprehensible to him to try and accomplish, communication with the school isn't happening even though they know I'm here and available.
Enough was enough so calls to school have been made, and it seems there's a lot going on, again, which I had no idea about.
The new headteacher has also taken over as the SEN unit head - this means the woman who was in last year has been replaced. To be honest this is no bad thing, she was utterly hopeless. However it would have been nice if I knew that.
Secondly, as I've pretty much already been saying, it was hinted that the head did not feel that sprog should have been in the mainstream class. More to the point the personal aide he is getting in the class turns out again to be getting "spread out" to the class as a whole and NOT specifically to my son as is supposed to be assigned. This is completely unacceptable and the head is looking in on that.
Furthermore, it seems as if sprog has been put into the damn room again. He's terrified of that room, but he's also now started to use it at a routine, like a child who acts up for a safehold because the safehold is security - that's how he's starting to see the room, as a place to howl and get the frustration out that he can't voice. Completely counterproductive now, as if it wasn't before and I told them this last year. Now at least they have figured it out. The "quiet room" (as they call it, I call it a prison) is going to be used minimally if at all. There are positive ways to draw sprog out of his behaviour issues, but locking him in an empty room he hates is not one of them.
As a matter of fact the head is going to chase up sprog transferring to the school with the dedicated autism unit. This of course is a bit of an issue at the moment as my Council saw fit to close four of the dedicated autism units in the county, consolidating them with other special needs units as they seem to think they can handle everything as a blanket issues. Utter nonsense as it is not at all working as planned at the moment, and therefore it seems the head feels sprog would be better in a unit specifically for autism.
Now, I've been saying all this. I said it last year, I said it this year, but when the Statement came back even though I had told them why I felt mainstream wouldn't work, they went ahead anyway. I decided at that point to just let them have enough rope - they'd either pull themselves up or hang themselves with it. And, as I expected, they've done the latter.
My son is NOT a mainstream child. He's bright, charming, has an eagerness to learn, and is verbal but he is NOT mainstream. The autism won't just disappear with enough trips to the Quiet Room and enough punishments, he won't somehow blossom into a perfectly adjusted child when he spends most of his time round kids who apparently swear every third word (and my child has picked it up to my horror). The square peg isn't going to fit no matter how hard you slam it in.
And so, it looks like El Sproggo will be moving to another school soon, if things aren't moving apace. He's no longer required to do homework (though he loves maths and science, the writing homework is a nightmare struggle and just too much to ask, especially when I have to essentially help do it for him the whole time). I'm purchasing his first computer next week and we will co-ordinate with the school to be able to get the same software installed and so on so he can use the system there. He'll be taken out of mainstream class and do his lessons in a much smaller, calmer environment.
And he'll either do that or I'm taking him out of school entirely and will be giving homeschooling a go. And yes, I did inform them of this, which seems to have lit a fire under some bums.
I guess the rope around the neck got a bit tight, no?
Enough was enough so calls to school have been made, and it seems there's a lot going on, again, which I had no idea about.
The new headteacher has also taken over as the SEN unit head - this means the woman who was in last year has been replaced. To be honest this is no bad thing, she was utterly hopeless. However it would have been nice if I knew that.
Secondly, as I've pretty much already been saying, it was hinted that the head did not feel that sprog should have been in the mainstream class. More to the point the personal aide he is getting in the class turns out again to be getting "spread out" to the class as a whole and NOT specifically to my son as is supposed to be assigned. This is completely unacceptable and the head is looking in on that.
Furthermore, it seems as if sprog has been put into the damn room again. He's terrified of that room, but he's also now started to use it at a routine, like a child who acts up for a safehold because the safehold is security - that's how he's starting to see the room, as a place to howl and get the frustration out that he can't voice. Completely counterproductive now, as if it wasn't before and I told them this last year. Now at least they have figured it out. The "quiet room" (as they call it, I call it a prison) is going to be used minimally if at all. There are positive ways to draw sprog out of his behaviour issues, but locking him in an empty room he hates is not one of them.
As a matter of fact the head is going to chase up sprog transferring to the school with the dedicated autism unit. This of course is a bit of an issue at the moment as my Council saw fit to close four of the dedicated autism units in the county, consolidating them with other special needs units as they seem to think they can handle everything as a blanket issues. Utter nonsense as it is not at all working as planned at the moment, and therefore it seems the head feels sprog would be better in a unit specifically for autism.
Now, I've been saying all this. I said it last year, I said it this year, but when the Statement came back even though I had told them why I felt mainstream wouldn't work, they went ahead anyway. I decided at that point to just let them have enough rope - they'd either pull themselves up or hang themselves with it. And, as I expected, they've done the latter.
My son is NOT a mainstream child. He's bright, charming, has an eagerness to learn, and is verbal but he is NOT mainstream. The autism won't just disappear with enough trips to the Quiet Room and enough punishments, he won't somehow blossom into a perfectly adjusted child when he spends most of his time round kids who apparently swear every third word (and my child has picked it up to my horror). The square peg isn't going to fit no matter how hard you slam it in.
And so, it looks like El Sproggo will be moving to another school soon, if things aren't moving apace. He's no longer required to do homework (though he loves maths and science, the writing homework is a nightmare struggle and just too much to ask, especially when I have to essentially help do it for him the whole time). I'm purchasing his first computer next week and we will co-ordinate with the school to be able to get the same software installed and so on so he can use the system there. He'll be taken out of mainstream class and do his lessons in a much smaller, calmer environment.
And he'll either do that or I'm taking him out of school entirely and will be giving homeschooling a go. And yes, I did inform them of this, which seems to have lit a fire under some bums.
I guess the rope around the neck got a bit tight, no?