I know its only until the end of the school year but it can't come quick enough. He's going to a special language school which will suit him perfectly next year as they don't take people until year 3. He's currently in year 2. So hopefully he'll get in with some luck.
Anyway his current school was fine until this year. Anyway in the last week its getting worse and worse there. At the beginning of the year we (my mum and I as we share childcare after school) got told to pick him up 10 minutes early as they had no TA to help him in the last minutes in school. He never had one for this time last year but he has a new teacher this year and she pretty young and can't cope/not educated in autism. He doesn't really have meltdowns and he's had about 5 in his whole school year but can normally be defused by a distraction, which are normally in the morning.
So they got this new school thing this year called hub teaching. Its confusing the teachers as well as the kids. So this year he has to move for his Maths lesson instead of being in the same class, so of course this is a change to his routine so he plays up for his TA and he's never had to move class for any other lesson in the last two years except of course P.E. but you get changed to do so. They then spend the time moaning to us he keeps playing up. Well what do they expect. They spent two previous years telling us that any change is bad, so when you now have changed his routine you can't expect it to go smoothly! So he's getting punished and having to do with Maths work during break time. The same with assembly. Every time he had enough he was able to go out and play in his space (the conservatory) So this year he's now just being labelled as naughty and doesn't get a smile face for it.
They decided to do a stupid reward system. Where if he get 5 smiley faces he gets a reward for being good. That's all well and good, but something he's done well at 9.30 he'd have forgotten all about it by 3.30. Instant rewards work better for him we've found. Anyway, Thursday of this week he only got 4 smiley faces for the most stupid reason he never got his 5. Braces yourself girls. He never got his 5 smiley as he did to much hand flapping.
I know not all autistic children hand flap, but mine does when he's excited, bored or just needs some extra stimulation. The ironic thing is he did complete the task he was needed to do in the allotted amount of time which is surely the whole point of the smiley face not how much hand flapping was needed to get the task done! We rewarded him at home anyway, we always do as we don't think he's done particularly bad if they go changing rules and deduct points for stupid reasons! If he done something seriously bad like hitting someone else, then we wouldn't but he's never done that in his life!
Another thing is, DS is toilet trained. He was late and only been dry for a year. However, he doesn't tell you he needs the toilet and will just go. Well sometimes he does tell you buy pulling his trousers and pants down and running to the toilet like that, but he gets in trouble for that. At home its fine as he'll just go, no questions asked. So at school he's stopped pulling his trousers down, which in the long run is good. However, he's now having accidents at school only in the afternoon as when he tries to go, he gets told to sit down and behave. We've told school about this, but they don't listen. Its got to the point we always ask before we leave school as sometimes he's just bursting since he hasn't been since lunch. But what we don't get is we send in a spare set of clothes just in case, all named and what not, so a couple of times he's come in some random persons clothes. I guess they leant ours to someone else who's had an accident and they won't give them back. Same with P.E. clothes as we've lost a whole P.E. kit too!
That's not even the worse of it, I'm afraid. So this week we got asked if we wanted to pick him up at 1pm instead of 3 on Tuesdays so we can take him swimming. The teachers all have their P.A. time so all the T.A. look after the kids and they play games and DS class has P.E. and I guess his is needed else where. Then he would have his T.A for the rest of the week until 3 instead of 2.30. He loves his P.E. teacher and we see her down the stables when he has his riding lesson. Last week he helped her fed her horses and she really goes above and beyond to include him in everything. Not only that, but we have things to do. My gran is pretty ill right now and having another manic (she's bi-polar) so my mum looks after her most of the time when my sister is in uni. My sister is her main carer, but can't always be there due to her studies which is fair enough. I'm 25 weeks pregnant and got told no physical exercise due to bleeding during pregnancy as there's something wrong with my cervix and want to keep LO in there as long as possible. As a compromise we suggest we go in and help for the 2 hours on Tuesday instead of going swimming, mum has a bad foot right now and won't be able to take him for 9 weeks+ at least under doctors orders. They flat out said no to that.
All this wouldn't be to bad if they treated all the special children the same. But of course they don't. B's mum is allowed to come in during P.A. time as her darling can't cope with the change. B was moved into a different class as DS as she wants him to go to a normal school with an autistic unit attached. They flat out said no to us as it wasn't the best place for him, which is correct. So she's lied to that school as B is worst than DS at times. So they tried moving him to a different class, but some how is back with DS in his conservatory most of the time. He also use to change Maths classes, but has now stopped doing so as he was also playing up, but NOT getting in trouble for it. He apparently can't walk so she parks in the school car park in the disabled spot and pushes him in a pram to his class room, bare in mind he's 6 and suppose to be better than DS, where as DS will happily walk to grandma's house (my gran) after school if he needs to at the other side of the village. Thankful its only another 6 months, but I seriously don't why over the summer the school has gone so down hill.
Sorry for the long rant, but he's been building up over the weekend and I think I just needed a safe place to rant!
Anyway his current school was fine until this year. Anyway in the last week its getting worse and worse there. At the beginning of the year we (my mum and I as we share childcare after school) got told to pick him up 10 minutes early as they had no TA to help him in the last minutes in school. He never had one for this time last year but he has a new teacher this year and she pretty young and can't cope/not educated in autism. He doesn't really have meltdowns and he's had about 5 in his whole school year but can normally be defused by a distraction, which are normally in the morning.
So they got this new school thing this year called hub teaching. Its confusing the teachers as well as the kids. So this year he has to move for his Maths lesson instead of being in the same class, so of course this is a change to his routine so he plays up for his TA and he's never had to move class for any other lesson in the last two years except of course P.E. but you get changed to do so. They then spend the time moaning to us he keeps playing up. Well what do they expect. They spent two previous years telling us that any change is bad, so when you now have changed his routine you can't expect it to go smoothly! So he's getting punished and having to do with Maths work during break time. The same with assembly. Every time he had enough he was able to go out and play in his space (the conservatory) So this year he's now just being labelled as naughty and doesn't get a smile face for it.
They decided to do a stupid reward system. Where if he get 5 smiley faces he gets a reward for being good. That's all well and good, but something he's done well at 9.30 he'd have forgotten all about it by 3.30. Instant rewards work better for him we've found. Anyway, Thursday of this week he only got 4 smiley faces for the most stupid reason he never got his 5. Braces yourself girls. He never got his 5 smiley as he did to much hand flapping.
I know not all autistic children hand flap, but mine does when he's excited, bored or just needs some extra stimulation. The ironic thing is he did complete the task he was needed to do in the allotted amount of time which is surely the whole point of the smiley face not how much hand flapping was needed to get the task done! We rewarded him at home anyway, we always do as we don't think he's done particularly bad if they go changing rules and deduct points for stupid reasons! If he done something seriously bad like hitting someone else, then we wouldn't but he's never done that in his life!Another thing is, DS is toilet trained. He was late and only been dry for a year. However, he doesn't tell you he needs the toilet and will just go. Well sometimes he does tell you buy pulling his trousers and pants down and running to the toilet like that, but he gets in trouble for that. At home its fine as he'll just go, no questions asked. So at school he's stopped pulling his trousers down, which in the long run is good. However, he's now having accidents at school only in the afternoon as when he tries to go, he gets told to sit down and behave. We've told school about this, but they don't listen. Its got to the point we always ask before we leave school as sometimes he's just bursting since he hasn't been since lunch. But what we don't get is we send in a spare set of clothes just in case, all named and what not, so a couple of times he's come in some random persons clothes. I guess they leant ours to someone else who's had an accident and they won't give them back. Same with P.E. clothes as we've lost a whole P.E. kit too!
That's not even the worse of it, I'm afraid. So this week we got asked if we wanted to pick him up at 1pm instead of 3 on Tuesdays so we can take him swimming. The teachers all have their P.A. time so all the T.A. look after the kids and they play games and DS class has P.E. and I guess his is needed else where. Then he would have his T.A for the rest of the week until 3 instead of 2.30. He loves his P.E. teacher and we see her down the stables when he has his riding lesson. Last week he helped her fed her horses and she really goes above and beyond to include him in everything. Not only that, but we have things to do. My gran is pretty ill right now and having another manic (she's bi-polar) so my mum looks after her most of the time when my sister is in uni. My sister is her main carer, but can't always be there due to her studies which is fair enough. I'm 25 weeks pregnant and got told no physical exercise due to bleeding during pregnancy as there's something wrong with my cervix and want to keep LO in there as long as possible. As a compromise we suggest we go in and help for the 2 hours on Tuesday instead of going swimming, mum has a bad foot right now and won't be able to take him for 9 weeks+ at least under doctors orders. They flat out said no to that.
All this wouldn't be to bad if they treated all the special children the same. But of course they don't. B's mum is allowed to come in during P.A. time as her darling can't cope with the change. B was moved into a different class as DS as she wants him to go to a normal school with an autistic unit attached. They flat out said no to us as it wasn't the best place for him, which is correct. So she's lied to that school as B is worst than DS at times. So they tried moving him to a different class, but some how is back with DS in his conservatory most of the time. He also use to change Maths classes, but has now stopped doing so as he was also playing up, but NOT getting in trouble for it. He apparently can't walk so she parks in the school car park in the disabled spot and pushes him in a pram to his class room, bare in mind he's 6 and suppose to be better than DS, where as DS will happily walk to grandma's house (my gran) after school if he needs to at the other side of the village. Thankful its only another 6 months, but I seriously don't why over the summer the school has gone so down hill.
Sorry for the long rant, but he's been building up over the weekend and I think I just needed a safe place to rant!
They arent being very accommodating are they?
Punishing a child for flapping his hands? Not letting him go to the bathroom and losing all your extra clothes?? And they can't even accommodate a little with anything else? I would seriously be having words with the school. We aren't overly happy with my son's school either, and are considering pulling him out and going elsewhere. And the stuff I'm not too happy about is much less of a deal than what you're experiencing. His teacher being young/not educated in autism is no excuse. The schools are probably very different here, but can you get an aide for him? If that was the case here, he could get an aide (in your case who is knowledgeable about autism) in the class that would help him. Not sure if they do that there though. I hope you can do something to improve things though - 6mo is a long time to tolerate the situation.
