The letter arrived – we got a place in a language unit. We were extatic. Someone up there is looking after us! I can finally relax now that everything is in place for him.
I get to nursery excited to tell them, but the nursery manager just acted shocked which I was surprised at. I took my son along to his room and she met me as I came out. Apparently as part of the application for a placement within a language unit in primary school, nursery staff must meet with a panel to discuss the child and the application. Nursery’s meeting was in 2 weeks, that’s why she was so shocked!
Nursery went to the panel meeting and said we had received the letter, which they were shocked at too!
They said they wouldn’t take back the place and confirmed that the place was ours.
We went to the school open day for new Primary ones and I was so happy. His class was it going to have 6 in it and a full time classroom assistant along with the teacher. The head teacher of the school was lovely and very welcoming.
We also found out that he will be picked up and dropped of by bus. We tried to say no, it’s ok for us to do the dropping off, but we were told that all the kids come by bus and that it’s good for their independence. It would single him out if he didn’t come by bus.
I really liked the school and the way they try to integrate the language unit with the mainstream school. I think we are going to be happy here!
Day one came. I don’t work a Wednesday, so we set up the bus to pick up and drop off every day from my parents, except a Wednesday when it would be from home. What I didn’t think about, was on day one we wouldn’t get the chance to go to school with him. We had to put him on the bus and wave him off, then wait anxiously until he was dropped off at lunch time. Note: for the first few weeks, primary ones at our school are only in until lunchtime. They start full time in October. Thought this stopped this year, now from day one they are in full days.
The school have an app that allows photos and messages to be sent from teachers to parents. We very quickly received a photo of our son at his desk and a message saying all was well. Didn’t stop us worrying tho!
Day two – will he get on the bus? With limited communication, we couldn’t ask if he was happy at school that first day. My dad said we would know the next day. If he got on the bus, then we would know all was ok. And he did. We have never had any problems with him going to school, he loves it. We notice it on school holidays, we can tell he misses school when he is off. He says his classmates names, and imitates things they do.
There are 2 things I think we miss out on:
- I don’t meet any other parents. I don’t get to chat at the school gate at home time
- We have not been invited to any parties. The kids in his class have a range of issues, so parties are not something that they have, or certainly invite other kids too
The school are excellent at supporting us. They have group meetings every couple of months and this is where I have met some other parents. They have arranged talks from people they think can be if benefit to us, and have invited us to courses. I recently learned Makaton at a 2 day course the school were running for teachers and invited a few parents along , and next month I am going to a social stories course run by the local health centre that school have been invited to.
Its now that I am so glad we done the autism assessment when we did. We would never have been able to get the correct schooling in place. To think that he could have been sitting in a mainstream class of 30 kids, struggling every day, would have had such adverse effects on his and our lives.
Super Autism Mum 