“Its his first day of school – he looks so smart – he is in his tie and little red jumper , he really looks so grown up and he seems very excited to be at the same school as his sister and she is so proud him being there, we really are lucky to have a school near by who helps and supports his situation and which supports us as a family ….” this is what i wrote as a message in a little diary of mine to remember his first day!
THEN 7 MONTHS LATER BAM ……!!!!! COVID STRUCK THE WORLD!!!!
This was probably the worst thing that can happen to a child who has extra needs in school, in fact it was just pretty god damn awful for everyone in the whole world who has worried about things, but for a child who needs structure and routine this was just becoming extremely hard ….he had just started his class and made a little friend and was happy to go into school.
Home schooling the government says will be the case for all uk children !! OMG … But phew…hang on he has an EHCP In place so surely he is allowed to carry on learning in school ?? no no no i was told , his class was empty so i was told and he would of had to be placed in with other children of all age groups and the teachers suggested it would be better he stayed at home to learn with me, along side his sister and his youngest baby brother … i was about to be hit with the worst situation EVER! i wasn’t a teacher ….
COVID WAS THE WORST .. we did 5 months of home learning , i cried everyday, sometimes all day ..i just couldn’t cope with the amount of work , noise, mess, sandwiches to make , toilet training , house hold chores …god the list was endless…..i had a weekly call from his one to one teacher to check in with us on a tuesday for 5 minutes, in this time she told us to count the clouds outside to relax him !! and my husband went straight back to work and had just one week off … we cant actually discuss covid as it effected us in such a way and so many people in different ways i cant have a discussion on this with him its too hard for him to understand.
Covid meant that all doctors appointments were all cancelled, moved and delayed so his assessment we had been waiting for for an ASD ( autism) assessment was now delayed for over a year and we had waited a year already.
In this time we had the doctors secretary who kept in touch, all through the NHS . But we couldn’t speed up any process of getting to see the actual doctor. Doctors were working very hard coping with the covid outbreak.
After a lovely relaxing summer of no homeschooling my children returned to school from September 2020 to December 2020 this was now a year 1 class for my son, so a new class room, he has basically missed the whole of reception like all the other children so he has now a new teacher and all new rules, bubbles, no hugging, no touching, wash your hands alot and doors open , windows open etc…. he seemed happy to go back and i never had trouble getting him in either … i wonder if he even realises where he is going everyday . i would collect him everyday 10 minutes early as he couldn’t wait in line and would jump about and not do as the teachers wanted him to do, like all the others! His one to one would tilt her head everyday and tell me it wasnt a good day and he was struggling, this seemed to be an every day occurrence and all i saw was my happy little boy run out of school into my arms and cuddle me. He was happy, so i was happy, i didn’t really take much notice of the negative Nancy that she was being, she helped as much as she could or wanted too.
We did a whole term then when January 2021 HIT WITH COVID AGAIN !!
Schools were closed again ….. this time i insisted he was at school , i had heard there were non-key worker children at school in the lock down period and i was furious that my son was being neglected .How dare they! He was then put in class with 9 others and i suppose it was quite nice for him but his negative Nancy teacher was still just not very proactive with him and that made me sad inside, she was missing out on how very special my son is and how clever he is and his memory is so so good but his speech was so behind he was just silent or he cried and screamed to get heard , this was the only way he could communicate. It was so sad to see him struggling, she wasnt best suited to my son for learning and im sure she realised the challenge was just too much for her.
We continued the schooling situation until july and we then had his EHCP REVIEW , the school now say “they can no longer meet need” on his papers and they feel they are babysitting him !! after all that, along with covid we now have to look for a new school for him ….where do i start …how do i start and COVID would not let anyone in their buildings to view the schools….
As his review papers came back from a panel discussion which we didnt not sit in with or we were not allowed to … they checked through his papers and suggested an AUTISM SCHOOL . We still had not yet had a formal diagnoses on AUTISM so how can he be put into a school like this and mainstream quickly gave up on him. That was a very very sad day for us as a family and my daughter too, all her friends had their siblings in school and she was wondering on why he had to leave, we soon had to tell her but only once if we had a formal diagnoses of AUTISM.
THE DIAGNOSES OF AUTISM
The doctor says he fits the bill of an Autism spectrum disorder…. i will never forget those words hit me in the heart and crush me a little bit…. well ALOT! i had gone on my own aswell with no family support and due to covid the numbers of people being in the room didn’t allow it . An hour after a long questionarre and a little puzzle test I was then told to join an autism group on line and on our way we go……. is that it then ? i was thinking now what…. my son was more concerned about having my iphone to play with and nothing had changed that day apart from my heart actually hurt a little bit and felt like it had been crushed … it ached.. i felt so sad….my son didn’t know, he just was laughing at a youtube clip he was watching so i quickly had to get out of the doctors surgery and get back to the car when i burst into tears … my son asked me what was wrong and he came to cuddle me … that was so so lovely and he was understanding emotions and could see i was sad …he then demanded a pack of sweeties…. and that was my next challenge… no time for tears and to just get on with life and forget the words that were just said to me in that room !
WE HAVE BEEN ACCEPTED FOR A SCHOOL – A SPECIALIST SCHOOL FOR AUTISM .
This was for an immediate start and i had heard there was no other places in the 4 schools in our area which specialise in his need….only 4 !!! i was very worried about this, there were children in there who had more specialist needs than him and some children didn’t even say anything, they couldn’t communicate , how was he going to make friends, does he want to make friends, this is a big new change for him, for us and we really don’t know how this will be and every day is a new day, new beginnings and time will tell…. we are in our third month now and he seems to be loving it, he has made a few close friends and is now talking and communicating and even going on school trips and seems to have mastered mine-craft on his pc and we can see that he is massively intelligent in computers and building things…. he is so quick at mastering the computer and how it works, he is faster than me! his brain is super fast and we can see immediate change in him from now being in a school with 9 other special children in his class but specialised teaching skills and pretty much a teacher each per child… i’m hoping this specialist school will bring out our boy and teach him things the other school never did , as they were pretty much just baby sitting him and the old negative Nancy left the school apparently pretty much a month after we left….funny that!
He is onto way bigger things now and i am beginning to feel like being Autistic is a pretty cool thing to be in life …. 🙂 our journey continues..
Understanding Autism 