I feel so cruel doing this but I will explain the reasons behind our decision and you can decide for yourselves.
My daughter goes to the linked secondary school and has excelled. This is because she loves school and is a high achiever. She is in the top sets for her year group. As many of you know, Alex has a statement of special educational needs. It took us over 4 years to get the local education authority to accept that he had a learning difficulty and needed this extra support. He currently gets 17 hours 1 to 1 and small group support but this has just been increased to 20 hours a week.
So, with this in mind last September we made appointments too see each SEN (Special Educational Needs) department at the secondary schools we visited. The conversation with the linked school that we had hoped to send him to went like this:
Us - "So Mr Brown, what provisions will you put in place for Alex for the beginning of the next school year then"
Him - " No, no, we don't do anything like that. We'll give him a couple of weeks to settle down in September and find his own groove before we decide on what support is needed"Us - "OK, how about TA support for him throughout his lessons, to help him scribe - how would that be worked?"
Him - "Well to be honest we find that as they get older they don't want a TA following them around as it makes them feel different, and besides I've just lost my 3 best TA's and will need to recruit again"Us - " Could you confirm if he would have access to a laptop computer during his lessons?"
Him - " Ha, ha, ha, well if he can't read or write very well what use is a laptop going to be!!!"
How could I send my son to this school?
His statement has got him in to one of the best schools in the borough, which under normal circumstances we would have been living too far away from for him to get in. They have an excellent team in place to work with him and other children with special needs as well as a specialist dyslexia teacher, they will meet with him at his junior school next term as well as him going to their school for a couple of days to ensure that everything is set up for when he starts there in September.
Of course the boy was a bit upset when I told him this evening but it's nothing that a promise of a KFC for tea can't fix! I've explained that we have to give him the best possible chance we can and this can only happen if he attends this school. I still feel bad about the whole thing if I'm honest.
Have a great week and wrap up as it's a bit nippy out there tonight.
Sue x x x
