It has been 20 weeks since I posted in The frustration of facing informal exclusion about our race to find help and support for our Son before he is excluded.
My 5 year old son is now without a school, having been told a week ago that we need to withdraw him immediately from the school or they will permanently exclude him. This is due to his aggressive behaviour when he is in a state of anxiety, and the challenges that this was presenting for his teacher and one-to-one support assistant.
I was so right when I wrote that we didn't have 20 weeks to wait for the support that we were hoping to get with our request for an EHC plan.
In many ways we have come a long way in understanding the causes of his negative behaviour within the school environment and the link to high anxiety levels, however this increased knowledge has been of little use in getting him the help he needs and avoiding an exclusion.
Since our Son was diagnosed with Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA), we have learnt more about his resistance to everyday demands, the associated anxiety triggers and more importantly some of the techniques to help to reduce his anxiety and the resulting negative behaviour.
We also know a lot more about our Son's rights to an education and the process to receive an EHC plan, thanks to the resources, guidance and support of numerous charities and helplines (listed here).
For the past week I have tried every avenue to see what can be done to ensure that my Son is provided with an alternative school place however this seems to be one challenge too far. With so little time until the end of term there is little that can be done to find an alternative school, and so we are forced to wait until he is either provided with a mainstream school or we get a provision for a specialist school in an EHC plan.
This has highlighted to us the importance of trying to get the right provisioning for him so that we don't end up in a similar situation in a few months time. And for this we only have the hoped for EHC to rely on, which means being able to clearly state the specific and quantified support we believe he needs.
Despite my heartbreak, frustration, and anger about my young Son being denied his last 3 weeks to see out the term with his classmates before moving onto another school, we have decided to focus on our EHC needs assessment and requesting the right provisioning for him rather than fight against the exclusion.
Now I just need to figure out what the right provisioning for him is.