Isnt it ironic that in some areas that you cant get a place yet the way they talk about Euan they would love him to attend a special needs school and we are the ones who want the main stream place.....

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I think the reason it's been left so late is because there was never any question about what school he would go to, it was always going to be mainstream with support. But now due to everything going backwards with him, it's looking unlikely. Hopefully if he does go to a SN school, it will only be for a term or 2 and gradually introduce him to mainstream. Last week he was only at nursery 1 day and today we tried for over an hour to get him dressed with no luck. Running around the house naked screaming all because he had to go to nursery for 2.5hrs. I'm just so stressed and worried. He hasn't been this bad for a long time, he's not sleeping before 11/12pm and with his melatonin he's usually asleep by 8, and now when he does sleep, he's in my bed (luckily his dad works nightshift!) and wakes up loadssss, he's been really bad with hitting, he's not eating properly and just generally struggling. I think it's all down to the stress of nursery and going to school soon.

A few months ago he was fine and quite settled so when we enrolled him for school it was all good. His nursery teacher has now said he's going to find school very difficult and that's why she's arranged this meeting on wednesday. He's very intelligent so getting the right school is important. I don't know what the right school is though, all I know is I can't keep going through this every morning and also, at the moment, he's kinda ok to be staying off nursery, this can't happen when he's at school. He can't cope being around lots of Children and the P1 transistion day was just a huge meltdown because it was so out of routine, he was moving around the school from one place to the next with no idea what was going on.

It's only been recently I've realised that as he's getting older he's struggling more. He was at a birthday party a few weeks ago, I had to stay with him or he wouldn't have went, but it was so heartbreaking seeing him because he didn't join in with the games even though I could see he wanted to, he sat way at the back during the magic show, behind all the other Children, when it got too noisy he creid.

Arrghghghg the stresssss

i think while he is young he might be better at a sn school to give him a chance to learn to mix with other children and once he has got used to that size group they should be able to arrange visits to mainstream school to see if he can cope with the larger groups.
sn schools go on the childs abilities so if he is able he will still follow the national curriculum and have the same level of learning just in a smaller group, i cant say it is quieter though .while he is young you might be better focusing on his needs rather than education until he is a couple of years older, you want him to enjoy school not run around screaming every morning as thats not good for you either. if you go for a mld school they will have slightly bigger classes but more learning based but as they are more qualified to teach special needs children it is a lot more relaxed and if he feels the need to sit at back and ignore everybody they wont force him to join in
best thing is to go and visit some schools and see how they run, you will be surprised at the level of learning that happens but even with sn schools there are differences, the one matt went was very relaxed and suited matts laid back attitude perfectly but i went to check out a school with an autistic unit and it was very regimented and while it suited my friends lad it wouldnt have worked for matt at all and that means he would have come home and taken it out on me
hope you find the best place for your son hun
corinne

Hi all, just thought I'd update this. We had the meeting at the school, it went ok, we then had a follow up at home. The short of it is, we've decided to try him at mainstream, but apparently he'll only really have a few weeks to get settled, because school is different from nursery (legal side of things) they said they don't want him distressed anymore than I do. So even if he settled after 30mins or so, they can't have him kicking and screaming every morning, which is fair enough I guess. Basically, if he's still distressed every morning going in we'll review it and he'll most likely be moved to a special school. Kinda feel a bit......blahhhhhh about it all really, a few months ago I thought everything was going to be straight forward, he'd go to mainstream with a learning assistant and it was all hunky dory! So not sure what's going happen and how long he'll last at mainstream, I'm holding out hope he will settle. He's no longer at nursery, that's just completely broken down, it just got far too much and was affecting his behaviour at home.

Anyway, thank you for all your advice, really appreciated