Concern about their children’s education was a major theme in the interviews with parents. They worried about the lack of awareness of the autism spectrum in schools, the complexity of the statementing process, the lack of appropriate support for children at lunchtime and breaks, bullying and how their child/ren would cope at school.
Getting a statement
Most children's needs can be met by their school, sometimes with the help of outside specialists; with delegated or devolved funding the school can support children through school-based help called 'Action' or 'Action Plus'. Where a child needs additional support, the local authority (LA) makes a statutory assessment of his/her educational needs. If the LA then decides the child needs special help, it produces a statement of special educational needs describing all the child's needs and all the specialist help; it has a legal duty to meet those needs. (For more information, go to National Autistic Society or telephone the NAS Education Advice Line on 0845 070 4002 - option 1).
Most parents we interviewed talked about the importance of getting a statement for their children. Without a statement specifying the hours and type of support to be provided, it is very difficult to get the appropriate support and children can struggle in the school system.
While not all the children needed to be statemented, the parents of those that did described a range of experiences. Some schools were less supportive than others. For example, one boy’s school wanted him to go on School Action Plus but his mother was determined for him to be statemented; “There was a bit of flustering and then they said they would support me”. Parents felt that the sooner the child was statemented, the better and a few parents were delighted that their children were statemented during pre-school - though even a straightforward process of statementing was still described as worrying and stressful.
Some parents had ‘fought’ or ‘battled’ to get their children statemented, and a few parents were still waiting to hear from their local authority. As one mother said; “If they had looked at him properly he could have had a statement going into school but because they did not do that, he is now in school trying to get a statement while he is in school and that makes me so cross that pre-schools don’t recognise it.” Another parent described the process as a “minefield”.
Once the parents had got the statement, some of them still had battles with the school to make the school provide the hours of support that the statement recommended. They had to monitor closely the support that their children actually got and make sure it was the amount specified on the statement. Other parents had appealed to SENDIST (Special Educational Needs Independent Tribunal) to have the statement altered to increase the provision of support. (The SENDIST is an independent tribunal which hears and decides parents’ appeals against decisions of local education authorities about children’s special educational needs).
In addition, some parents talked about “the constant fear” that hours of support were going to be taken away or that budget cuts would affect their children.
Relevance of the Curriculum
Several parents discussed how inflexible the national curriculum was; their children struggled because though they were very good in a few areas, they found many of the compulsory subjects too difficult to manage.
Parents whose children were in special schools emphasised the relevance of the targets set for their children, such as learning to sit still for short periods of time.
Last reviewed November 2010.
Last updated November 2010.
