Hi, thanks for the replies, sorry my comment was misleading. When I said no support in Secondary school what I mean is he has been told there will be support but he will not receive a dedicated helper. He will share the helpers with other kids and it may be a different one for each lesson. The local High School shave a policy at the moment of letting the special needs kids leave the class 5 minutes before the bell to allow them time in the corridors to move to the next lesson before they fill with kids. We are considering moving him to a High School outwith the catchment area which is much smaller with smaller class sizes. He can walk unaided but his balance is not good and he falls over a lot, especially in a crowd and he will struggle carrying the volume of txt books at High School. He is also very sensitive to loud noices and panics easily, another reason for my concern regarding the size of the school.

I was also wondering how kids cope with thing like Home Economics, woodwork, metal work, arts & crafts etc. At the moment he has special pencils, scirrors and uses special cutlery at home. Do the High Schools provide all of this as well.

As for the workload, he is able to write himself but very slowly soin the last year he has used a scribe more and more and I anticipate he will need someone full time when he moves to High School.

What would really be a help would be if anyone who already has a child in High School, could go back to when their child was 10, they say hindsight is a great thing, if you could go back to them beginning High School what choices would you make differently, what resources would you ensure were in place from the beginning. For example,
Have your children benefitted more from going to the same school as their friends from primary where they have the security blanket of familiar faces or are they best going to the best equipped school in the hope of making new friends.
Should we insist on a dedicated helper similar to primary school or have you found that having more than one for different circumstances can be more beneficial?
Would your children have benefitted from a policy that allows them to leave each class 5 mins before the others or would they have missed out or been annoyed at being singled out?

Basically any pointers, hints, tips etc that you can suggest we start to implement now and have in place before he begins High School

Hi, I have a 10 yr old CP son who attends mainstream school. At the moment he has a classroom assistant for his every need, the school is all on one level, grass playground etc, basically wrapped in cotton wool. Next year he moves to high school, if he stays with the kids he knows from primary he'll go to a school nearly 8 times the size, on 4 levels, one lift, and no personal support. Does anyone have any advise, anything at all. Please let me know what worked, didn;t work for you, thanks!!!

If your son has/needs full time support from a classroom assistant now while he is at Primary school then he should get that at secondary too. Does he have a statment and if so does it specify what help he needs and gets? If he doesn't have one but the Primary school have been providing his help themselves (because he needs it) then you should look at getting this formalised by way of a statement cos otherwise he could end up with no support at Secondary.

My son who is 15 and has athetoid CP attends a large comprehensive (1700 pupils) on a campus-style site. A big issue is getting around the school, as students change classes (unlike primary school where the teacher and pupils stay in the same room). You need to think about how your son will manage when class changeovers happen, as there is a real risk of being knocked flat as students charge along the corridors to teh next lesson! Also, most students lug a load of textbooks around with them in backpacks--my son slings his on the arm of his walker, but it is enormously heavy. Can your son carry stuff at all? Is he a wheelchair user, in which case books could be stored in bags looped over the chair? Much more information is given out and recorded in lessons at secondary level, so my son has an LSA who scribes for him, an Alphasmart (a sort of cheap, lightweight, cut down word processor) and an adapted laptop. He cannot write at all and many children with CP have difficulty writing at the sort of speed and amount required--how does your son manage currently? Lunchtimes are another scrum, with large numbers of hungry pupils descending on the cafeteria--can your son carry a meal tray/open sandwiches/pay for items without losing his money??
I am confused by your statement that your son will have no personal support at secondary. My son has an LSA with him for large portions of the day--not necessarily solely helping him as there are other children with different SEN in the class. The LSA scribes, helps with practical lessons like cooking, Design & Technology and textiles, none of which could my son attempt safely on his own and assists him with some personal care (undoing the buttons on his shirt so he can get changed for PE).
HTH
Pat

Hi Debra, looking back to when Michael was 10 I recall we found choosing a secondary school to be fantastically stressful and we were especially anxious about how to weigh up the options. We live in Hackney, inner London, which has one of the worst records for secondary education provision in the country, which probably made our anxieties worse!
Virtually every one of his class from primary school were going to the local comp, but this school had very little experience of supporting students with disabilities. By chance, we found out about a large comprehensive several miles away in another borough which had a history of taking children with different disabilities. So our decision was whether to send Michael with all his friends--but to a school with access issues and no real ideas about how to help him; or whether to go for a well-organised school with an excellent Learning Support dept. but where Michael didn't know a single child. (Just to add to the problem, while he could easily be driven to the local school, getting him to the out of borough one meant using the Tube and buses, so was potentially more tiring for him).
In the end, after a lot of heart searching, we went for the out of borough school where he didn't know a soul, largely because the SENCO clearly did know what she was talking about. We were worried that if he went ot the local comp, even though his friends would be supportive, there were no systems in place to help him do the lessons. We feared he would end up falling behind or becoming very frustrated.
Five years on, I would say we have definitely made the right choice--our son is thriving at school, loves going there, has friends and is achieving very high academic grades. He has also had chorus parts in school plays, been encouraged to join after school activities such as Euro Club and debating club and been on a week long school trip to Germany. He is now in the first year of studying for nine GCSEs and is predicted to get mostly A and B grades. He still sees one or two local ex-primary school friends as well.
Michael's school also does not provide a dedicated helper. Different LSAs work with him in different lessons. I think this has worked well, because it has lessened what can be a very intense relationship (often a bit like a marriage!) between the child and the LSA. It also means that if an LSA is ill, there is usually some way of organising cover. I also think it is good for Michael to be exposed to different adults and to learn to work with a variety of opinions. I should point out that a frequent comment when he first started secondary was his tendency to boss helpers around and to fail to treat them as courteously as he might--probably a legacy of having a single support worker at primary. Recently we also learnt that there are one or two LSA, mostly older women who I feel do not like to be challenged, who have told the SENCO they do not want to be allocated to Michael--I think they find the pace he wants to work at too difficult and he is too keen to get things right and so corrects poor spellings etc! However, the school has been very clever at matching the LSA to the child--eg one of M's helpers is a bloke of about 21 who is doing the job whilst he waits for that elusive recording contract for a band he plays in!
Michael also leaves lessons 5 mins early, which he sometimes finds a pain (mostly because it can mean missing vital info about homework or the next lesson). however, he is aware that the alternative is to be mown down in the corridor, so is OK about it. He chose not to sit at the dedicated table for students who need help with feeding at lunchtime because he did feel that stigmatised him--instead he has created an arrangement whereby he can jump the sandwich queue with one friend, who repays the favour by opening his food packages and sorting out his drink and money.
As regards Home Economics (now usually called FTT --food technology & textiles) and woodwork (now called Design Technology), and Art (still called Art!!) these were all disaster areas as M couldn't do a thing. The LSA did everything, admittedly under M's control, so he would tell her to mix the batter or stick the buttons on the cushion or whatever. Teachers varied in their attitudes--the DT bloke once said to me 'only another 18 months of this', while the FTT woman complained about his lack of interest in cooking. All of these subject were compulsory in the first 3 years but as soon as M could drop them, he did. They weren't dangerous or anything--just terribly boring, as they couldn't really be altered to fit his very limited skills
PE has been less of an issue, funnily enough, as M is mad on sport of all kinds (watching it, I mean) and the dept has been able to adapt some sesssion, eg letting him be in goal at football with his walker; offering him a lower height basketball net etc.
If you want my tips:
1) How well does your son make friends now? Michael had a good group of mates at primary, regularly went to birthday parties, was in cubs, and managed to make friends when we were on campsites on holiday. He is very keen on sport and now music, which are two excellent ice breakers, so although he had a slow start when he went to secondary, he now has a close group of friends. Probably the biggest issue is that he does not know the surrounding areas to the school at all, which made for difficulties with early geography assignements which were based on local landmarks. If your son makes friends reasonably easily, knows how friendships operate and has some interests in common with his peers, he should be OK
2) How academic is your son? Michael loves subjects like History and Geography, and in a big comp teachers love pupils who like their subject. That made teachers keen to sort out how to adapt lessons to help him learn, and also gave him status in the eyes ofthe other pupils--some of them would ask him for help with homework.
3) How good is the SENCO/Learning support dept? At M's secondary we have every confidence in the support team. We may not always agree, and there have been some spectacular differences of opinion, but by and large they know what they are doing. Eg, what is going to happen about scribing/laptops/other PC equipemnt? What about drawing diagrams in maths or using a compass? What happens when it's a day long school trip for geography--can your son get on the usual transport, how is he going to walk over rough ground? When it comes to exams, does the school know how to apply for extra time and a scribe?
4)Tiredness is a huge problem, espeically when M first started. he was knackered with the effort of getting around school and all the information being thrown at him. YOu need to think of a strategy--should your son only do some of the homework? Or miss some lessons in areas like FTT and DT? And in M's case he needed vast amounts of food to fuel all his unwanted movements and his efforts, so that had to be discussed.
Sorry, have rattled on. Let me know if you want anything else useful!

Pat
Mum to Michael, 15 athetoid CP, Caroline 14 and Sarah 11

Hi ya debra.

My son started secondary school in September last year-came from a mainstream school on one level and we actually managed to find a secondary school for him - mainstream which is set up for physically disabled children. this is obviously on the level as well.

all i can say is, the OT should be able to issue the school with what he needs for his day to day activities. the school will receive extra funding for your son so they should purchase specialist equipment for metalwork etc if necessary.

Leaving the lesson 5 mins early is fine, but will he not feel left out or not fit in if this happens? he could get a mentor to accompany him to the next lesson if that is appropriate. just a mate or someone like that - really not ideal for a member of staff as he could get ridiculed for it.

Check what is in the statement of educational needs, if it states for instance 10 hours additional support, you could get that increased to 15 hours to allow for the help moving to the classroom safely.

my son walks unaided but like yours, in a crowded environment he would not cope and would fall. he did use to use the canteen at school but found it hard balancing the food on the tray and walking at the same time, without dropping either the food or the tray.

can you do a risk assessment of the schools you have in mind? ask your local education authority if there is someone could go with you (can come back to you the job title of our helper if that helps), we did this and found that that catchment school would have been a nightmare for our son.

My son has been given a laptop for his written work, large items only, be warned you are expected to insure this item on your household insurance - approx £10 per month.

how will he get to the school? you could ask for transport in the form of a taxi if this is the nearest school which best suits his needs (word it like that and you should get it!), that way he would be dropped at the entrance every day and met by 'matron' or the SENCO. my son's school has trolly's (basket like - similar to air hostess luggage) for his bag so that he is not struggling with large bags all day. insist on a locker.

what is the special needs room like, what is the access like for the pupils? my son has access to it at lunchtime, he can take a friend with him if he just wants to sit quietly for half hour instead of trying to find somewhere outside.

i hope this has been of some help, please don't hesitate to come back to me if you need any more information. i will look up the job title of the person we had from the education authority, may be worth a try. speed is of the essence here as i think decisions have to be in before the end of june.

best wishes.

karen x

Thank you very much for all the tips. I am in the process of arranging views of the local High Schools. I'll take my son along and go armed with all your tips, we're sure to make the right decision..... fingers crossed