Today I telephoned Jackie, mother of Adam, to ask her if I could use their
story in a blog. She told me that she would be very happy from me to, as since
Adam has had the right support at school his life, and that of the family has
been turned around.
Adam is in year six in a primary school in North
London. He has had a diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome since he was in year two.
Between year two to year five, his behaviour at school became more and more
challenging and sometimes quite bizarre. He has had numerous fixed term
exclusions – for swearing at dinner ladies, for kicking mealtime supervisors, for
punching a boy in the head, and for pulling down the basketball rings in the
playground, to name but a few. Adam hated school (the first thing he told me was "Everyone at school hates me") and the school didn't like
Adam very much either. Other parents complained about Adam's behaviour and his violence towards other children, and sent delegations to the
headteacher to ask that he be permanently excluded. Jackie would be asked to come
to school to collect him, to be met by groups of teachers and teaching assistants
with folded arms and scowling faces. Adam's behaviour in class meant that he had
done no work at all for a year, and the rest of the class had done very little –
and that mostly when Adam had been excluded or was ill. Then the new headteacher
came, and she called ASEND to see if we could help the situation. I met with her, and then with Jackie who told me that Adam's stepbrother has been killed in Afghanistan that summer - no wonder his behaviour had become increasingly violent! We had a
meeting with the head, the SENCO, the class teacher and Jackie and discussed
how we might be able to help. The head, Lynne, said that she knew that it might
take years to turn this situation around, but she was willing to give anything
a go.
A very experienced and highly qualified specialist teacher came to school and
spent seven half days working with Adam and modelling strategies that might work to the
class teacher and a teaching assistant. A new teaching assistant was found from Resources for Autism, someone who had worked with autistic children
before and knew strategies that could work. Another specialist trainer came
and took two twilight sessions with the whole staff explaining to them what autism
was like and how we can work with children on the spectrum successfully.
By the
end of that term, Adam was no longer a problem. He was in class and working, and
so were his friends. His teachers were delighted, and his mother was over the moon.
Adam has even started playing football with other children successfully in the
break and lunch times. For the first time ever, Adam enjoys coming to school,
and Jackie is so relieved that she doesn't have to force him screaming into the school that he hated every morning.
Today, Jackie told me that
one of the parents who used to complain about Adam had stopped her recently in
the street. She was full of trepidation, but the parents said to her, "I'm sorry
about what we said about Adam. My son has come home and said we used to think
Adam was horrible, but now we think he's really cool". All that it took to turn
his life around, and to enable everybody in the school to get on and
learn, was a little working together and some expertise. When schools, parents
and other experts work together for the good of the child good results can come,
and can come fast!
All the expertise used to support Adam came through ASEND
