Dis-illusioned with primary school

Myself and my wife have a most wonderful 5 year old son who suffers with aspergers syndrome. He is a most caring, friendly and happy boy and has many traits associated with suffering from aspergers.

We have now some serious concerns around his schooling pre-dominantly due to his vulnerability. In his class there are at least four boys who are extremely disruptive and i fear that the majority of time is spent dealing with these at the expense of our son, who requires additional support. I have discussed this with his teacher and headteacher and was told that the boys just had 'colourful characters'. I have witnessed these boys' behaviour at parties and it is downright intimidating for the others.

In addition, our son has very weak chest muscles which results in him taking a lot longer to complete a task, such as dressing, than any of the other children. His teacher told us that they would have to put him on a timer in future to encourage him to dress quicker. I assume she did not read the physiotherapist's report.

In essence, we feel that he is not getting the adequate support in which to progress and we fear the 'colourful characters' will disrupt his development further.

We are now very seriously considering home education which will be very challenging but I feel that it would be in his best interests and make him a lot happier. When he is at school, I am concerned on a daily basis what the 'colourful characters' are up to and what new swear words they are teaching the other children.

Welcome to the forum.

I know all too well that when teachers say 'colourful characters' it is a polite term for troublemakers and potential bad influences. Modern political correctness legislation means they can't use a frank description without risking repercussions. We experienced similar problems to yours when my son was at primary school. He was regularly banded together with several disruptive children who liked to bully him (and other fragile children) simply in order that he received more attention and support from the teachers. I'm inclined to say that much of this support was neither relevant nor addressed any issues he had.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I wish I had home educated my son from an earlier age before the problems set in really badly in KS2 which resulted in him suffering from plenty of stress and unhappiness at school. Home education was only seriously considered after finding out about Asperger syndrome then accepting that my son would never grow out of his conditions or survive an impersonal and rough secondary school.

I recommend that you try home education ASAP to find out whether it meets your son's needs and makes him happy. If it works out successfully then continue with it. Remember that it is always possible for home educated children to return to school in the future if they so wish or if home education isn't working out right for them.

I hope this information is helpful.

Hindsight certainly is a wonderful thing. Had I known that my son had AS back when he was at primary school then I would have seriously considered HE. I never found out about AS until he was of secondary school age despite him having involvement with the LA educational psychologists.

I wouldn't say that HE was particularly challenging for my son because he was of secondary school age and knew all the basic fundamental stuff, so could be left to his own devices for most of the time. However, the situation might be more involving for a 5 year old who is still learning the basics. Many problems affecting children with AS at school magically disappear once they start HE.

My son has been in school for year 12 and half of year three, home educated until this year so 2 and a half years he wanted to go back to school and has been in year six for a month. Nothing has changed the same issues you describe above are still happening and I am really cross I fell for it again!! I am pretty sure we will be home educating again before the year is out as life is so much happier and stress free that way. Before we do return however I will be reporting the school to ofstead and pulling as many legal chains as possible as my son was keen this time to be in school and they SHOULD be making this possible...... Good luck.x