Oh
dear! Had a horrendous day
yesterday. Callum had a huge
meltdown. Hasn’t had one like that since
school. Was crying, hitting himself,
screaming, swearing and generally getting so upset it was horrible. Why I hear you ask?
Went for
our interview with Tuition Academy after he spent the allotted time on a Sunday
to do his test paper (1hr 45mins); met
up with Simon, the guy I’d spoken to on the phone and hadn’t been too impressed
with, and we sat down to discuss possibilities for Callum.
The man is
an idiot! He has no concept of ASD;
telling Callum that he had to find coping mechanisms to handle classroom
situations otherwise he wouldn’t get anywhere.
He doesn’t agree with any other form of education apart from school and
the curriculum, so had no concept of home education and even slagged off adult
education saying that Callum wouldn’t want to be a class full of 75 year olds
who were treating the whole thing as a ‘bit of a laugh’ and not getting
anywhere! I remained as calm as I could
for Callum’s sake as I liked the idea of him having a class that we could then
work on at home for the week in between, but it got worse.
He went on
to tell Callum that he ‘should’ be doing at least 10 hours a week of maths and
another 10 hours a week on English without everything else he should be
doing. I pointed out that an hour in
class is equivalent to approx. 20-25mins one to one, but he wouldn’t have it
saying that that was ridiculous. He then
went on to say that if he was in Grammar school he may have the option to have
some one to one, but he would never get it in a comprehensive situation and
would have to cope with doing more work as there would be too many
distractions! So they don’t get
distractions in Grammar then do they?
He told
Callum that he had to get exams to go to college after Callum had gently said
that that is what he was aiming for and then went on to say that he was leaving
it a little late! Bastard!
He was
rude, abrupt, didn’t understand anything other than mainstream and was
basically calling all the kids he already had going there idiots as he said
that, after briefly looking at the test paper Callum had done, Callum would
probably know more than most of the kids there, but may know a lot less on
other parts! Backward compliment I
suppose, but not really the attitude I’m looking for to teach my child. He wasn’t encouraging, gave Callum no credit
for what he had already achieved and was commanding towards Callum.
He was rude
to me, saying that I couldn’t possibly have success with him as I wasn’t a
teacher and that home education couldn’t work.
I pointed out that we also have college entrants and university successes
which he decided to gloss over and forget.
He then
went on to say that Callum should start in a lower group next week with the aim
of doing GCSE work next September onwards, but that he would expect him to be ‘putting
much more effort into his work than he does now’.
So, he
obviously has no concept of ASD or Asperger as you cannot under any
circumstances land something like that onto an ASD/Aspi child without far more
warning and a period of transition.
He then
told me to inform him of my decision within the next 24/48 hours as to what we
wanted to do and that he would examine the test paper and send me the result
that evening.
I’ve
checked my email and still no result has been emailed to me and as to whether
we are going to take him up on his offer……he can get stuffed.
Callum came
home deflated, upset, angry with himself that he can’t cope with stuff and is
stupid, hit himself around the head and crying saying that he’s missing
opportunities because he’s an idiot!! I
felt like all the hard work we’d done over the past 8 years had dissolved in
that moment and I could see that if we had decided to go along he wouldn’t have
coped at all and we’d have been back to screaming, hitting, punching, etc as he
would have tried to hold it together during lessons and then had to let it out
when he was ‘released’.
I’m furious
as the attitude of the man, I will not be sending Callum there and I seriously
wouldn’t recommend the place to anyone with children who have ‘issues’. I can’t speak for the teachers themselves as
we didn’t meet any of them.
It took
Callum over an hour to calm down and he was subdued for a while
afterwards. He even apologised to me
later on in the evening for his behaviour at which point I told him that his
behaviour was to be expected after having to deal with such an ignorant man.
