IT'S BEEN A STRESSFUL WEEK!

Am writing this in blog format as it's a bit of a longer one as not been online.

After Monday's exam and opticians event Tuesday came along and was, luckily, fairly uneventful.  However, by Tuesday night, Callum was really tired and beginning to stress about the work placement as he's finding it quite boring.  Not entirely their fault as he wasn't supposed to be working there.

He made sure he had an early night, but was still stressy and tired by Wednesday morning saying that he'd had an erratic night's sleep.  But he went in.  Back home at lunchtime, he announced that he was having an assessment that afternoon at 1pm!  Oh great!  He took a bit longer for lunch, but went back within plenty of time even though he wasn't a happy bunny.

Turns out assessment went ok, but it has highlighted a few criteria that he needs to achieve, a couple on the written side and a fair few on the work side, but then that's going to be hard if they can't find him the stuff to do.  They did say that once he's completed the NVQ, and they are saying that he needs at least another 2 assessments done so at least 8 more weeks, that he could do a volunteer placement at another, more local to us, school as a kind of 'gofer'.  Shame he can't do that as his work placement as it appears that there would be a lot more for him to do.  The job could lead to an apprenticeship and maybe a job, so I think he has expressed an initial interest.

He was totally shattered Wednesday night though and he wasn't sure he could face going in again on the Thursday just to do filing, especially as we had the PIP assessment on Friday (today) and he was beginning to worry about that also.  So we came to an agreement that he would set his alarm for 9am (the time he was due in) and if he work up before he would go in and if not, he would, at least, be able to ring them and tell him that he wasn't going in (he wanted to do it, even though I offered to call them for him).

Thursday came and he didn't wake up until 8.50am so far too late to go in and he still wasn't feeling great anyway.  He called and let them know and went back to bed, which is unusual for him as once he's up, he's up.  He didn't wake until nearly 11am so obviously needed the sleep.  Spent the day having a chill out and reading over PIP form in prep for today.

Today we made it to PIP assessment a little early.  Callum a little stressed as we had to get a bus and, of course, we didn't know where we were going exactly, although roughly, and we didn't know the person we were going to see.  The assessment itself wasn't as bad as I imagined and the lady that took it did seem to have a reasonable understanding of Autism, which was a start.  She asks the questions and took time to explain when it was obvious that Callum didn't quite understand what she meant.  Callum answered as best he could, although no eye contact and fingers fiddling all the time and I filled in details where necessary.  Hopefully we got across the issues he faces.

Just missed a bus, so walked back to High St (approx 20mins) and checked into opticians to order his new glasses as we discovered he didn't have a spare pair at home.  Thought we, especially he, deserved a Subway so we had lunch and watched the world go by.  Gave him, and me, time to relax a little before coming home.

Both glad this week is over to be honest, but can definitely see the relief in Callum.  He now has a free weekend until Tuesday apart from an hour's free running tomorrow.

IGNORANT PEOPLE SHOULDN'T RUN BUSINESSES

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.

http://tuitionacademy.co.uk/

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.