Making a Decision about Zoudie's Schooling - 07/10

My placement officer at the local authority has written to me saying that since Zoudie is doing so well with the ABA home program, I may want to consider a placement at a mainstream school with the support of an ABA tutor. It would involve a very gradual integration, with Zoudie attending for perhaps one hour a day or a couple of afternoons a week to start with, and progress at a pace to suit him.

It sounds on the face of it to be a reasonable proposition. I am constantly hearing that children with special education needs are better off in a mainstream setting with "appropriate support" (the definition of appropriate seems a bit vague to me). I do have reservations though. He has a placement starting in September at a reasonably good specialist school for children with moderate learning difficulties. I've met his teacher and we know that he will be in a class of just five children which sounds good.

Classes at the local mainstream school have 28-30 kids and one teacher plus a general teaching assistant. Another consideration is that because of his month of birth (July) Zoudie would be among the oldest of his classmates. From enquiries I've made before to the education authorities, I know that they prefer to keep children within age-appropriate year groups and make no exceptions for children who may be behind their peers academically. And Zoudie is behind his peers, despite the progress he is making with the ABA. He is behind with his cognitive abilities and understanding of language by up to 2 years. I'm not sure how it would affect his confidence to be in a classroom with peers who are 2 years ahead academically while being the same age or younger. I would prefer him to be with the year group lower to him (which would mean him starting year 2 in September, still very daunting given he is slightly behind his younger brother who is due to start Year 1 in September. Of course there would be one-to-one support for Zayd, and this would initially be an ABA tutor who is closely supervised by an ABA expert, maybe for a couple of terms or even a year if we were lucky. But I feel sure that eventually we'd have to shift for ourselves with the usual kind of one to one support offered to SEN children - minimum wage employees of variable quality, and little or no qualifications or experience in ordinary education ever mind SEN. Now I do know children who have fantastic classroom assistants, despite the poor wages and lack of training, but it's just too much of a lottery for me.

I responded to the local authority that I would be willing to consider a trial period at a mainstream school, one term or more, provided we don't lose the place at the special school. Apparently my placement officer has to have a meeting with her boss to discuss it and they will let us know. I guess they prefer to place children in mainstream school where possible as there are so few special school places, but I'm not prepared to take a gamble on Zoudie's education. I'd have a bit more confidence in mainstream if they would train the teaching assistants properly and pay them a decent wage.