Despite hearing many many times that Once you met one autistic person… you’ve met one autistic person there are still a lot of assumptions made about people on the autistic spectrum, and the one I come across most is that they cannot cope with change. Just Googling the words autism and change returns pages...
Happy not-going-to-court day!
Today is a day much like any other at the moment and after a mixed weekend of family, friends and looking to the future I woke bleary-eyed as the sun burst through my window and began to wonder what the week might have in store for me, something I’ve learned not to take for...
Normal service will resume soon
Just a short note to say that the lack of blog posts recently is deliberate. We are currently in our latest battle with KCC over Victoria’s education and I don’t want to jeopardise or prejudice proceedings by writing about our experiences here. There is also such a thing as “too much autism”… there is...
Ofsted deeply critical of Kent SEND provision
In 2019 Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission conducted a joint inspection of Kent to judge how effective to local authority was at implementing disability and special educational needs reforms. The outcome of that inspection can be found here and was not at all complementary. In September this year they carried out a review...
Annual reviews, EHCPs and the opacity of local authority – part 2
In Annual reviews, EHCPs and the opacity of local authority – part 1 I described the frustration of the annual review process, the fact that the local authority don’t attend these meetings and the difficulty of finding someone to speak to when legislative deadlines come and go without consequence. If you’ve not read part...
Annual reviews, EHCPs and the opacity of local authority – part 1
It’s been a while since my last post and for reasons that will become apparent this is because a lot has been going on and a lot that I didn’t want to share until I had some answers. I’ve spoken before about how every week seems to be a new battle to get what...
Special Needs Schools – Part 1
“All children should attend a school that is right for them”. It’s not something I considered as a child until my dad made the statement when we were trying to find the right secondary school for me. Growing up on a council estate in the 1980s there was only ever one choice of primary...
U is for Unknown Unknowns
Donald Rumsfeld famously stated that there are “ Unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know” which accurately described my feelings 3 and a bit years ago – the only thing I was sure about was that I knew nothing about what was coming and couldn’t even begin to form the...
L is for Learning
I’ve touched on this several times throughout these posts that a person with autism interacts with the world in a different way to other people. Their senses are heightened or suppressed, the way they process information differs and so the way they learn is different too. We quickly realised that Victoria struggles with spoken...