Post 16

We had to go to Tribunal to keep Ella in the sixth form.

The local authority thought she should go to our further education college but we didn’t think she’d cope. The advantage of staying at school is that everyone knows her, she has quite a few friends and the school has tried hard to meet her needs. She doesn’t need 1:1 so much now but she does need the school to take a lot of extra time devising how they present the curriculum and working round Ella’s needs. I think it’s been a learning curve for them as well as us.

The head of sixth form and the SENCO devised a timetable for Ella which includes time with her mentor. Now she’s in her mid-teens it helps to be able to discuss personal issues with someone outside of the family. She has had a lot of emotional issues including self harming and she stopped speaking around the time of her GCSEs. She seems to have come through this now and the mentor has helped her a lot with friendships and other social situations. She also helps with study skills, organising her learning and so on. Her subject teachers have had training and we’ve noticed a difference in the way Ella feels more secure about what she should be doing.

The biggest help can be in the small adjustments teachers make such as going over instructions for assignments to check she has understood. She’s doing well with her A levels and wants to go to university to study pharmacy.