A brief introduction to why we felt it necessary to create this parental audit platform.
Who we are:
We are a two-parent family with 3 non-verbal autistic children and one neurotypical child who attends a typical mainstream school within the Barnsley catchment area. Two of our autistic children are currently on roll at Greenacre Special Provisions School at this time. Our neurotypical son is doing very popular at school and is doing very well in all subjects and often comes top of the class with tests. All of our children attend their respective schools in the correct uniforms always immaculately presented to the school on a morning. Our children are always dressed in fresh clothing every day regardless. All of our children have attended other schools and nurseries and there has never been any issue between ourselves and the schools/nurseries. We have always got on well with the other nurseries and other schools and never had any issues with them, on the contrary, mum was often praised for how well the children were presented and often commented on how happy they were. Our eldest son is constantly being praised by his teachers at mainstream school for his character and his high levels of achievement. I would also like to add, that our neurotypical son does kickboxing in his spare time outside of school and is working his way up the rankings and has passed all of his grades achievement. He was also the first recipient of an award for 'respect' due to his exceptional character and his instructors cannot praise him enough.
Mum and Dad take care of all 4 children and neither parent smokes, drinks, or touches drugs. We focus all our time on our children's care and when we get the opportunity work on building a very ambitious e-commerce business using our own skills and abilities with the ultimate aim of ensuring our children have a secure and want-for-nothing future where all their special needs can be met without relying on anyone else for assistance. The level of support you get for post-diagnosis autistic children is non-existent with the message being loud and clear 'You are on your own' so in other words. for people in the same boat as us, it is tough enough without additional pressures being added by other people's reckless stupidity which I will explain during this briefing. I would also like to state both mum and dad have a provable track record of responsibly keeping all routine paediatric appointments when required and we have both ensured, when necessary, medical advice via our GP or 111 when any of our children became ill or we were unsure about particular symptoms which may have presented with any of the children since birth. It may come as a surprise to some of the staff at Greenacre School that we can read, write, and use a computer even though we are 'parents'! We can consult NHS websites for advice if needed and yes, our GP surgery is excellent and will give a same-day consultation for our children when required. It should be made clear that both parents take their parental safeguarding responsibilities very seriously and both parents do whatever is necessary to ensure the safety and well-being of all the children even if we identify the school itself as the main risk to the children they are meant to be caring for.
What is this all about?
Well, the simple answer is our very concerning and unfortunate experience with Greenacre Special Provisions School located in Barnsley which is under the Special Provisions Partnership which is all under the Wellspring Academy Trust umbrella where our 2 autistic children are on roll. Right from the beginning we have experienced terrible interactions with the staff while trying to get the children into the school. We were all disrupted by the pandemic, however, we did start attempting to get our children into Greenacre school from February 2023 after our youngest son had finished nursery. Our daughter successfully completed her time at nursery who was excellent at managing her despite the fact she can be very difficult at times. We did try her at the main school as required by local authority guidelines (against my advice). This approach lasted approximately 6 weeks before it was clear she would need a specialist school that we would assume would know how to handle her. All this was pre-pandemic and all of our children were taken out of mainstream school once the pandemic kicked off into full swing. Home education was the safest option for us due to our unique circumstances which was overseen by Mum with periodic team conferences with local authority education officials who were very impressed with Mum's approach. Mum herself achieved approximately 12 A* exam passes and is very capable academically. We were constantly being told that there were no places available at Greenacre and they would not be able to accommodate them until the next academic year due to them being at full capacity and it would be unsafe if they were allowed in. Mum eventually became very exhausted with trying to get the children into the school and she was tired of being told by the school it was the council being obstructive and the council telling her it was the school being obstructive. Dad eventually took over from Mum with the task of getting the children into school, however, it became extremely frustrating and eventually gave up. Mum began her endeavours again after a short respite and we eventually offered 2 places at a Greenacre satellite school based in Kexborugh which was approximately 5.5 miles away and is not within walking distance. Please remember, the Greenacre main site is only 1.3 miles from home and would have been easier to get to should we have needed to collect any of the children in an emergency. We did initially formally reject the Kexbrough offer due to the distance and the fact that neither of us drove and the bus service on that route was extremely unreliable. We also explained that the eldest child would not be able to tolerate the chaos of a packed bus and would inevitably result in her going into crisis putting others at risk of being hit or kicked. However, the council did arrange transport and we decided to give it a go with the Kexbrough offer. Mum visited the school and was very impressed by what she saw. I would like to say, that neither myself nor Mum can find any fault with the Kexbrough school and the staff are very professional and perform their duties with integrity, in other words, they are a very big credit to the Greenacre school. Unfortunately, the eldest child did prove to be too much for the satellite school who were not prepared or equipped to handle the eldest child. As predicted, the transport situation became a nightmare for all those on the bus with crisis after crisis resulting in the other children and adult supervisors being left traumatised by the predicted outcome. Transport had no choice to to refuse transport due to safety concerns. The full detailed catalogue of events will be written in detail in a separate section of this website. Once it was proved impossible to maintain the Kexbrough placement for the elder child a place miraculously became available at the main site which gave us some peace of mind because we knew the main site was better equipped to support our elder child's complex needs, or so we thought. It is appropriate to mention a particular situation that did occur during our elder child's short-lived time at the Kexbrough satellite school. It was following a crisis situation on the bus when transport decided enough was enough and decided to refuse to allow our elder child onto the bus for transport home. The Greenacre main site was informed of the decision in the morning, however, in their infinite wisdom, the pastoral team did not inform the parents until 2 pm leaving Mum little time to get me to cover for her looking after our son who was at home with him mum at the time. The Greenacre staff also knew neither of us drove and public transport was a no-no. This was the type of situation that we thought could have happened and why we pushed for the Greenacre main site which is within walking distance. Mum of course called the school to express her feelings on the matter explaining it was the school's responsibility to get our child home as it was agreed. Mum was understandably annoyed by their refusal to arrange for some other method to our child home and insisted it was our responsibility. I did cover for Mum who set off for the bus to get to the school. She was waiting approximately 1 hour for a bus and during that time I received a call from one of the pastoral team explaining that if no one turned up the school would be locked when everyone went home. If this happened then it would be classed as child abandonment and they would be forced to call social care which would open up a whole new can of worms which is something they would never want to do. I was then informed by the same member of the pastoral team that she had managed to beg members of staff to bring our child home using their own transport and I should be very grateful and give them a 'big thank you' when I saw them. I personally found her manner of communication odd but I just let it go. I proceeded to call Mum to tell her the news and not travel to Kexbrough. She was still standing at the bus stop when I called. That was the first time social care was used in a threatening way in order to ensure compliance. I wasn't bothered by it in the slightest, however, Mum was quite irritated by the dialogue. There were some communications between mum and the school following the incident where eventually the pastoral team member informed mum that 'lessons had been learned'