The right school for every child with autism

Over half of the parents who responded to this survey feel that they had no choice over the type of setting in which their child is educated, and that their choice was limited by a lack of appropriate placements in their local area. Our findings show that 46% of children are not in the kind of school their parents think would best support them.

Furthermore, 36% of parents feel that they did not receive adequate support or information to choose a school for their child. Parents indicate preferences for their child to be taught in an autism-specific resource base attached to a mainstream school or in a mainstream school. However, a significant proportion (19%) feel that a special school is the ideal option for their child. Our research indicates that the procurement of an appropriate education for a child often largely depends on the resources and efforts of their parents.

 

• The Scottish Executive must ensure that local authorities provide a diverse range of mainstream and specailist educational provision, including autism-specific resource bases attached to mainstream school, special schools and specialist outreach support.
  
  
• Local Authorities must work to provide a diverse range of educational provision and report publicly on what it provides. If a child has highly complex needs which cannot be met locally, they should be able to access appropriate national provision.

Other pages

The right school for every child with autism
The right training for every teacher
The right approach in every school
make school make sense heroes
make school make sense reports
make school make sense index
NAS make school make sense pages