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So tell me a little bit about
your experiences when you
came back from France back into England and you began to
be part of the English
education system.
The reason why we came to England
is becauase Joshua had experienced several
systems - education systems
but he wasn't talking at all
and after a bit I wondered if it was the bilingual - because we lived in a bilingual society and system -
and so we moved to the UK.
And by that time I'd
phoned up and found schools to visit
and it was an easy process.
Once we were taken into the system,
it was really easy, the LEA gave us information
we visited the schools
and he was given a place
at St Nicholas in Canterbury, a school offer that I was really happy with.
By contrast it was so different
from the French system and again the contrast was very positive.
Again, because it was a dedicated special education school, life was very
comfortable with Joshua going to that school.
I think it was the right decision again because of his special needs,
I think his needs were met
because they were different and he didn't have to get lumped into the whole group.
And that was another concern, that he would be
in a group of
children who would be
way ahead of him and
he was always going to be
lagging behind.
I was so afraid that he would just get swept along with it.
But as he grew older, St Nicholas was fantastic for that because it
filled a need at that stage of his life.
But as he got to secondary school
I could see that
the classes were getting more differentiated and Joshua was on the periphery.
Again i just felt his needs were not entirely met and
he was in a big group and shepherded along, filling in his time.
So again, you know
I contacted the LA again
to say this is not suitable, I found that Joshua's needs were different
and that began a long process to change schools, looking for a suitable school
picking one and then trying to get him moved. Since then Joshua recently got a place at another school
which I think is for autistic children, and I think the autism that he has
and the behaviours that he has, his learning needs are being met.