Tanya's story

When our daughter started pre-school at the local school she had not been diagnosed although her disability was obvious. When her doctors finally decided that autism lay behind her lack of speech and unique behaviours the school guidance officer announced it was time for an ascertainment meeting. At this gathering a consensus was quickly reached that our child was a "level 6". This, we were told, would allow our daughter to receive the maximum amount of assistance. We continued to involve ourselves in the classroom, helping out where possible but we were unable to avoid becoming increasingly vocal about how little real help a "level 6" kids were given.

As our child prepared to enter year 1 we were invited to another meeting to discuss her future. At this "placement " meeting it was pointed out to us that a mainstream school was not really equipped to cater to children with high support needs and would we like to relocate to a special school as they had the resources and that was were level 6 students really belonged.

A list of the nearby special schools was produced and we were invited to inspect them and select the one that best suited our child's needs. At first glance they seemed ideal. Class sizes were small, teachers were warm and caring, what more could we want? Our previous experiences led us to look a little closer.

Would their academic program challenge our child? Academia program? well no, life skills were given priority. Then could we go across to the mainstream school for some classes? Yes, but no teacher aide was available to help with that. What about the speech therapist? Could we see her to discuss our daughters' needs? No, the last one had retired and no replacement had been hired.

Disillusioned, we returned to our local school to deliver our decision. Because there was nowhere that offered more than a token attempt to meet the individual needs of a very individual girl we decided to stay where we were. This was not well received. Five years later we're still there. We're still looking for all those services that are said to exist for level 6 kids but we think our girl has found something better and more fun......FRIENDS.

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