Divergent Learning Diaries

Last term Joni was suspended from school on a number of occasions.  The first one we genuinely didn’t see coming as she had been doing well or so we had thought.  There had been a few medication mishaps where there had been urgent dashes to the school welfare officer with extra supplies of Elvanse but in terms of instances of ‘intolerable’ behaviour we’d had no phone calls.  

However, there were other signs that we had failed to read.  Joni had been coming home from school and was practically sleepwalking into bed.  She wasn’t rousing herself until about 6.30pm and was still managing to drift off into melatonin supported slumber at the usual bedtime.  In the mornings she wasn’t speaking and was mechanically going through the motions of dressing, eating, drinking and then leaving the house.  Joni has often had periods of non-speaking, particularly when she’s putting all of her energy into just surviving the routine and the previous week she had made a rare statement of feeling, telling her father something about how hard each day was for her.

But in general Joni is a little legend.  No fuss, happy in her current fixations so routine oriented that she operates like a robot.  Prefers her own company in the presence of a darkened room.  But when she reaches burnout she does it in real style.

And she did so on the morning of her 13th birthday.

Earlier that morning, I had prepared the birthday twins an untypically unhealthy breakfast (probably parenting fail #1) and decorated the breakfast room like a grotto with gifts and cards ready for them.   Apart from the cutting of the amazing cake to be baked later that morning by her ‘school-avoiding twin’, who was celebrating yet another day in the house, this was the extent of our birthday celebrations.  Very minimal, no fuss, no stressful trips to theatres or restaurants for us. Just a 6.30am breakfast of donuts and flapjacks and pressies.

Joni made a point of thanking us at breakfast, ‘This is the best way to spend our birthday, just us.’  (Parenting win #2, I thought)  Decluttering experiences that are associated with big life moments like birthdays, christmases and family holidays have been a part of the autistic family learning curve.  We all appreciate keeping these things on the low.

Probably, someone with a better grasp of life management for their autistic child would have heard alarm bells at the idea of a sugar-laden family breakfast but it lasted twenty minutes max and felt like a great low key celebration which marked an important life moment for our amazing daughters, who quite frankly have faced more challenges thus far in their short lives than some adults.  But it was a preface to a car crash of a school day for poor Joni.  Birthday breakfast was followed by a Maths ‘challenge’ which she hadn’t realised would be taken in an exam hall.  Neither had we.  

The swing from ‘celebration’ to the ultimate test of self control for a perfectionist autistic who genuinely fears school assessments was too much to bear on her very special day.  

The heinous crime which led to her suspension was committed in lesson two and consisted of her showing up with (another) donut she had swiped from breakfast to her Art lesson, rudeness to her TA (who was mortally wounded by her words) and then imitating the accent of her teacher (it was another UK accent).  Cutting to the chase, the matter was investigated and Joni was given 3 days suspension from school (for behaviour breaches which included cultural bullying of her teacher!)  

Headteachers know that the decision to suspend a child is a serious one. I haven’t met many that purposely go rogue and use consequences out of spite. Talking to colleagues about suspension, and looking at national stats, it’s evident that we have been taking the decision more and more frequently to suspend students as a consequence for their behaviour.  Suspension can be an important aspect of upholding standards and helping a child to understand where the line is.  None of us are in the business of denying students access to their education, genuinely it’s the reverse. As a headteacher I have taken the decision to issue clear behavioural consequences to neurodiverse children.  Usually something as serious as a suspension would be for compromising the safety of others, extreme defiance or use of offensive including racist or homophobic language. In Joni’s case none of her behaviours on that day fit those criteria. 

Even if a child is neurodiverse I have generally seen it as ok to use such sanctions if appropriate (I know some will disagree).  This is only providing that as educators we have understood that child’s needs and supported them to find and use the tools to be able to abide by the rules in advance of the offending incident.  More importantly we must make decisions around sanctions that are proportionate and take the time to rationalise and explain our decision-making to the child involved.

However, in this case, as Joni’s parents, this felt excessive and harmful and Joni could not understand how she had got here. Three precious days of her school routine were removed. The school’s decision was ill-judged and felt spiteful, even if spite wasn’t the intention.  We wrote and expressed our concerns over the decision making, knowing ultimately that we have no leverage in overturning the decision of a headteacher, only after the punishment is served via an appeal. We’d have accepted a day’s suspension.  But three? No, we couldn’t. 

We all slip up occasionally, and our neurodiverse family gets itself into all sorts of scrapes for sure.  As parents we accept sanctions that are reasonable and support development and vociferously challenges those that are thoughtless and harmful. 

Unfortunately most decisions to suspend both of our daughters have set them back and caused harm in some way.  Last year’s suspension rate in UK schools hit an all time high in 2022/23 with 790,000 suspensions (with a disproportionately high representation of SEND students who find the mainstream school environment blisteringly challenging).  

It is incumbent on all school leaders to find better, more effective and kinder ways to sanction our neurodiverse children. Unfortunately, most schools lack the resources to offer the best specialist support meaning that large numbers of children with additional needs are struggling to fully engage with their education in the way their peers can, which ultimately could have lifelong consequences for many of them. 

I’m pleased that the local authority I work for has set up an action group to address not only the rising number of suspensions in schools but also the inequity in the stories that lie beneath the figures and i’m even more pleased to be representing local Secondary Heads on that group.  But changing attitudes in Education and understanding of why our neurodiverse children react the way they do will, unfortunately, take time to percolate and land with the whole profession.  

On this particular day,  Joni’s 13th birthday, after tears had flowed and anger had (only very slightly) subsided,  she reminded us that she had received a serious sanction for her dysregulated behaviour on her 12th birthday too. 

We’ll keep her at home for her 14th birthday. 

Thanks for reading.

Louise