Sophie's Throughway by Jules Smith Page B

manners and morals and respect for others. The difference is, one of them has Aspergers and PDA.”
    They all looked on waiting for me to continue but I really didn’t know where else to go. Janice looked at me with softness in her eyes. She was the only one thatunderstood the hell I went through at home and also the only one who dealt with Brendon on a day to day basis at school. She understood Aspergers whereas the rest of them clearly didn’t and probably didn’t really care.
    â€œIf I may pick up from there,” Karl interjected, saving me from my predicament. “We are very understanding of the schools policies and the necessity to have this school running smoothly and without severe incidents that will impact on other students and teachers. I work in the corporate field and am well versed on how structure and maintaining good relationships works. What you fail to take into any consideration, is Brendon’s condition. You are sitting here with Brendon’s behavioural plan in front of you, advising how he ‘should’ be treated within a lesson. Have you all read that?” He looked pointedly at Mr. Fothergill and the shrew who remained visibly untouched. The others shuffled through their papers to locate it. “Allow me to remind you,” he continued, raising the plan to read. “You will note on this plan that it clearly states that Brendon will not look directly in your eyes as he will find this intimidating. It states that he will find it difficult to sit still and focus. It states that he will sometimes need to leave a lesson if highly anxious and be allowed to go straight to BASE. It states that he WILL, at times, make inappropriate remarks due to his lack of social skills.” He placed the plan back on the table. “This is a plan that goes out to every member of staff does it not?” He looked at Mr. Fothergill for a response.
    â€œThat’s correct,” he replied.
    â€œThen as head of this school and management leader I think you should insist that some of your staff actually read it. I would also suggest that you, yourself read it and make sure that as Head of this school you are fully converse in the field of autism, for the sake of all students on the spectrum, and that your staff are better trained in this area. There is no point to this piece of paper,” he pushed it forward on the table, “If nobody but the SEN team are reading it.”
    â€œWe are continually training our staff in this area and our SEN team work very hard with children who have behaviour issues,” Fothergill responded.
    â€œWell it doesn’t appear to be working very well.” He glanced over at Mrs. Johnstone as he used her words against her. “I have seen repeated remarks on these reports from teachers picking fault with usual autistic traits. Only quite recently, Mr. Fothergill, one of your senior members of staff had to be told to stop any interaction with Brendon as she seemed to find fun in deliberately goading him.”
    Ah, Miss. Raven. What an evil woman. She had constantly picked on Brendon and deliberately got him into trouble by forcing him to react. We had insisted that the school had stopped her interacting with him in any way as he used to come back home crying about her nearly every night and refusing to go to school.
    â€œI have been summoned to a meeting, without official written notice to myself or Sophie, where you have placed our son on governors report. If I am being brought to a meeting which is about my son’s behaviour, then at thevery least, I expect a team of governors and teachers that have an understanding of Aspergers and PDA. Clearly that is not the case and therefore we are not at a level playing field. I will accept that the computer incident is punishable and unacceptable; I will accept that some of the comments from Brendon need addressing and working on, which is an ongoing trial for both the SEN team and