An autistic boy is being driven around all day instead of getting a meaningful education, says his mum.
Laura Kennedy says her 14-year-old son’s school is preventing him from attending.
Kennedy, from Midlothian, in Scotland, is planning legal action for disability discrimination.
Laura Kennedy says her son has been shut out of school
Experience with disability discrimination
She says she has previously won a case for disability discrimination.
Kennedy said her son goes to parks and the beach. He has even been on a sightseeing trip to Polmont Young Offenders Institution, she said.
The prison is nearly 30 miles away from Beeslack High School, in Penicuik, Midlothian, where the boy goes to a special needs unit.
The teenager also has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a pathologically demand-avoidant profile of autism and complex trauma, says his mum.
‘He needs to learn’
Kennedy, 42, from Midlothian, who does not wish to name her son, says he needs to learn to be a “successful and positive contributor”.
But she admits he would struggle if forced to sit behind a desk all day and focus on academic subjects.
Kennedy says her boy can be “verbal, aggressive and violent”.
But she maintains that she helped to devise a timetable for her son that focused on vocational skills. It built on his interests in motorbikes, football and boxing.
Kennedy says the school “pulled the rug from under” her over the timetable.
She says the school tried to move sessions with a personal trainer from the school to a boxing gym and cancelled the motorbiking element of his timetable.
Official figures on exclusion and suspension
The latest official statistics show that schools are two-and-a-half times more likely to exclude pupils with an Education, Health and Care plan.
And they are almost five times more likely to suspend pupils with EHC plan.
Midlothian Council said it cannot comment on individual cases.
Related:
- Discrimination rife in NI schools
- Fight for tribunal compensation
- Strategy focuses on diagnosis, training
- Mum tells of battle over tribunal law
Published: 5 June 2022
