'Everything has been snatched away'
- Published
Duncan feels he was making real progress before his school closed
Eight weeks after his school closed, life is very different for Duncan.
Practising electric guitar or playing computer games every day in his bedroom might - at first glance - seem like a dream lifestyle for a teenager, but Duncan is acutely aware of what he's lost.
"I was doing things at that school, I was getting things sorted out," he says.
"My handwriting for instance. It was improving - it was almost non-existent when I went to that school.
"My music, it's not deteriorating, it's just not getting any better because I have nobody to teach me now."
Pupils at The New School Butterstone were given just four days notice that it was closing last November.
The independent school in rural Perthshire catered for children with additional learning needs, many of them autistic, for whom mainstream schooling wasn't working out. In most cases, the fees were paid by local authorities.
Prior to Butterstone, Duncan struggled to cope with school, often running out of classes.
He was frequently excluded - at one stage missing a whole year of education - but at Butterstone he had a 100% attendance record.
Parents and pupils say Butterstone offered a "safe space" for pupils
Soon after starting there, he featured in a BBC documentary, describing how he felt the staff understood him and how "calm" everything felt, in complete contrast to his previous experience of education.
"The school meant a lot to me. It was a place I could escape to," he says.
"It's been extremely unfair. It's like they've pulled everything away from me. Everything you had has been snatched away. Progressing in life, it's taking your life away."
Perth and Kinross Council is offering to recruit specialist teachers and educate former Butterstone pupils at a disused primary school while it seeks a long term solution - but Duncan insists he won't go.
"They're going to give me a dusty old building and they're going put temporary staff in there," he says.
"If they put temporary staff in there, you're going to get used to them and then they're going to take them away and move me somewhere else. Then they'll shove me back into the system I was in before."
Former Butterstone pupil Jodie thinks she's been treated unfairly
His feelings are echoed by fellow pupil Jodie
"It's very upsetting, I'm not getting an education. I miss the staff and the wildlife, things like that," she says.
"It's not fair that the school shut and the way they treated us. It makes you not trust people.
"The school gave me confidence. They should have thought about us, the kids at the school and maybe given us a bit more time, not just four days notice.
"I would really love for the school to open again so I could have an education."
The deputy chief executive of Scottish Autism, Charlene Tait, agrees that the Butterstone children have been let down by events.
"What we know about autistic children and autistic people is the need for certainty and predictability," she said.
"A predictable routine is really important to enable them to manage their own stress and anxiety - and to understand the world and make sense of it.
"When suddenly you find that taken away from you, the inevitable result for an autistic child is an increase in stress and anxiety."