Learning support: Autistic girl's pleas to skip school over lack of help

Leonie says she would dread going to school and mum Julie Axhorn worried about her mental health

An autistic teenager says going to school can feel "like hell" due to lack of help for additional learning needs.

Leonie, 15, from Merthyr Tydfil, would beg not to attend school before she got tailored support.

It comes as parents of children with learning difficulties call for them to get equal access to education, over fears many are missing out.

The Welsh government said it was investing £20m to improve inclusivity in places like schools and colleges.

The teaching union NEU Cymru said the Additional Learning Needs Code, introduced in 2021, was not working.

More than 10,500 people have signed a petition calling for more funding and training for educators.

• I feel I'm failing my son over education, says mum

• Parents face fight over support for their children

Leonie, who was diagnosed with autism when she was 11, is studying for her GCSEs at a mainstream school.

She finds loud noises, touches, suddenly-changing situations and shouting upsetting, which means classroom learning can be exhausting, as can hiding her autism, known as masking.

According to her family, she waited years to get regular one-to-one support in classes.

"Most people with autism do struggle to listen," she said. "When they're explaining to everyone they either go too fast, [or] everyone's speaking over."

She said she often cried to her mum, begging not to go to school.

'I was dreading waking up'

A recent report by education inspectors Estyn found support for pupils with additional learning needs (ALN) was inconsistent.

The ALN system was introduced to get schools to individually tailor support and make legally binding individual development plans (IDPs) for each child.

But Estyn's review found some families were being incorrectly advised that the system did not apply to their child.

This year, Leonie received her IDP and now has a consistent one-to-one learning support assistant, making school easier.

"When I didn't have any support at all I was just dreading waking up in the morning, because I knew what was to come."

Leoni's mum, Julie Axhorn, said her daughter had previously had many mental health lows.

"Leonie tried taking her own life in April, she got so overwhelmed by things that she just felt like she couldn't physically cope," she said. "It was awful, I mean it broke us as a family."

Merthyr Tydfil council's director of education Sue Walker said Leonie's school had put in place "numerous strategies, interventions and adjustments" to support her.

She added: "It is recognised by all that there is considerable increased demand in both the education system and health system to ensure that support for learners with specific needs is accessed in a timely manner."

The petition, calling for the ALN code to be reformed, will be debated in the Senedd.

Evie, 10, turned from a happy child to being sad and angry when she went to school

Evie, 10, from Wrexham, has autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and has been out of mainstream education since February.

Her mum Dani, 35, said Evie struggled in the classroom and she was "constantly battling to get what we felt were really small reasonable adjustments".

Dani added: "She's the most happy, bouncy, lively child, but she'd come home and I would just have to hold her and rock her as she just sobbed".

Dani said Evie was taken out of school and worksheets were sent home for her, but said she was marked as having unauthorised absences.

"We just kept feeling like we were hitting closed doors."

'Parents are constantly fighting'

As an interim measure, it was agreed Evie could have two hours of tuition a week, later increased to 15 hours.

Dani said two panels had ruled that Evie needed specialist provision but, due to delays in the system, all the nearby places had been filled.

She and her husband Morgan, 42, are now facing the difficult decision of whether to send Evie to a residential school.

"What parent wants to send their child away Monday to Friday, just so they can get an education?"

Wrexham council said it was unable to comment on individual families, adding: "Our aim is always to work collaboratively with children, young people, families and other stakeholders".

Between 2021 and 2022, the number of pupils in Welsh schools with additional learning or special educational needs dropped by 18,000.

The Welsh government said it was due to pupils with low level needs being taken off registers.

But the petition's author Vicci Lightbown, 42, claimed it was hard to get education settings to do assessments and provide support.

"The system is so flawed that most parents are going years with constant fighting" she said.

The mum from Ruthin, Denbighshire, has four children aged between two and seven, all with additional learning needs.

Petition and protest organiser Vicci Lightbown, pictured with her daughter, has four children with additional learning needs

She has had to give up working as a nurse to home school three of them after she said they were placed in inappropriate settings.

Vicci has successfully taken her local authority to court through a tribunal process over the lack of suitable placement for her four-year-old son who she said escaped from his nursery, climbed a fence and headed to the main road before being stopped.

Denbighshire council is appealing against the decision and has been asked to comment.

Vicci has organised a protest outside the Senedd on Friday which she hopes will demonstrate "the volume of the issue".

Teaching union NEU Cymru said it "broadly welcomed" the changes, adding there was "many aspects of the system which need to change" including "consistency in terms of funding, and better access to training".

"Schools also need support, they cannot cater for every aspect of children's needs alone," it said.

The Welsh government said "equity and inclusion are central to our education reforms" and it continued to review progress.

If you are affected by any of the issues in this article you can find details of organisations that can help via the BBC Action Line.