Sense and Sensibility!

Thank you to my lovely GP for her ever so logical advice and support

"No don't resign from your job, it might be the right decision long term but don't do it while you feel like this"
"Get some advice from your Human Resources department about various types of leave".
"No I understand that you don't want to be the person who is always off sick but this is why you need advice from your HR and a look at how you would manage financially if you did leave work for a period of time".
"What you need is some breathing space while you look at your options".
"I think increasing your hours is not something you can commit to given the needs of J for care".

So I came away feeling more settled, she is quite right in saying that NOW is not the time to be making any decision about resigning or not - even if resigning DOES turn out to be the right thing for both J and I.

As far as J goes there have been more difficulties, primarily it seems to boil down to the level of work expected from him now he is in Year 4 and I will have to go in tomorrow morning to have a chat with his lovely LSA who is so good with him to see if we can find a way through this between us all.

It has all been very demanding emotionally  for J and I am starting the process of looking at future schooling once Christmas is out of the way.

The schools I will be looking at initially are the senior school which J's school feeds into, it's mainstream and small for a secondary. If J was to go here then he would attend with many children he already knows. My only concern is that as time goes on he will become socially isolated among his peers.

The other school I will look at is a non mainstream school which has been suggested as suitable for J, this is a special school which takes children who have various forms of learning difficulties. It is smaller than the mainstream school and has a higher staff to pupil ration along with extra input from various professionals which the meainstream schools just don't seem to get.  On the negative side, waiting until Year 6/7 to try and get a space for J is not really an option as it will be oversubscribed by then so if J's future educational and social needs are to be met there then I need to prepare for moving him at the end of Year 4 or 5 and NOT wait until Year 6 when every other child with SEN is also being put forward.

Of course the best preparation for life in mainstream society is a mainstream school, however if J is likely to experience social isolation there then he might well do better attending a special school and building up friendships with children who have similar issues to him.

It's a big decision and until I look round to see where J might best "fit" then I will be mulling it round in my head.

J just keeps saying "I want to go to another school" but this is due to his current difficulties with Maths and I think if we can sort that out then he will be happier again.