SEDU

There were many ups and downs in that preschool year.  In hindsight, if I could do it over again I would have pulled my son out of the school preschool, and just left him in the SEDU.  He was happier in the smaller group, and we constantly clashed with his preschool teacher, who just didn't get him.  She was a bit better once we had that diagnosis, but she almost seemed to just ignore him, and left him to the aide.  She didn't seem to think of his needs, or do any adaptions within the class for him.

I remember, at the and of the year that it became quite obvious.  They had scheduled afternoons where they would go to the grade one class rooms to get them ready for 'big school', but these all happened on the Wednesday, the day he didn't go.  I would take him up just for the afternoon so he could join the experience, but I mean, really, it wasn't going to work, trying to introduce this new experience by making the whole thing be out of routine.  She also scheduled the class Christmas party and breakup to be on a Wednesday as well.  So again, for him to be a part of it, we had to go up to school on a different day, and disrupt his routine.  And she didn't even seem to realise that either of these things would be a problem.

On the other hand, Michael absolutely loved his SEDU class.  He was happy to carry his bag in, knew where it had to go, and was able to participate in everything.  It was the very beginning of targeting his social skills learning, and they put into motion a lot of ideas that were used in future years.  He 'graduated' from the SEDU that year, and deemed him ready for grade one.

We enrolled him at the same school as his preschool, as his older sister was already there.  We were assured that they would be able to accommodate him, and he would receive adequate aide time to help him adjust to the new environment.  It was quite a big decision to stay at this school, as at the time they did not have a special needs department,  and there were only about 3 or 4 students with needs.  But it turned out to be a very wise decision for our son during the next few years, and we didn't regret it.