Starting School

Two Very Different Realities

For most families, the first day of school is a bittersweet milestone.

There’s a fresh uniform (one that doesn’t feel like sandpaper). A photo at the front door (taken without protests). A carefully packed lunch (that will be eaten without negotiation). A child who might feel nervous but stays at school.

Our version?

The uniform is a battle because the seams feel wrong. The school tour is spent checking fences instead of classrooms. The lunchbox is a minefield because the wrong cut of sandwich could ruin the day.

"Goodbye" isn't a moment—it’s a meltdown or an escape attempt.

We were prepared.

What we weren’t prepared for was how completely unprepared the school was.

The School Tour: "We Deal With These Kids All the Time"

Our first school tour was meant to be reassuring. It did the opposite.

The first thing I noticed? The fencing.

Low. Climbable. Gaps big enough to make an escape artist giddy with excitement.

I flagged it immediately. Not casually, not as a side note—this was my first and biggest concern.

Me: This fence isn’t secure enough. Cheese is an escape risk. Not just a wanderer, a strategist. If there’s a way out, it will be found.

School: Oh, we deal with these kinds of kids all the time.

Me, mentally picturing Houdini stretching before the big show: Sure you do.

Because unless they had experience with a child who once escaped from a five-point harness car seat while the vehicle was moving, I wasn’t convinced.

Me: Maybe we should look at enrolling in a nearby school with better fencing? There are a couple just outside our zone that would be a much safer option.

School: Oh no, that won’t be necessary.

Of course not. Because if they admitted the fence was a problem, they’d have to do something about it. And clearly, that was not the plan.

Sure. That’ll work.

The Flight Risk

We knew Cheese was a flight risk. That much had been obvious from toddlerhood. If an exit existed, it would be found, assessed, and taken. That was our biggest concern at the time, keeping Cheese inside the school. What we didn’t know yet was that escape wasn’t the only risk. Because when trapped in an overwhelming environment with no way out, a nervous system doesn’t just give up. It reacts.

But that was something for future us to figure out.

For now, we were just trying to keep Cheese in the building.

And this fence? It was not going to do the job.

The Paperwork Marathon

If there was one thing I wasn’t going to do, it was send Cheese into an environment unprepared. So, I did what every responsible parent of a neurodivergent child does:

I drowned in paperwork.

✅ Reports from the paediatrician.

✅ OT and speech assessments.

✅ A detailed breakdown of triggers, needs, and risk factors.

✅ Multiple discussions with learning support.

I laid it all out.

I wasn’t asking for miracles. Just basic supports to keep a child safe and regulated.

And the school’s response?

A ten-minute meeting with the teacher.

The day before school started.

No proactive strategies. No individual transition plan.

Just a vague “let’s see how it goes” approach.

The School’s Position: We Need to See Failure First

Would Cheese have extra support? No.

Would staff be briefed on neurodivergent needs? Not really.

Would adjustments be in place from day one? Of course not!

They needed to see Cheese struggle first.

Because, apparently, (public) schools run on a ‘watch the child crash and burn before putting out the fire’ model.

And here’s something we didn’t fully realise at the time. At school, the left hand doesn’t always talk to the right. Just because we had detailed discussions with learning support, didn’t mean those discussions ever made their way to the classroom teacher.

I assumed the teacher would know everything we'd discussed with learning support.

But between meetings, paperwork, and staff changes, key details slip through the cracks. And when those details are the difference between a safe environment and a disaster, that’s a problem.

What I Wish I Knew & What I’d Do Differently

I thought: They’ll work with us when problems arise.

No.

If a school won’t plan before things go wrong, they won’t handle it well when they do.

I thought: "We deal with these kinds of kids all the time" means they understand neurodivergent children.

No.

It means they have a one-size-fits-all approach that your child is expected to fit into.

I thought: If I tell learning support everything, it’ll be passed on to the teacher.

No.

Because here’s the thing, teachers are doing their best. But the system doesn’t ensure they get the information they actually need, when they need it, nor the support to do anything about it.

So, what would I do differently?

✅ Ask the principal direct questions about how they support neurodivergent students – Their response will tell you everything you need to know.

✅ Put everything in writing – If it’s not in an email, it didn’t happen.

✅ Follow up directly with the teacher – Don’t assume they’ve been given all the details. A quick check-in can make a world of difference.

✅ Check the fences, the exits, and the school’s actual supervision plan – Don’t just take their word for it (or sus out whatever your safety, or other, concerns are).

✅ Trust your gut – If something feels off, it probably is.

For us, we tried to believe it would be fine.

It wasn’t.

And after those first few weeks, we learned the hard way.

This system was not built for kids like Cheese.