Not Stupid (14 page)

Sean and I had no idea when we started just how much attention our work would generate and, had someone told us we would find ourselves on stage with the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and his wife, Cherie, one day, I don’t think we would have believed them. However, it happened. Sean and I were among other people nominated for the Unsung Heroes Award by
Daily
Express
readers, which resulted in our attending a presentation ceremony in Kent. This was the first time we had been out on our own since having the boys. Coral looked after them while we attended the function and stayed overnight in a smart hotel. There we met many other people who had all achieved something worthy of recognition and had, like us, been nominated for an award by the newspaper’s readers.

Sean hates being the centre of attention but he accompanied me to the stage, where Tony Blair and his wife presented us with the Co-operative Bank’s award of a beautiful crystal bowl engraved with the words Unsung Heroes 2000 Finalists. As we stood with Mr Blair somebody took photographs – which unfortunately didn’t come out – and then a buffet was held. Afterwards Mr Blair and his wife circulated and, I have to admit, I was sorely tempted to say something to him about the lack of funding and the difficulties in obtaining it for children with autism, but I bowed to Sean’s persuasion not to. It wasn’t the time or the place, he said.

Mr Blair admitted that autism puzzled him and wondered if there would ever be a cure. I was surprised I was able to bite my tongue when he shook my hand and told me we should be very proud of what we had achieved. That may have been so, but we’d had little help from local government and, if Her
Majesty’s Government had put in place the support so obviously needed by so many thousands of people with autism and Asperger Syndrome and their families, we wouldn’t have been forced to do it all ourselves in the first place!

It was encouraging, though, to hear our school being described as a ‘flagship for autism’, and other educational psychologists from other boroughs told us that they had been preaching ‘the gospel of Hillingdon Manor’, which was quite an accolade.

Our work was bringing us to the attention of several politicians and, as a result, Sean and I were invited to attend the launch of the All-Parliamentary Group on Autism. This is one of the largest all-party groups in Parliament and is made up of backbench MPs and peers from the House of Lords who have an interest in autism and want to lobby the government to improve autism services.

The group launched its manifesto in May 2003. It is a
ten-year
programme to which MPs are asked to sign up – a series of measures by which successive governments can be held to account. It contains targets in a range of policy and service areas, and MPs who sign up to the manifesto are committed to working to achieve these objectives. More than 300 MPs and peers have since signed up to the manifesto.

It was an uncomfortable meeting for Sean, as he had been involved in a car accident while driving on the M3 motorway, and his spinal injuries meant he had to wear a body brace at the time. This had been a particularly difficult period for us, since Sean had been in hospital for a couple of days following the accident and then needed bed rest for the next few weeks. At
first it had been suggested he may even have needed an operation to get him back on his feet, but two sessions of physiotherapy each week finally did the trick. I remember being completely exhausted at the time because Sean, being incapacitated, was in no fit state to be able to help me with the school runs, shopping or other jobs around the home.

At the meeting we met many politicians and household names, including Charles Clarke, Peter Mandelson and Dame Stephanie Shirley, with whom I have remained in contact. Dame Stephanie is a highly successful entrepreneur-
turned-philanthropist
who arrived in Britain as a five-year-old evacuee via the Kindertransport from Austria in 1939. Her son, who had autism, sadly died. She later visited Hillingdon Manor and told us we should be very proud of what we had achieved.

We had told Hillingdon Council we would be opening only half of the school at first but, in fact, with the work on the roof completed, the whole school was eventually up and running after just 18 months because of the demand from parents for such a facility.

In February 2001, a care agency known as Summacare Limited was set up by the directors and shareholders of Moorcroft Manor Limited. The aim was to become a respected and professional domiciliary and outreach organisation that would play its part in inspiring a level of confidence between service users and purchasers.

We wanted to support children and adults within a range of disabilities that would include autistic-spectrum disorders, behavioural issues and learning and physical disabilities, while promoting social inclusion and offering personal support as
part of a dual-purpose support package. We also wanted a company that would be able to offer live-in respite support and that would play its part in safeguarding services for children. Since its early days, Summacare Limited has specialised in the employment of carers for children and adults with
autistic-spectrum
disorders and other special needs.

Given the doubts expressed in our ability to make a go of this project by some councillors and others a couple of years previously, extending the services we were able to provide gave us a huge glow of satisfaction. Even better was to follow with our very first Ofsted inspection at Hillingdon Manor in June 2001. Any teacher in any school will tell you how much pressure an Ofsted inspection heaps on them, and it was certainly no different at Hillingdon Manor. In fact, our being a fledgling establishment, coupled with the fact we were dealing with children with very specific needs, meant the pressure seemed intense for all concerned.

Prior to the inspectors’ arrival, there had been a lot of hustle and bustle. The staff, quite naturally, were stressed out, working really hard and putting in extra hours, and checking out the building to make sure everything was up to scratch. On the day of the inspectors’ arrival I remember sitting in my office while, every few minutes, a member of staff would pop their head around the door to ask, ‘Are they here yet?’

I was heartened when I noticed that one of the inspectors was David Gardiner, who had visited the school and had been impressed by what he had seen when he checked us out for the Department of Education inspection shortly after we had opened the school. The inspectors sat in the classrooms to
observe the lessons in much the same way as you would expect them to in a mainstream school. Then they went through all our paperwork, the policies and procedures, and checked to see if we were following them through.

During the two-day inspection Angela kept popping into the office to ask for further documentation that had been requested by the inspectors. This gave us the opportunity to ask her how things were going. Because the inspectors were within earshot we were whispering and Angela resorted to a series of thumbs-up or thumbs-down signals, depending upon what we’d asked her. The mood was lifted somewhat when one of the children gazed up at a female inspector, put her hand on one of her breasts and loudly declared, ‘Wow, you’ve got big bosoms!’

When the inspection team had finished their work, Angela, the senior members of staff and I were called into a meeting to hear their verdict. With so much riding on what they had to say my stomach was in knots and I know my colleagues felt much the same. I was feeling sick and sweaty, aware that, because the school had received so much media attention, a substandard Ofsted report would be absolutely catastrophic.

But we needn’t have worried. We received a glowing report and, as soon as the inspection team left the premises, we were all absolutely elated and found ourselves jumping up and down and kissing each other. Now we had a brilliant reason to crack open some bottles of wine and champagne! We could hardly wait to spread the news to the parents and, almost at once, we were flooded out with messages of congratulation and cards. After so much hard work and a fair bit of stress, the team
headed off for a celebratory meal at a nearby restaurant and nightclub. The relief was palpable.

Reading the report gave us all a huge boost. Under the section headed ‘Main Findings’, it stated, ‘Hillingdon Manor is a good school which very effectively meets the needs of pupils on the autistic spectrum and has the potential to develop even further. Teaching is good in 100 per cent of lessons and is very good or better in 42 per cent of lessons.’

The report went on to say,

The section of the report headed ‘The Management and Efficiency of the School’ heaped praise on Angela and her staff:

No wonder we were all so happy!

The success of our Ofsted inspection saw the school registered by the Department for Education and Employment, which we knew would be necessary if we wanted to follow all the criteria of a mainstream school. Being registered was a huge step forward for the school. It meant we no longer had to write to request the approval of the Secretary of State every time we wanted to accept a child because they had to agree to the funding of the child’s statementing. Jumping this hurdle was a huge relief. As we ourselves had been, parents were desperate to find placements in specialist schools for their autistic children,
yet funding was always very difficult to secure. Now, that obstacle had been overcome. The added bonus was that the long and drawn-out process of waiting for approval from the Secretary of State was no longer necessary.

Our work at Hillingdon Manor was making news locally and much further afield, even internationally. I even received a telephone call from a lady from Singapore. She informed me that she and her husband were about to relocate in the United Kingdom and they hoped we would be able to accommodate the educational needs of their autistic son.

The frustrations and despair Sean and I went through while trying to find places for Angelo and Patrick were often brought back to mind when I met other parents desperately going through the same experience. We even had a lady from Dubai arrive at the school. Obviously fabulously wealthy, she turned up in a posh Mercedes car accompanied by two huge, sunglasses-wearing minders. It doesn’t matter how much it would cost, she told me, she wanted to secure a place for her son at Hillingdon Manor. Unfortunately, though, the poor boy’s needs were so very complex that we couldn’t have catered for him, as he also suffered from other conditions as well as autism. Nevertheless, his mother persevered and, after an impassioned plea, Angela agreed to allow her son to spend a week with us and then to review the situation. By the end of the week, though, it became clear that his needs were even more extreme than we had at first thought and, because his aggressive behaviour was so intimidating to the other pupils, we could not allow him to stay.

I remember showing a parent around the school and then
having to tell her that, at that particular time, we didn’t have any places available that would be suitable for her son because his needs were so acute. She explained how desperate she was and how she really liked the feel of our school, and it broke my heart to have to turn her away. Just as she was about to leave through the main entrance of the school she broke down in tears, sank to the floor and begged me to reconsider: ‘Please, please, I want my son to come here.’

By this time I was getting pretty emotional myself as all those feelings came flooding back to my mind. ‘Please don’t do this,’ I pleaded. I gave her a hug and told her that, although we didn’t have a place for her son, I wished her luck in finding a place elsewhere. As she left I had a huge lump in my throat.

Yes, I knew exactly how she was feeling.

We hate to turn anyone away, but we must stick as rigidly as possible to our admission criteria if we are to get the best out of our pupils. Hillingdon Manor is a school for
high-functioning
autistic children and all the children in the school should be as similar in terms of needs as possible. Children with more complex needs are catered for more appropriately in other specialised schools, although it is often very difficult to secure places for them.

We soon began to attract visitors wishing to know more about our methods. Among them were students from Brunel University in Uxbridge, who had a particular interest in autism. A few of them have come to us as an extension of their studies and we have trained them as they have worked alongside the children. Among them have been a couple of psychology students taking part in a six-month placement as a part of their
sandwich course. They enjoyed the experience so much they remained with us and secured teaching posts at the school. Another Brunel University student went on to become a manager at the school.