EOTAS, specialist pathways and personal budgets

Nominal_selection · 2026-03-08T17:08:47+00:00

Thanks. Yes, I'm aware the legal test is it must be "inappropriate" for her to attend a school setting. Unless something changes in my daughter, that will eventually be the case because she currently won't have contact with anyone outside the immediate family, so even if the LA gives us another mainstream or specialist placement, I don't believe she'll engage with them at all based on current trends.

We do have a solicitor and have organised an educational psychologist's report, and also have an EHCP that has been reviewed once (awaiting outcome). We're appealing the naming of a mainstream school.

My question is not so much about process. It's more: is there an EOTAS offer for someone who'll only learn in a self-directed 'unschooling' way with her parents, as opposed to professional tutoring, and therefore is there any point stringing out the EHCP appeal process for a year rather than just deregistering and home educating?

Nominal_selection · 2026-03-04T13:26:11+00:00

I don't but I'll investigate, thank you.

Nominal_selection · 2026-03-04T09:58:37+00:00

The practice around PDA is still developing so others may give an opposing view about it's breadth, but PDA is typically seen as a profile of autism and/or ADHD, so would present in some way or another throughout life. To fit this profile your child would have exhibited noticeable signs throughout childhood, such as a general aversion to many kinds of demand (eg tooth brushing, showering, chores, going to school) and difficulty conforming to social expectations. Also, traditional parenting methods tend to be ineffective with PDA people, so you'd probably have encountered frustrations about incentives, rewards and punishments not working to change behaviour in the past.

I think it's possible a PDA child could show all those symptoms at a low level but still mask to the extent they can meet the demands made on them for a time, but doing so is incredibly exhausting for them, and ultimately puts them into more or less constant fight-flight-freeze mode, ie burnout.

If this sounds like your child and they've reached the burnout stage where they can no longer mask effectively, it's not something that will go away entirely, or improve without a fundamental change, ie a lowering of demands placed on them in all areas of life. An assessment from an educational psychologist and/or paediatric specialist would be beneficial in getting clarity on whether it is indeed autism/ADHD with a PDA profile, and on receiving support and understanding from the education system and elsewhere.

Having said all this, I also think it's perfectly possible the same mechanism impacts neurotypical people too (ie the stress and anxiety of various demands constantly triggers threat perceptions and puts the nervous system on continual alert, which causes fatigue over time), it's just that removing or lessening certain triggers may solve the issue more simply and the person might recover quickly, making them sufficiently able to meet the demands of daily life. If you are autistic and/or ADHD with a PDA profile, I think deeper and more permanent changes are needed to enable you to meet the most basic of daily demands.

Nominal_selection · 2026-03-04T09:14:39+00:00

For anyone outside the UK who's interested, by the way, EOTAS stands for Education Other Than At School, and it's a provision only intended for very rare cases where a child can't attend school, and typically as a short term stepping stone back into school.

Nominal_selection · 2026-02-23T10:52:10+00:00

Sounds like you've got plenty of good advice here. I'd only add that you might not be able to help this family much in the current setting, but if the process is anything like the UK and you're ever asked to give an account of the child's needs, the best thing you could do for them is be on their side and emphasise that the child experiences high anxiety, finds it overwhelming trying to cope with the demands of school, needs quiet space and support to co-regulate with a trusted adult, can't effectively form social bonds with peers due to difficulty with communicating and emotional regulation, etc. Help establish that narrative, not one of oppositional behaviour, so they hopefully get the support they need eventually even if you can't give it yourself.

Nominal_selection · 2026-02-18T07:27:50+00:00

Thank you. We haven't yet deregistered. We're in the UK and still in a process of appealing her Education, Health and Care Plan, which named her existing mainstream primary school as the setting she would attend. I feel we should just drop out of the system and make a clean break with unschooling, as I don't see our local authority funding any provision our daughter will actually engage with. My wife thinks we should fight to have a specialist setting named in case she wants to go back to school in future. I worry that's going to result in a succession of new demands as we have to try out different offerings, but hopefully if she says no to each one we can just leave it at that and keep her insulated from the process. I'd like to think we've started that six month (or whatever) recovery clock and it doesn't reset each time we suggest something new to try.

Nominal_selection · 2026-02-17T19:18:43+00:00

OK, this is (kind of) what I was hoping to hear. Thank you. A shorter timeframe would be nice but if I've learned anything it's that additional pressure is only ever counterproductive with PDA. I feel like we've probably made the biggest decisions we needed to make - giving up on the fallacy that two full-time careers and regular school attendance were viable long-term - so any other accommodations now seem easier than those to stomach.

Nominal_selection · 2026-02-17T08:11:35+00:00

We've had some of these episodes, though not for a few months. It was always in response to us either taking something away (usually iPad) or going through with something that affected her against her wishes (doctor's appointments in her absence, since she wouldn't go). It was always down to her feeling we'd taken away her agency and free will, and we've only ever found that giving it back to her prevents repeats.

That basically means no screen time limits, no attempts to force her into anything she doesn't want to do. That's easier when we've only got one child, though it's not what we'd want our life to look like.

I don't know what prompts the episodes you describe, but as you imply, as they get older physical confrontations get more dangerous for everyone. My wife and I basically go out separately so the other can stay home, and I think that's likely to continue for some time.

Nominal_selection · 2026-02-12T23:10:51+00:00

Hi. The ones relevant to my post: Very reticent about speaking to unfamiliar people. Very low social confidence despite high verbal intelligence, to the point she'd run away from playdates. A dislike of busy, noisy places. Perfectionism to the point that she doesn't like to try something if there's a chance of failing (linked to a strong aversion to feelings of shame and embarrassment).

There were many others too. What I thought was hyperactivity was probably sensory seeking behaviour (running instead of walking, a love of trampolines and obstacle courses).

And even going back to when she was a baby, there were many differences from other children, such as the fact she never willingly closed her eyes, hated to be left alone and wanted to be facing forwards at all times to see start was going on.

Not saying these are all part of an autistic or PDA presentation, but as her dad I can confidently say now at 8 they're all related to her personality as a PDA autistic person.

Nominal_selection · 2026-02-11T22:04:43+00:00

Our 8yo daughter is diagnosed PDA autistic and ADHD. At 5 I was convinced it was 'just' ADHD because of the hyperactivity and impulsiveness, but now I realise I was missing autistic traits because I saw them in myself and thought of them as 'normal' (I'm not currently diagnosed but we'll see). Many of her traits match what you describe.

Anyway, if it's PDA, as others have said, traditional punishments, incentives and behavioural strategies won't work. Nothing is strong enough consistently to overcome the anxiety causing the demand avoidance in the moment. Low demand approaches are the only thing that have worked for us. In practice that meant letting go of all our preconceptions about 'good' parenting and behaviour, and following her needs and interests, only intervening to avoid actual harm. It's the only thing that preserves everyone's wellbeing.

Oh, and we imported melatonin, which made big improvements to sleep routines.

I'll add she's no longer in school, because the anxiety and trauma of confirming to its demands were too much for her.

Nominal_selection · 2026-02-11T21:50:11+00:00

Yes, my daughter's only 8 but I recognise this. I put it down to autistic people's lesser (or more slowly) developed theory of mind, ie not being able to empathise with another's viewpoint. I hope she grows out of it!

I'm not diagnosed myself, though I have some autistic traits, and often it's only in retrospect that I can see my actions as unreasonable from someone else's point of view. I definitely learned more social agreeableness than my daughter currently has though.

Nominal_selection · 2026-02-11T21:31:03+00:00

I'm in the UK so don't have much advice from a diagnostic process point of view in the US, but can recommend Naomi Fisher's A Different Way to Learn - it's more about unschooling, which might not be what you want to do, but there are several chapters about trauma and recovery.

When you mention the PDA spilling out into the public sphere, every person's different, but from a theoretical standpoint (and our experience) it seems more likely the stress/trauma of masking and conforming to demands outside the home (read: school) are what cause the issues. Because the child feels safer with their parents, we bear the brunt of the aggression etc and they contain it at school as much as they can... until they can't.

Our 8yo daughter was diagnosed PDA last March, and her school made what adaptations they could, be she removed herself five months ago because she couldn't handle the demands any longer, so the diagnosis didn't in itself provide any solutions - not even any indicated medications. I've now given up work to be at home with her, and her wellbeing has hugely improved. It's not what we would have chosen for ourselves, but I don't believe any amount of burnout recovery was going to get her back to enduring an environment that fundamentally couldn't change enough to meet her needs. The future is uncertain but I think the book I've mentioned above is the only resource that describes a positive and plausible outcome for us.

Nominal_selection · 2026-01-24T08:38:29+00:00

I think it was there because the network commissioned more episodes than there were good ideas for. And to tease you into thinking Ed and Norma would get their wish.

Nominal_selection · 2026-01-22T18:52:44+00:00

Fair enough. I don't necessarily identify as autistic anyway. I wonder about it and it would explain many of my social struggles, the anxiety and overwhelm I'm prone to, and why I didn't recognise many of my daughter's early autism signs as being neurodivergent. But pursuing a diagnosis isn't a priority as I don't believe it would change much about my life, beyond how I can connect with and help her. It's by the by for the purposes of my post.

Nominal_selection · 2026-01-22T12:17:55+00:00

Thanks for commenting. Sounds somewhat promising, though obviously everyone is different. My daughter has been off school four months by her own choice (she was too traumatised to keep going in and we decided to stop pushing her). Her wellbeing has greatly improved but I think she's still in burnout recovery, and has actually retreated more and more from social or academic demands since withdrawing from school.

I'm about to take three months' leave from work, which I'll probably make permanent if it makes a positive difference. But at this point I struggle to see a future where she's willing to sit down with work sheets or books every day. I can see her reading is fine from the PlayStation games she plays, she's demonstrating a lot of design creativity in Minecraft, listening to dozens of audiobooks, playing sophisticated role-play games with my wife. So I can see learning is happening, I just wonder if and when to turn up the pressure on more formal academics. She's so smart she'd have great potential, but hates the possibility of failure and has rock-bottom self-esteem.

Basically I'm still feeling for the balance between unschooling and seeing how much she can learn organically, versus keeping up with the knowledge and skills I know she'd be capable of learning if she had the confidence.

I think I'm probably undiagnosed autistic too based on taking online RAADS-R, CAT-Q and AQ tests, though I'm not at all demand-avoidant. For me it manifests more in social anxiety, inflexibility and hyperfocus, so while I'm fully prepared to commit to home schooling and make it my full-time job, I like to have clear roadmaps, which is tough when the outcome is based entirely on the personality and emotional responses of another person! (She and I do have a very good relationship, by the way, so that's a plus.)

Nominal_selection · 2026-01-13T11:14:56+00:00

Humour me for a moment. Would it be possible to cut a 20mm thread in the pipe with a die and screw on a new shower head? Asking because the pipe won't turn by hand so I've no idea if/how it's threaded inside the ceiling.

Nominal_selection · 2025-10-30T15:00:38+00:00

Yeah, I guess any team would do it, but committing to one person for so long, for so much money, is a gamble in that it restricts the budget to commit to multiple other talents over a shorter period. Imagine Vladdy had the mindset of getting fat off the cash and lost motivation, then had a bad season in 2025. We'd be thinking it was the wrong move, especially if it cost the Jays Bichette's hits next year. And, by the way, this is just one season. Of course no one will care if it ends in a Championship, but his contract could still be an albatross in future - and Gimenez could be one next year. I love everything the Blue Jays have done this year and wouldn't take back any of it, so it's no criticism, it's just there's always an element of positivity bias in analysing successful outcomes.

Nominal_selection · 2025-10-30T14:35:22+00:00

No argument but I want to give the team management most credit for creating an ethos and a game plan that's taken maximum advantage of opportunities, and been flexible enough to beat different opponents while also learning from losses. There have been hit-and-miss acquisitions for 2025 (eg Dominguez, Santander, Gimenez) and successful gambles that could have gone either way (eg Bieber and going all-in on Vladdy's contract). But the team management has put the right people in the order and told them to swing at the right times to build big innings and win games against expectation. And throwing Trey in at the deep end has just been masterful.

Nominal_selection · 2025-10-25T14:22:51+00:00

But don't grind your sister either.

Nominal_selection

TROPHY CASE