Family's distress as son has been out of school for nearly two years

Max Dodd’s family say he has been “forgotten”, and that they have tried finding alternatives for him since his school, the Kingsway Academy in Wirral, closed in the summer of 2017.

Max has autism, and his family say that without a resolution – which doesn’t seem to be forthcoming – the 13-year-old will enter his third year in September without any teaching at all.

Mum Corinne Sones said the situation is “very difficult and just not fair”, and lays the blame with Wirral Council for not having found them an alternative.

Corinne, 35, said: “It makes me pretty angry. He’s supposed to start year 10 next year, but I simply don’t see that happening now.

“They were trying to get him a new school but we just heard nothing back. It started nearly two years ago. We’ve been waiting for months and months.

“I have been phoning education officers and they have done nothing. We’ve tried everything.”

Max Dodd

The family live in Leasowe, and say Max remained at Kingsway slightly longer than some other children, whose parents moved them out soon after the news of the closure was announced.

Corinne said she doesn’t think a solution will be found by the start of the new school year in September, and that the situation is only going to get worse.

She said it has worsened Max’s condition, and that problems at home include often not being able to get her son to leave his room.

She said: “He’s literally locked himself in there. I cannot get him out. I’ve tried everything.

“And because he’s stuck in there 24/7, it means I can’t go out either, so this whole situation has had a huge impact on our lives.

“It’s been detrimental to his development, which has got so bad now. He can’t now make contact with anyone. He has to text me if I want to communicate with him.”

According to the family, the council promised that staff from Bidston’s Observatory School would visit the house and arrange for home schooling six months ago – but that still has not happened.

She added: “It’s very difficult and it’s just not fair. We haven’t got anywhere with the council. They have forgotten about him. They said he needs a one-to-one classroom where he could have space to himself, because he gets stressed with other kids in the room, they were worried that other children would get hurt.

“But it has left him with no education, it means even the education he had before summer 2017 has been forgotten. He doesn’t even know what a coach is now.

“I blame the authorities for this. If he was in school, at least he would have some interaction with someone other than his family, and make contact with teachers, and be able to understand the world a bit better.

“We just want to be able to start edging him back into school.”

Wirral Council was contacted for a comment.