My lucky jacket

Almost 10 years ago I sat around a tribunal table with my lucky jacket hanging on the back of my chair.  On my lucky jacket it says “Don’t be afraid of the future”.  Sitting next to me was my barrister; Peter Parker, not Rumpole of the Bailey, as I’d expected.  Peter Parker proved he was a super hero that day when the tribunal panel agreed there and then that my son should be able to leave mainstream education and enter an independent special school specifically for children with autism. It was ruled, in my favour, after only two hours on a point of law.

I would never have been able to know that point of law on that day if I’d been on my own.  I could have lost my case and my son would have either remained at mainstream school, where his Head Teacher said they had damaged him or in an inappropriate peer group, at a unit that had been attached to a failing mainstream school, a few miles away.

He’s sitting next to me now slapping out the bass line to Seven Nation Army, It helps him with the anxieties around the GCSE assessments he’s got coming up.  I was told all those years ago that he probably wouldn’t be able to read or write.

After the tribunal I took the barrister, the head teacher of my son’s new school and his independent educational psychologist to the pub.  It was the very least I could do.  I had felt small sat at the tribunal table surrounded by my team, members of the Local Education Authority and the tribunal panel sat opposite me.  There were only three women in the room, one of which was me and the other two were on my opponents team. I felt even smaller sat in that pub.  I hadn’t realised how much weight I’d lost until that morning as my one and only smart skirt had almost slipped off of my hips.  I’d gone down to 8 stone 2 pounds.  I’m 5’ 9”.  For some reason when I’m stressed my body decides that food is not its main concern and forgets to remind me to eat.

I sat and I drank a coke. I really wanted a huge pint of what they were having but I only had a tenner on me.  Then my barrister, Peter Parker, said he liked what was written on my jacket and told me that he usually did employment law, this was his first SEN case and that he’d been up all night writing my sons statement.  I knew I’d got him cheap but he was quick, smart and well, how can I put it, he liked my jacket, he knew how important it was, what it meant.

It was an old pub steeped in history and dark wood.  I just wanted to sit and enjoy that moment forever.  It felt like I had just awoken from a really vivid, terrifying nightmare and realised it wasn’t going to continue, it was over.  

I should never have been sat around that table and that made me angry.  I’ve taken that anger and my lucky jacket with me ever since.  I’m not Peter Parker, maybe one day but I’ve started in my own way, as have many other parents, to try and help those who face that table but if they can’t afford a Peter Parker what happens then?  

No one should be afraid of the future.