Julien and Chiara
Content Warning: These stories are about violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation and may include references to suicide or self-harming behaviours. They may contain graphic descriptions and strong language and may be distressing. Some narratives may be about First Nations people who have passed away. If you need support, please see Contact & support.
Julien is a teenager with sensory processing disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. He is ‘very sensitive to sound’.
‘He’s a very creative boy,’ his mother Chiara told the Royal Commission. ‘He’s always got a pen in his hand, just to draw and write things.’
She said Julien’s first school was ‘really inclusive’ and ‘looked after all sorts of children’s needs’.
Julien was ‘prodigious’ and won lots of awards. He had no special supports.
‘He was in the mainstream. He had an extraordinary teacher for the last two years … They were big classrooms with a small group on the side so they had time for integration.’
Julien’s transition to high school didn’t go well. He’s currently in year 10. The school is large and loud.
‘All of a sudden, you have seven different teachers … There’s always people talking and in between classes it’s like a big huge river – rapids.’
In the corridors, the ‘volume’s up’ and ‘the adrenalin’s up’. Julien finds it ‘too stressful’.
Recently he asked if he could be in a class with his friends. His teachers said no.
‘He’s asking for what he needs, but they’re not giving him what he needs … They’re just saying no, always. I don’t think he understands why.’
Chiara, who’s a teacher, said Julien is getting no support.
‘I really think he has got huge gaps … He really struggles with maths.’
She wanted him to be assessed, but his teacher said, ‘No, don’t worry.’
Julien chose to be put in the integrated class.
‘But the teacher ended up giving him year 10 box plot stuff, which is just way over his head.’
He comes homes frustrated because he doesn’t understand anything.
‘He says, “I just copy the stuff off the board” … But, in primary school, the teacher would get to know that and learn how to manage that. That is what worked. The relationship.’
That and the fact that ‘the environment was much quieter’.
‘I don’t think he has written anything since then,’ Chiara said.
Chiara feels Julien’s current teachers are ‘bluffing’ his grades and have set ‘low expectations’ for him.
She said there’s ‘a big divide’ at the school.
He is often excluded from extracurricular programs which he feels are reserved for students who ‘are special’.
On holiday programs ‘they’ve sat him in a room by himself’, Chiara said.
In the last weeks she’s seen cause for hope. There’s a new person ‘with a background in disability education’ in charge of student support.
‘Somebody who has an understanding and who doesn’t look at children’s behaviour as bad.’
But she fears it’s ‘too late’. Julien no longer wants to go to school. He ‘hates it’.
Disclaimer: This is the story of a person who shared their personal experience with the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability through a submission or private session. The names in this story are pseudonyms. The person who shared this experience was not a witness and their account is not evidence. They did not take an oath or affirmation before providing the story. Nothing in this story constitutes a finding of the Royal Commission. Any views expressed are those of the person who shared their experience, not of the Royal Commission.