• MY son, age 11 and with a diagnosis of autism, was put on a part-time timetable in his first days in Year 7 at an Islington secondary – against my wishes and his best interests.

He is a very able, highly academic child, behaves well at home and is teaching himself piano and Japanese.

But he was very overwhelmed and frightened. My child was put in isolation following a meltdown on his very first day and was barely allowed out.

Then he was made to do this every day and then leave the school early before lunch, alone and vulnerable, in the middle of the day, while I was collecting a younger child.

The school were fully aware of his diagnosis of autism from his handover from his primary school – and referred to it constantly – but still paid no regard to safeguarding.

Autistic people are not good at assessing danger. In my son’s case, he ran across main roads, and once got picked up by the police running in fear of a real or imagined stranger.

Another dangerous event was that he climbed in through a window when he couldn’t work out how to use the house keys.

In the last three weeks of trying to work with the school in order to get my son a full-time education I have had to learn many things. The first of which is that every child is entitled to a full-time education under the Education Act 1996.

And the second is that a part-time timetable is permissible only under “exceptional circumstances”, and must be arranged with the local authority, and then documents must be signed by those in a parental role.

In this case Islington Council had no record of even a notification of a part-time timetable from the school in all those weeks that my child was missing out on learning.

My message to other parents is:

• You can’t always assume a school will do the right thing. And unofficial exclusions, such as being “sent home to cool off”, and forced part-time timetables do happen but are against the regulations. These are both reasons for a school to be given an “inadequate”rating if discovered by Ofsted.

And don’t allow yourself to be hounded out by the right school for your child. My son’s school took to repeatedly calling me early in the morning, when I was getting younger children ready, the school put pressure on me to do this.

Get all of the advice you can (the National Autistic Society has a dedicated exclusion line so endemic are these problems, and web resources that can be used by all).

Next write a letter of complaint to the headteacher if this has happened or is happening to your child. If the response if not satisfactory write to the chair of governors.

Keep your councillors and MP in the loop. My son’s school hadn’t even notified the local authority about the part-time education they were forcing and when I told them I knew this, all of their excuses for a part-time timetable fell down like a house of cards. And they finally agreed for him to have a full-time education – from that day.

My son has now done two full days, has been enjoying most lessons, and I have no doubt that he will keep doing well now that he has had a chance. It has been deeply saddening to see my son treated so badly for being different.

My son’s school have said they force part-time timetables on children with special needs and disabilities all the time and that they have the right to send children away from the school whenever they like. My son’s case can only be the tip of the iceberg.

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