AN autistic boy is receiving just two hours education a day at a Silsden school because he does not have a full-time support worker.

Susan Harrison said Education Bradford, which supplies education services for the city's council, had refused to fund a full-time support worker for her 11-year-old son, Alex, who attends Hothfield School.

She said the organisation had agreed to pay for a worker 27-and-a-half hours a week, but the part-time position had yet to be filled. As a result, Alex is only attending school in the afternoons.

The youngster had attended a specialist autistic unit before he and his mother, a teacher, moved from London in August.

He has never been educated in a mainstream school and Mrs Harrison is worried that he will end up transferring to South Craven School, the largest comprehensive in North Yorkshire, behind in his education and without friends or experience of mainstream school life.

"Alex was diagnosed autistic when he was four," she explained. "He has always been in a specialised autistic unit with around six kids in a class."

Mrs Harrison said she alerted Bradford Council to Alex's needs well in advance of their move and he was promised a place at a specialist primary unit in Denholme.

However on the day Alex was due to start, the family was told that all the places had been filled, she said. "I contacted the council after Easter and was led to believe everything was fine. Otherwise I wouldn't have moved."

She said she was told that Alex would have to be taught at a mainstream school.

"A woman I know told me that Hothfield School had had several autistic children in the past and it had been very successful. I contacted them and they agreed to take him as long as Alex was supported. It is a fantastic school and the children behave very well and it has a nice atmosphere."

However the level of support needed is still in dispute, she added.

Initially Alex was given a home tutor for five hours a week, and at the end of October was allowed to attend Hothfield Street for two hours a day.

After more meeting, it was agreed that a support worker could be found for Alex to cover lesson time but not dinner hours.

This meant Alex would have to go home to Keighley, or to his grandparents in Silsden - but they are both in their seventies. Mrs Harrison feels neither is a realistic option.

"If he is sent home for the social time of school, when people communicate with each other, he misses out. It also highlights his difference to the other children," Mrs Harrison said. "He needs to build up his academic skills and make some friends and have some experience of a mainstream education before he goes to secondary school."

Mrs Harrison has taken up her case with the Department for Education, local MP Ann Cryer and the ombudsman.

She added that had she chosen to keep Alex out of school for such long periods, she would surely have been invited to go to court to discuss it.

"I just want my son to be treated like a human being. It is demoralising, particularly when you have a child who wants to learn and is not being given the opportunity."

Head of Hothfield School Bill Bairstow told the Herald: "We have advertised for a support worker, without lunch times, and should have one in the first week or two of January. We have done the best we can to help Alex and want to get him into school on a full time basis as soon as possible.

"The children here have been extremely welcoming to Alex and he is fitting into the environment as well as can be expected."

A spokesman for Education Bradford said: "We are working with Mrs Harrison and the school to arrange a full-time placement for Alex in January 2003 and come up with an appropriate level of support which best suits Alex's needs as he moves into a mainstream school from a specialist provision in another part of the country."