Max Hilton attends the Step By Step school twice a week

Sam Hilton from East Sussex helped raise funds to have the Step By Step school at Sharpthorne set up.

Education bosses have said her son Max, six, should be educated in a mainstream school and have threatened to prosecute her for unauthorised absence.

Mrs Hilton says the school has helped Max and she will not send him anywhere else, even if it means prosecution.

It's teaching him very basic things that other children automatically learn how to do Sam Hilton, mother

Max struggled at school until his parents had him studied by an applied behavioural analyst, whose advice impressed them so much they campaigned for a specialist school to be opened in their area.

The Step By Step centre opened in April, partly funded by money raised by Mr and Mrs Hilton.

They can only afford to send Max there two days a week and for the other three days he has support at his local primary school.

But the local education authority said it supplies good enough services that Max and other children like him should be taught at mainstream schools.

Sam Hilton says her son has benefited from being at the school

A tribunal ruled Max should attend his primary school full-time and his parents could face legal action if he does not.

Peter Weston of East Sussex County Council said: "This tribunal really carefully considered all the evidence and their view has been to direct the local authority to use its own provision - and I would support that.

"I think we've got really good provision."

But Mrs Hilton told the BBC the school had helped Max in ways other education had not managed.

She said: "It's teaching him very basic things that other children automatically learn how to do.

"For instance, how to open a packet of crisps, which might sound very trivial but he doesn't know how to do it.

"They are basically telling me that I'm breaking the law in their eyes.

"He's being marked down as unauthorised absence on the days he's here and they are cutting all liaison between here and the mainstream school Max is going to at the moment."