Consultation leading to Green Paper - have your say.

[Vallhala]

There's a consultation leading to a Green Paper on SEN funding and parental choice being held right now. As you probably know, severely bullied children are not considered to have SEN even though they may be suicidal and/or too scared to attend mainstream school - this is something which I feel should be raised and addressed by Nick Gibb MP.

If you'd like to have your say you can respond to the consultation by following the link to the RHS of this explanatory link.

My involvement came about as a result of being asked to provide a statement to Nick Gibb on the behalf of a group of fee-paying, charitable schools for bullied children as my younger child is a pupil at one of their schools (and they think I'm angry enough to put my point over to the government!). My DD is lucky - her two term placement is paid for by our LA but this came about after 6 months of fighting them as they broke law after law and after the Local Government Ombudsman ruled in my favour that they had done so.

At present there is no specific or ring-fenced funding for bullied children in the LA coffers and there is no LA provision for bullied children outside of the mainstream setting or Pupil Referral Unit. Knowledge of any alternative provision, from the responses I've had to my question on awareness of DDs school on Chat tonight, is worryingly poor. Equally, LA's are IME loathe to point parents of bullied children in the direction of schools like the one my DD attends which CAN help or to provide the funding for children to attend them. But our bullied children DO have special needs which require additional help! If that was the case for other disadvantaged children there would be a national outcry.

If you'd like to appeal for a change in this situation, now's your chance.

I'd like to point out that I don't work for the school which DD attends, I'm not and never have or will be paid by them and although I am full of admiration and gratitude for her school the only vested interest I have is that of the parent of a bullied child who has seen her suffer terribly who has had the most horrific fight to get her the help she needs and who wants to ensure that others NEVER have to go through what my daughter and I have.