Their reasons:" The Panel acknowledge your parental concerns that ds is not making progress and that you understand that his progress is affected by his difficulties associated with Autism, however the Panel noted from the evidence submitted that ds is making progress both academically and socially with the support that has been put in place.
Based on the evidence considered by the Panel ds's difficulties do not appear to be impacting on his learning and academic attainment levels. The levels reported within the documentation provided as part of the request for Statutory Assessment show that he is making academic progress and is responding to the interventions put in place.
The Panel were pleased to see that the school have a good awareness of ds's needs and have implemented an appropriate level of support in order to address these needs. The school report that they are catering for ds's present needs and are able to seek support and advice from professionals, including Speech and Language Therapy Service, Communication Disorders Team and the Educational Psychology Service when needed and will continue to monitor ds's progress. The Educational Psychologist substantiates this and notes in her report that the school are demonstrating good, inclusive practice in the way they are supporting ds and this opinion is support by the progress he is making."
- Reading this has made me feel as though they have extracted the positive points from all the reports and made them look even better.
- He is making only very limited progress. He was averaging P4 when he should have been on level 1 so nowhere near the National Curriculum.
- They did not mention his Speech even though I gave them all this information:Speech
Although George is described as having delayed expressive language, he has a speech delay of at least three years. As he is getting older he is finding it difficult to work at a more formal level as the language is becoming more complex. Specific aspects are describing it under five headings.
Attention
He has difficulty in all situations, especially when the teacher is addressing the whole class. He is easily distracted and requires constant refocusing. He often has single channelled attention, for example, on Thomas the Tank Engine. We suspect that the problems that he has in taking part in activities may be that he does not understand what is happening.
Receptive speech.
George responds slowly and sometimes only to part of an instruction. He may repeat an instruction instead of responding to it. He relies on visual information.
Expressive speech.
Is very limited, he does not speak in sentences, using only two or three word combinations, using only the most meaningful words e.g. toilet, I want Thomas.
Diction
Is very variable, some words are very clear, others are very difficult to understand, even for his parents.
Interaction
He is reluctant to interact with other children and shows isolated and poor imaginative play.
4.They are able to seek support and advice from professionals, including Speech and Language Therapy Service - seen 10 times a year
Communication Disorders Team - last seen in June
Educational Psychology Service - only seen in April
Unbelievable! I will appeal of course and will note all his needs and complexities from reports which they totally overlooked.
Can you help us put our appeal together with all your comments and advice please. Thank-you