Part time schooling for SEN - does anyone do it?

[twoisplenty]

I looked at the home-ed pages, but decided to post here. Does anyone home-educate their sn child? I'm asking because I would like my ds (8yo) who has CP to have at least one day at home, the rest of the time at sn school. At home I want him to have private speech therapy and physiotherapy.

I have asked the headmistress to consider this, but haven't heard from her yet (it's been a week) and I'm getting anxious. Can she say no?

I really want these therapies at home for my ds, but he gets home each night at 5pm, and so doing extra work after tea would be too much for him, and he wouldn't co-operate. But being at home one day (or maybe two) would take the pressure off him. I could also take him places to teach him about the world, which he doesn't get in his school classroom. He has severe learning difficulties and would benefit from learning about the world rather than maths and english etc.

It is an excellent sn school but speech therapy all over the country is poor, and he needs more input.

Thanks!

[needmorecoffee]

Its called flexi-schooling and its up to the headmistress. EO have something about it on their website.
If you tell the head that it can be an 'authorised absence' and it doesn't affect the money she gets for the pupil she might be more amenable. But the final decision rests with her. I've been HE'ing for 8 years now. my 14 yo has aspergers.
DD is 3 with CP so will be part mainstream and part SN when she goes to school (can't HE her as need DH's help but he wants the break that school gives ) but if something good comes up I'll just keep dd off school that day.

[PeachyFleshCrawlingWithBugs]

It's from January for us, as we're not convinced school can keep ds3 safe so its a trial for them as fara s we are concerned.

Took shedlaods fo grief to organsie, head didnt have a bloody clue!

[twoisplenty]

Thanks NMC. I can imagine the headmistress is making lots of phone calls to try to work out the legalities of it all. When we asked her for part-time schooling (didn't realise it was called flexi-schooling) she said no-one had ever asked before!

Peachy - good luck for January. Are you planning to do home ed full time? Why was it difficult to organise it all? I've heard that having a statement makes it difficult to sort things out. Was that part of the problem?

[sphil]

DS2 has been flexi-schooled since the start of this term: 3 mornings at special school and the rest of the time at home following an ABA/VB programme (he's 5 and has ASD). We were lucky in that the Head was sympathetic from the start but he suggested that we provide the LEA (the Complex Cases Panel) with detailed info about our programme - its aims and content. We did so and they agreed, but we're expecting that we may get some pressure at DS2's annual review next month to increase his hours next term, so we're going to take more evidence of how much he's progressed since starting the home ed programme.

The problem with the statement is that the LEA have a legal obligation to fulfil it, so they have to make sure this is still happening even if the child is partly home-schooled. If it isn't I think they can threaten to withdraw the statement. As a result, whereas flexi-schooling of a m/s non-statemented child is a fairly straightforward proposition and just requires the Head's agreement, it's more complicated (and requires more persuasion) in the case of a statemented child at a special school. I think......am a novice at this myself! But would definitely recommend gathering evidence, making a plan for the home ed etc.

[Homsa]

I want what sphil's got We have appealed to SENDIST to force the LEA to agree to this.

If a child has a statement, then an LEA has the power to arrange for part or all of the educational provision to be made otherwise than in a school (e.g. at home). The relevant piece of legislation for this is Section 319 of the Education Act 1996.

If the LEA agrees to put "education otherwise" into the child's statement, then the head of the school has no option but to agree to this. However, if it's written into the statement then the LEA has to fund the extra therapy, hence they will be less than keen!

[twoisplenty]

It's enlightening how a child can do really well at home, but it must require lots of dedication. How do you get enough time to yourselves I wonder?

I shall let you know what the head says when she finally gets in touch with us. My ds annual review is in early November, so hopefully by then we may have a better idea of what we can do to ensure we have flexi-schooling.

[sphil]

It IS difficult to get enough time for yourself - and I really think that this needs to be taken into consideration when planning any degree of Home Ed. We have two tutors who share the tuition with me, but I still spend up to three hours every evening recording and planning the programme. I realise we're lucky to be able to afford it and i'm positive that the reason we've had such an easy ride from the LEA is because we haven't yet asked for funding.