WE have gone through the statementing process so far we have rejected the 1st proposed statement and had a meeting with the case worker with the draft of the statement with my amendments. Our school choice was agreed to but they wanted to remove all references to PECS trained people working with Ds. I was told that the case worker had spoken to the head mistress who had confirmed all staff are PECS trained so it was irrelevant anyway. I agreed to contact the school myself and if the staff were all properly PECS trained to have it removed from statement. However it seems although they have a PECS coordinator they are given in house training only and I am currently trying to find out from the school if the coordinator is trained to train because it sounds as if the school is not using it correctly - I spoke to a class teacher who said they use it for snack time[sigh]. I have left several messages since last Friday with headmistress who has not got back to me I keep being told she is busy.

I had also requested that the Occupational therapist write more specific input recommendations but they have also come back quite vague. The SALT has quantified input but says " up to" which I requested they removed. I will contact the OT but I am hitting a brick wall in terms of getting the statement to be specific and quantitative. The professionals writing the report say they are not responsible for quantifying input and the LEA say that they can only include what the professional have written.

So my questions are :

1) Even though DS is going to a special school can I insist that staff are properly PECS trained? (the case worker said that its not for the LEA to dictate how the school spend their budget or train their staff).

2) is there anything I can quote at OT to get them to write more specific recommendations?