Sorry more questions: need urgent help with statement appeal please!

[bialystockandbloom]

Trying to draft my appeal for parts 2 and 3 of ds's statement.

How much detail do we go into at this stage or do we just give more of an overview of the basic grounds for appeal?

ie do we go with:

1. We are appealing the statement because we believe it is inadequate, inappropriate, vague, and unspecific. We would like ABA for ds for the reasons we gave during the Statutory Assessment process (include our previous report).
   

or

1. We are appealing the statement because we believe it is inadequate, inappropriate, vague, and unspecific: [highlight virtually every line of statement, and referring back to our own report, our subsequent suggestions, and anything to back us up in the EP report]
   

We would like ABA for ds for the reasons we gave during the Statutory Assessment process (include our previous report).


Presumably the next stage of the process is when we submit our full argument so do we need to go into huge detail now? Can't work it out. Help v v gratefully received, thanks!

[pinkorkid]

If this is for the reasons for appeal document you send to sendist, I would say to go for option 2. Although the reasons for the proposed statement being vague unspecified etc are clear to you, you need to make it explicit to the tribunal judges who are coming to it cold. If you haven't already got it, get lea to send you copy of statement as an email attachment so that you can save your own copy and re-write it with suggested strikethroughs, changes or additions shown in italics or bold and with footnotes giving references to the evidence that supports your suggested change.

Eg current version of statement says something like "bialyjunior should have access to up to x hours of ta support per week." You rewrite as: "bialyjunior will have 30 hours of support from a ta trained to work with children with x condition, x hours will be 1 to 1 support, x hours in small group support, x hours playground support" and in footnote refer to sen code of practice that says advice in statements should be specific and quantified and to advice from eg ep report that says dc needs individual support to access curriculum and from eg autism outreach that says dc needs social skills groupwork from eg camhs that says dc is vulnerable in playground situation and therefore needs support there.

You can either quote short phrases from the relevant section from the reports directly in the footnote or just refer to paragraph and page numbers in the original reports.

It is quite time consuming to do but I think worthwhile as it shows the lea the strength of your arguments so more likely to agree before tribunal and it helps you sort out your arguments in your own head up front before you ever get to tribunal.

[bialystockandbloom]

Thank you both. Very helpful