LGO news of sorts: Ed Psych anyone?

[inappropriatelyemployed]

LGO will now deal with my request for a case review. God, why be so difficult.

As part of my complaint, I complained about some pretty scurrilous emails which were being circulated about me during Tribunal. They were not disclosed by the LA to my lawyers when requested but were voluntarily sent to the LGO which is how I got them.

One in particular is awful. It says the sender has spoken to school and accuses me of harrassing school, says staff were planning to leave because of me, that children on SA and SA+ weren't getting provision because of my unreasonable demands.

It is also very disparaging against DS. Saying he thinks he can do as he wants, even saying he marches in to the staffroom to demand that he doesn't do PE etc. It ridicules his 'anxiety' which it places in quotes like that. It says he lies and tells his parents he hasn't been doing work on targets when he has.

Utter, utter, contemptible bollocks.

LGO redacted email address info even though they were LA email addresses.

So requested info from LA. They sent same the email with just the sender's email redacted. At least it showed it was circulated to 7 other LA staff, 4 of whom I had never heard of.

I pressed the issue and asked them to reveal who had sent this pernicious email and they tried to rely on a third party exemption. I asked outright whether this person worked for the LA.

So this afternoon, I get told who it was.

An educational psychologist. Visiting school on another matter. This EP saw my son once ten months previously and had not seen him again. Yet she reports back everything the school has said as fact and her vitriol is amazing. She talks about using the email for Tribunal and doing something about me. She then circulates this to numerous colleagues.

The level gets lower and lower. This woman has no first had experience of my son or what was going on at school or his targets and whether they were being done but she writes this crap.

Surely this is unethical??

[TOWIELA]

Shocking! Do EPs have a professional body?

Is there anything slanderous or libellous in the email?

With the deliberate original non-disclosure of the email - I was talking to a DPA lawyer today who told me that deliberate non-disclosure is a criminal offence under the Act.

[inappropriatelyemployed]

Yes. All the comments detailed above are defamatory as a matter of law. EPs do have a professional body.

But wouldn't you like the LA just once to say, yes, we could have dealt with that better and this is not appropriate.

They've consistently failed to explain non-disclosure and ICO just didn't address it at all. Literally, it listed 4 DPA/FOIA requests and said all had been complied with. It just ignored the one that was the actual subject of the complaint!

[babiki]

Omg for once I have no words.

[inappropriatelyemployed]

Should add that on the day this email was sent, I later found out that the head, the LA and SLT had got together to stitch up their evidence for Tribunal

Coincidence??

[TOWIELA]

It would be lovely for a LA to apologise. But I've learnt to expect nothing but crap from them. Why aren't these people accountable!!!!

And I really don't see why the ICO doesn't throw the book at all the illegal DPA stuff that goes on around SEN children. The most vulnerable of our society are not being protected by the law and it is so wrong!

[Strongecoffeeismydrug]

Speachless
I'd be like lie about me and I will be pissed off but lie about my child And you will pay for it.
People should be brought to task over such slander

[inappropriatelyemployed]

I know. They are useless beyond measure.

it couldn't be clearer that they failed to disclose so just ignore it as there is no answer to it. We are challenging this with the PHSO as you can complain about the ICO to the PHSO!

This nasty email was sent to 7 people but never responded to apparently. Yet, within an hour the head of SEN forwards it to the complaints dept and says can we use this together with the LGOs ruling to call her vexatious?

Complaints dept then respond.

I think this EP was just used as a way of setting out the complaint.

[TOWIELA]

oh god - it just goes on and on! When my nightmare is finally over (which ever way the Tribunal has gone), I will be complaining too but your story fills me with despair!

Yes, they've probably just used the EP as an excuse, but even so, I'd have her job for this - or at the very least a disciplinary action for being unethical and unprofessional.

[inappropriatelyemployed]

Bloody LGO - if they'd found maladministration, LA wouldn't have dared do this But LGO waited another year to conclude there had been some maladminstration.

Bloody EP - I will investigate the professional ethics side of it. Can't see they will be any better than ICO, LGO etc etc

[ouryve]

That takes the biscuit. I know work is hard to find, but what EP (or any other professional) could work in an environment where this behaviour is quite clearly expected of them, then go home and sleep at night?

Saying he thinks he can do as he wants, even saying he marches in to the staffroom to demand that he doesn't do PE etc

They've got the wrong boy. It's DS1 who does that! Funnily, no one gets huffy about it. They deal with it as gently as possible, taking the attitude that he has a problem rather than that he is a problem.

[inappropriatelyemployed]

Ouryve: Well, quite. If a child did this, wouldn't you think an 'outstanding' school and its 'very strong staff' (as this idiot EP has put it) would gently steer the difficult parent and wayward child back on to the straight and narrow?

Yet, no one strangely, ever raised this with me. Not once. Not a quiet word or anything.

Disgraceful. They have sent a hard copy so I can't cut and paste but I feel like naming and shaming that woman. She is a complete disgrace to her profession.

[inappropriatelyemployed]

Ouryve: Well, quite. If a child did this, wouldn't you think an 'outstanding' school and its 'very strong staff' (as this idiot EP has put it) would gently steer the difficult parent and wayward child back on to the straight and narrow?

Yet, no one strangely, ever raised this with me. Not once. Not a quiet word or anything.

Disgraceful. They have sent a hard copy so I can't cut and paste but I feel like naming and shaming that woman. She is a complete disgrace to her profession.

[TOWIELA]

Just don't get me started on 'outstanding' schools! My DS nearly had a depressive breakdown because of his 'outstanding' school and still suffers daily because of their 'methods' for getting him to read. Now wouldn't I just love to out that school!

To much wine too early on a Friday evening has brought me to weep tears of sheer anger because of your case IE.

[inappropriatelyemployed]

Oh no! Don't cry. They are not worth your tears. Bastards!

[ouryve]

The boys' school is merely "good". I think there needs to be an unofficial classification of "bloody good" to be honest.

[ouryve]

TOWIELA [tissues]

[TOWIELA]

Thanks! Don't you mean "no bloody good"?

[nennypops]

Are you going to do a formal complaint against the EP? Is it the Health Professions Council you complain to? The whole thing sounds so grossly unprofessional.

[inappropriatelyemployed]

It is so staged as well. The EP writes this email for a case she has no involvement in saying she happened to be at school for a transition surgery.

She copies in 7 people making comments about 'perhaps this should be raised with Tribunal' and 'this is harrassment' etc

Yet, no one answers her email. The SEN manager simply forwards it to a whole load of complaints team people and says right can we use this and the LGO's judgment to get the determination.

Really. The LGO have all this and say the LA was acting appropriately.

So what chance do you have with a professional body? Yet another complaint? I might ring the BPS as I do think this is shockingly bad practice. At best, she has just circulated a load of gossip but her comments about my son are what really grates.

[TOWIELA]

It absolutely beggars believe that a professional person with no involvement in a case pokes her nose into something that she has no business to do! And the result of this unprofessionalism has been untold misery for your family. Solicitors are being named left right and centre on this board - I'd go for EPs too!

[ouryve]

Nope. Definitely "bloody good", in our case. At no other MS school would DS1 have made it as far as year 5 without being kicked out.

Maybe we need a full set of MNSN classifications - bloody good, alright, meh and shite. No way would they correspond piecemeal with the OFSTED classifications.

[inappropriatelyemployed]

"I can safely say the whole school, adults and children, have been affected by this"

"staff ?are so distressed that they are thinking of leaving?

"most learning takes place outside the classroom because it is ?anxiety provoking'..."

"he tells his parents that his teachers aren?t completing specific targets when they are"

"there are other children who clearly require support at School Action or School Action Plus but who cannot receive it because time has to be devoted to one child?.

"This should be raised with the Tribunal"

All from an EP who wasn't even had any dealings with my son. All then circulated around the Council and then withheld from me but circulated to the LGO.

The LGO says - no problem, all appropriate behaviour from LA staff.

Would a professional body be bothered with this?

[TOWIELA]

Omg. I am (nearly) speechless! I think this is def a complaint to her prof body as she has totally and utterly overstepped her professional remit. I would also think a solicitors letter to her personally. This is so not on and so totally inappropriate.

[inappropriatelyemployed]

It's outrageous. And I had NO contact with this woman at all bar the SA 10 months before so its not as if this woman could even say it was her opinion.

It was so fixed and timed to get a vexatious determination but how dare this vile woman talk about my son like this. A highly vulnerable kid who couldn't even talk in school and was being referred for in-patient treatment at Gt Ormond St at this time.