Changing schools with ehcp

[yippeekiyay2]

Hi all just after a bit of advice please. Dd (y3, awaiting dx for asd) is in a very large primary school. We have always had massive difficulties with head, including a malicious referral by him to ss which unsurprisingly came to nothing but caused
Me massive stress while pg. since starting y3 things have got worse and it is clear his aim now is to drive dd out of school and exclude her if he feels he can get away with it. Won't go into all the details but there are issues with him accusing us of condoning her behaviour, them allowing situations to escalate so dd becomes aggressive then punishing her, planning on excluding her from clubs and possibly trips and threatening that if she wants to do them support will have to be pulled from her elsewhere to allow it and head being really unprofessional in his manner toward us because we don't just agree with him and back down. I really didn't want to change dd school This year as we have a nearly 2 month old and change is so hArd for her but I feel we are going to have to look at other schools now. We are awaiting the final draft of the ehcp which is due to be sent out any day. Obviously at the time we named the current school. If we approach other schools will having the ehcp make it easier to change mid year or will it just be a case of if there are places available etc.? Also if we do decide to change schools do we just contact la to change the ehcp? Obviously really she would need some transition also because of the massive change so would that be covered by ehcp? Sorry for all the questions it's all just a bit overwhelming at the moment!

[LadyConstanceDeCoverlet]

You can and should tell the LA that you have changed your mind about schools, you don't want this one, and ask them to consult other schools. Obviously it would be helpful if you have some idea of which school you want, so you need to contact them as soon as possible and meet up with the SENCOs so you have some idea of whether they are able to meet your child's needs and are willing to do so. If the LA decides to name another mainstream school, the school will have to take your child unless they can demonstrate that taking her will prejudice the efficient education of other children and there are no adjustments they can make that will overcome that.

The EHCP could include some advice on transition, but the trouble is that they must be very close to the statutory deadline and some LAs are very strict about keeping to deadlines. However, you have nothing to lose by asking - perhaps when you ask for different schools, ask them also to get advice from the EP about dealing with transition.