Result!

[MotherEve]

The LEA finally agreed to assess J for his SEN back in November last year.

The first draft statement had nothing in about SALT, despite an independent SALT diagnosing a severe pragmatic disorder and recommending intensive therapy. We had a long meeting with the LEA and they stated that their policy was that SALT was always a 'medical need' and not an 'educational provision'.

The second draft statement, as a result of that meeting, [2 months to rewrite!] had SALT in but in Part 6, despite J having had a further assessment by the local NHS SALT department who concurred with the independent SALT but said they hadn't the medical resources to meet this educational need.

We wrote and asked them to finalise the statement so we could appeal to SENDIST re the lack of SALT provision.

Imagine our surprise when, last Friday morning my husband was hand delivered a third draft statement, just as we were leaving to go to the NAS EarlyBird+ course ...

The LEA had totally backtracked and put SALT, 6 times a term, in as an educational provision! Of course the accompanying letter told us that we had misunderstood and that they had rewritten Part 3 more clearly ... must think we're daft! You can't confuse Part 6 and Part 3!

We're just waiting for the NAS to run an eye over it but we haven't spotted any catch yet ...