Is it normal school asking us to pay for additional support?

Or d) you pay privately for input. Choosing a state school doesn’t preclude you from paying a private health or therapeutic professional.

Have they suggested that this one named therapist offers both speech therapy and occupational therapy? If so, that is strange because they are two different professions and I doubt there are many people trained in both.

It is normal to pay for extras in independent schools, but I would expect any therapist to be appropriately qualified, experienced and registered. Go to the HCPC website and put their name in. The term "therapist" is not regulated and anyone can use it for any reason.

We have a couple of children in our school that are the same (not bad children but distractable and prone to acting up - being reviewed privately for autism and/or adhd) and the school have required the parents to pay for a full time TA for them. It makes sense because the other parents in the school wouldn’t be pleased if their child wasn’t getting attention because of the teacher having to sit with the disruptive child. It’s expensive though. £25k school fees plus £25k on top for private TA. They have done it (had no choice really or leave the school) and are hoping that when the children matures a little their behaviour will improve.

Just to offer a different perspective, DS was in a private pre-prep/nursery from age 2. The school SENCO applied for EHCP which was granted at age 3, and then the LA paid for a 1:1 until the end of Y1 at the prep, when the school decided it couldn’t meet need.

I understand that anything in the EHCP will be LA-funded even if it’s a private school. It doesn’t sound as though you would meet the EHCP criteria right now, but might be useful to know the above if things change.

Interesting thread. My child was referred to speech therapy through nursery and then to a developmental paediatrician through the school senco (state school.) There's a waiting list as it's NHS.
In the meantime the school put an IEP in place, my understanding is that it's not as serious as an EHCP but just the school's own personal plan for how to support specific needs and some of it was based on recommendations from the speech therapy. My child doesn't meet the criteria for a funded 1:1 or anything like that but benefits from little things noted in the IEP that the school can put into practice.

In your shoes I'd pay for someone to observe your child in a classroom setting and then advise if they think you should seek any sort of diagnosis. I don't really get how the school can ask you to pay for extra support and also declare that your child doesn't need to be assessed for anything.

I had a green tea today

State schools do offer more. My son currently has play therapy from an external organisation at school. He’s not got an ehcp but was identified as needing a bit more support.

Have you had his hearing and sight tested?

He’s in an independent school, so of course you will need to, like parents whose children have music lessons!

This.

Very very normal in independent schools to oay for additional support. I did, until we got my son his EHCP. That covers the cost now, but was very hard to get. We're lucky the school have been so supportive with him.

At one point I think we were paying more than £80pw for extra support (SALT and OT). If you can afford it, I'd pay it tbh. It had helped my son enormously.

So whether you’re in private independent or state school, Sen issues can be referred to the nhs services for assessment rather than having to pay privately. Your school ideally or your GP should be able to refer you to cahms or CYPS where you can request a neurodevelopmental assessment. Getting accepted into this pathway can take time though and requires a lot of evidence to support needing an assessment so ideally school should make the referral and include any evidence of observations and interventions they have tried. Neurodevelopmental pathway would be for ASD or adhd assessments. You could also speak to your Health visitor or nhs school nursing service. Health visitors usually cut off age 5 and hand over to school nursing team. Someone should be able to put you in contact at either school or your GP centre. Your local authority should also have something known as their ‘local offer’ where they list all the services open to families around send. School nursing can put you in touch with Speech and Language or OT services for example. Or they could also support a referral to cahms/cyps.

If at some point you fell your child does have sen and requires additional support beyond that of his peers then you can request an educational health needs assessment - this is the start of the process for an educational health care plan. This is what children can be given when needs are beyond the normal school send offer and budget and comes with different tiers of funding. Being in an independent school might make this process harder but shouldn’t prevent it happening. Ideally school would apply for the assessment and would send in evidence of support and interventions tried. Someone above suggests 2 years of interventions need to have been tried but this is not true. Just plenty of evidence of what has been tried. Again, each your LA’s ‘local offer’ where there should be more information

5 can be a tricky age as it’s hard to say if things are developmental or immaturity.

Perfectly normal (I work in an independent prep school). Your fees are covering all the ‘normal’ things, if your child needs additional support then yes, it would be charged for. Things like this should be detailed in your parent contract

A SENCO can decide if a child has SEN. That isn’t dependent on diagnosis but based on needs. For some DC with SEN, the SENCO will be able to judge what support a pupil requires. Best practice is to involve the parents in this process. For other DC with SEN, support from outside agencies (specialist teaching service - although many don’t work with independent schools, ed psych, OT, SALT, CAMHS, etc.) will be needed in order to know how to best support the child. So some DC will need the input of a psychologist of one kind of another, but some won’t.

If you don’t want particular support the school is suggesting you pay for, they can’t force it on you.

Some diagnostic assessments involve a psychologist &/or a child and adolescent psychiatrist.

It isn’t uncommon for DC to present differently in different settings.

Before retirement I was a specialist teacher, employed by the local council, for children with hearing impairments. One child I had worked with weekly since he was a few weeks old went to an independent school aged 4. I was told by my line manager that I was no longer allowed to support him as the school wasn’t a Local Authority school. The school he attended told his parents that any additional support he required - LSA time, teacher training, support materials, assistive listening devices etc. would be at additional cost. They went ahead anyway as they could afford the extras and I made support visits and did teacher training for the staff despite being told not to. I couldn’t abandon this little boy, who I’d known since he was a baby, so I went in my own time and built up a good relationship with the staff.

My dd was state school educated, but her Primary school saw behaviour we never saw at home. They’d often ask me what we did at home when we saw X and I’d say we never saw X.
I’m not doubting they saw the behaviour but I’m not sure now if it wasn’t really a sign that it was the wrong school for her, especially as everything improve massively in Secondary.
Private schools can be loathe up to a point to loose a pupil, but also can be quite brutal and fast about losing one they can’t cope with. I got my DD a diagnosis partly so her state school couldn’t pre-emptively get rid of her.

This is so normal. I wouldn't worry at all. In my experience, private schools are a lot quicker to address even small things and to recommend early support. For this kind of referral, and given the way you describe your child, it sounds like they are suggesting some small things that will improve the way he comes across and manages in the classroom. Let them do their job, it will be fine.

You don't need an Ed psych or psychologist referral for this - they are not thinking adhd or asd. This is not at that level.

There is no funding for the extra support so if you want it you will have to pay.

In the state system yes the Senco decides whether they have special educational needs.

please do not confuse SEN with disability or even a diagnosis. The medical and educational systems do interlink but SEN is a purely educational term.

so for example say in the state sector a child is having trouble learning phonics. They get extra support from a TA. This is SEN - the child is getting additional support above and beyond the normal class therefore they have SEN.

a different child may be deaf. They have medical diagnosis and may be considered disabled and have special needs (SN). They also have SEN as they will need extra support in the classroom.

some children are disabled (SN) but do not have additional support in the classroom - for example a child with epilepsy has a diagnosis but might not have any SEN as they don’t need extra educational support.

so medical stuff is diagnosed by doctors, sometimes paediatricians etc. SEN by contrast is NOT medical. It can be, but doesn’t have to be.

It is not up to the school to diagnose, you need to decide whether he needs support inside the classroom or if after school will be pnefit him. Might be worth a visit to gp as a starting point.

You could have him assessed by a Educational Psychologist, who would assess his needs / challenges in relation to school work - though I would question if age 5 is the right time to do this.
Clinical psychiatrists can diagnose conditions like ADHD and ASD.
I don't think seeking diagnosis is necessarily appropriate right now, given what you've said - more the SENCo / School needs to assess his needs at school, and how they will support them. If you don't want them to jump straight in to providing a private therapist, you don't have to, but you need to have honest conversations with them about what they are observing at school, and how those behaviours are best supported.
It is not unusual for an SEN child to behave differently at school and away from school - the demands and expectations on them are different, the environments are different.
My own DS received an AuDHD diagnosis in year 5 - since reception (and even nursery) the school had observed behaviours that I didn't see at home, and as he got older, it became clearer what those were. For him it is a lot of the social and communication difficulties, that just aren't apparent at home (we are too like him for it to be so obvious!), but were so clear in the context of being at school.

So I would say, have an open mind. Try not to feel affronted, judged or criticised because these things have been raised. Your DS is still very young, and it may be that he settles down and these behaviours are not so apparent when he develops more - but if he is struggling in some aspects, putting the support in for him will do a lot for him in the long run.

We had a very supporting and helpful independent primary, without whom I'm sure we wouldn't have got his diagnosis as early as we did. That's meant that he has gone on to state secondary with a really clear picture of the support he needs, and his secondary school is being absolutely wonderful with him (and consequently he is extremely happy to be there).

@Todayisaday you said “State schools have specialist departments, whole teams dedicated, training for all teaxhers on SEN. Private schools do not have thism you have to buy your son any support he needs.”

I just want to pick up on that as that has not been our experience at all.

Both our kids have diagnosed SEN and are at private schools - their schools definitely have SENCOs, departments to support kids who need it, and all teachers are trained in SEN.

The amount of support and extra attention that they get included with the normal fees is already way higher than they would get in a state school because we have much smaller class sizes.

Private schools vary a lot - we chose one that is mainstream but has a good reputation for Sen support, it’s definitely possible. Sounds like you had a poor experience at private school, but it’s not fair to assume all privates are like that.

Yes very normal at an independent school. I used to work as a 1-1 with a child who needed additional support at an indie - the parents paid me hundreds of pounds a month over and above their fees. Most private schools are not willing to support children over and above what they consider the norm without you paying for it unfortunately.