SEND - children’s needs to be reassessed from year 6 2029?

1:1 swimming isn't required by the national curriculum. My son does 1:1 hydrotherapy, is that really much different to equine therapy other than water vs horse?

Now imagine you’re the parent of a child who is likely to lose their legally mandated provision.

I’ll be honest, I don’t believe I have skin in this particular game. My son is “complex,” and I’d be very surprised if any reassessment didn’t say the same thing. He falls into the group who likely won’t lose their provision, it’ll just be recategorised and get a different label.

But - the only way you can comfortably say “oh well some children will have to lose out,” is if you’re so lacking in empathy that you can’t see the real impact of that, or consider how you’d feel if it was your child potentially losing their legal rights.

Do you have the same objections to swimming/OT/physio?

Swimming is already required by the national curriculum

physio can be provided by the health service.

I can see how OT may be required to ensure access to education for example supportive seating and adapted equipment (one of my own children had special pens).

There are a myriad of things currently being provided at vast expense via EOTAS that are not educational needs.

We must spend less
We cannot not.

For some children it will meet social needs, occupational therapy needs and physio needs. It's therefore cheaper to provide one therapy than 3 separate different interventions. Would you rather they had three different interventions that cost more overall because you personally don't like the idea of equine therapy?

I'm curious to know how they will determine "the most severe needs". My dd's needs are complex. But when she's well supported she appears 'fine at school' (mainstream). Contrast that with how she falls apart, and takes weeks and weeks to recover, when she is not well supported - or that hard-won support and understanding falls away.

I suspect that it will largely be high masking, compliant, bright autistic/ audhd girls (this presentation is most common among girls) that pay the price. Precisely because their needs are complex, but not seen as severe until they reach mental health crisis. As it stands, they're already diagnosed much later than boys, as well as misdiagnosed and underdiagnosed.

How would that help ‘wheels coming off’ type 12/13 year olds?

How much do you think these children will cost across their lives without adequate early intervention?

Yes.

everything in an EHCP helps the child, that's the whole point of it.

Well lots of judges disagree with you. But I'm sure you know far more about each individual case than they do. equine therapy is far from common. Do you have the same objections to swimming/OT/physio?

My daughter has been ill for 2 years now, as a result of her secondary school experience. She had simple adjustments at primary school, and thrived there. Loved school. Happily took herself there every day. We are slowly trying to transition her back to school, but her resources are very low and it will take time. She has been diagnosed with ASD, and we are applying for an EHCP, because the school's hands are tied. If she is registered, she has to go full time. But she can't currently cope with full time.

The thing is, she shouldn't need an EHCP. Her needs are small, but make a huge difference for how she can cope with school. That threshold between happy and falling apart is very small for her. Had her adjustments been put in place from the start, then we wouldn't be in this situation now, but the school system doesn't allow flexibility for kids like my daughter (and her story is very common). I completely see how children like my daughter overwhelm the EHCP system - and I'm not entirely sure that there are adjustments that the school can put in place that will help now. But neither will she meet the criteria for a SEN school place. Schools need more teachers, more funding, and provision for classes designed for kids like my daughter. Kids who need more consistency, smaller classroom sizes. It's not about the quality of the education they get, it's whether they get one at all. Or, the resulting impact on the their physical / mental health if they do manage to make it to school.

The figures sound huge then work out to be a few thousand per school, it's a dismantling of rights hiding behind a billion pound figure

But also no reason it will be, may be that extra support is provided if the child's need changes too? I don't think it's a bad idea, I presume the children that need it will continue to get help.

At the end of the day, there's no money

It doesn't matter what anybody needs, we can't spend what we don't have.

If it wasn’t reasonably required legally to meet a need in B, it wouldn’t be provided.

Your posts lack of understanding of SEN and the current SEN law.

I have 2 DSs with EOTAS/EOTIS. It is laughable you think their packages (which don’t include equine therapy since they are allergic to horses) are wants. Find me a school who could even meet their needs in the vaguest sense and they would be going. The LA would bite your hand off. So would I. It isn’t the easy option. Hell, find me an AP setting who is willing to work with DS1 even with his own 2:1 staff also attending.

Also, things like equine therapy are often cheaper than the alternative. For example, if you remove equine therapy, some DC would need OT, physio and CBT instead. That would be more costly.

There are children getting equine therapy on eotas packages.

Do you genuinely believe that is a NEED?

Im almost laughing at the absurdity of really believing children need this. The entitlement is breathtaking.

Yes, that’s what’s already happening. To fund these spaces (some are barely bigger than large store cupboards) with enough money to pay teachers is not what is happening and not what the government are intending to pay for.

I don't think any child who had an EHCP in primary school should have it taken away, so that's the concern with a mandatory reassessment. But I do actually think a new EP report would be a good idea. DS's EHCP is already massively out of date 18 months in and the caseworker didn't bother to make any of the changes I or the SENCO suggested at the annual review. Let alone thinking about new targets or goals.

The country not being able sustain it is one thing. You alleging courts award eotas packages based on what parents want rather than on the evidence submitted to them is quite another and I'm sick of people perpetuating this utter nonsense. Why do you feel the need to deliberately villanise SEND parents by spreading falsehoods like this?

But people's healthy life, as well as their life expectancy, is increasing as well. So, people are more able to work between 65 and 68 and put money back into the pot. Them not retiring won't mean they are able to contribute less later - in fact, the opposite - they are able to contribute more. If they are genuinely ill or disabled through working as long, they can receive benefits, but most people can work that long.

So this is actually an appalling comparison - because children with SEN who are educated properly are able to become productive members of society, whereas children who are left to rot at the bottom of the class and get no qualifications because nobody has taught them in a way they need to be taught, children who can't attend school because it is too anxiogenic, children who don't have the right therapies - are not going to be productive.

We would love my DS to be in mainstream school because his specialist school has zero ambition for him and expects him to clean cars for a living. However, there are no mainstream schools set up in a way that he could access, so he has to be in a school that will leave him age 16 with no qualifications and no future.

Exactly.

and that is all the majority of SEND parents want.

I just want my son to be able to continue to attend his mainstream school but if they take away his EHCP because he's in mainstream then he won't be able to attend mainstream. He and his class will have to suffer until his school decides that they can't accommodate him by the sounds of it.

I think we need to look beyond school to life beyond school.

The government seem to want to maintain EHCPs for the physically disabled. So they should. This has been effective meaning that (alongside PIP eligibility) around 53% of those with a physical disability are in work.

Unfortunately only around 23-30% of autistic adults are in work. Will removal of legally sanctioned support in mainstream or legal right to access specialist education mean that more adults with autism can access work? I fear it will lead to more DC out of school whose parent’s are denied legal redress with concomitant costs on family’s were one person (usually the mother) is forced to be full time carer and increased inability to access work for the young autistic person.

What ‘right support’ in mainstream do you envisage the White Paper putting in place? What would this look like?

Oh and eotas packages in particular are very much what is wanted. No child needs equine therapy. It might be good, it might make them happy, it might help them.

It is not a fucking need.

My DS has autism and probably ADHD (awaiting diagnosis but everyone agrees he has it) he has had an EHCP in place since he started school and will be transitioning to secondary in 2029. It makes me really anxious, as he is currently coping well in a small mainstream school but really worry about how he will cope at secondary, the school I think would best suit him has a sen hub attached to the main school but his only hope of getting it would be with an EHCP especially as we are just out of the catchment area!

it's not unusual to find semh needs emerge becauseother SEND needs are unidentified/unmet. Proper identification and support can see semh needs reduce dramatically.

I completely agree. Some autistic DC have SEMH needs but their primary need is C&I. If their C&I needs were met, their SEMH needs would need far less provision. Similar for some DC with a primary need falling under the C&L broad area of need or with a primary need falling under the sensory and/or physical broad area of need.

that doesn’t mean the best education money can buy that fits them perfectly.

That doesn’t happen though. DC with SEN aren’t receiving the best education. That isn’t what the law entitles them to.

EHCPs are and always have been based on needs. Diagnosis of ASD/ADHD isn’t relevant. A diagnosis does not equal an EHCP. And a diagnosis is not required.