To say my DS cant keep missing school because the school “cant cope”??

Hubs do have their purpose including for children with parents who cannot or will not fight the system like some of you seem able to, surely that much can be admitted!

Also EOTAS or specialist will work for some and hubs will work for others. Providing more choice for all is surely a good thing, in principle at least. I do get that people who are traumatised by it all are suspicious, but we do need to find a way forward for MORE children. What is currently there is just not working for enough children. And this whole fad of independent specialist schools costing an absolute bomb and shareholders making huge profits is unacceptable. At least if it is kept in the state system, then hopefully also the communication between NHS and social worker and education will improve and the data will all be accessible more readily to the professionals to actually implement things that do work for the children in question, and in a long term manner.
[I do know there are issues with data sharing as well, but ultimtately most of us have no choice but to trust in the system at large to some extent].

our la have no way for children not on roll at all school to sit exams.

@PensionPTake this is your LA fobbing you off. DC with EOTAS/EOTIS/C can and do sit exams. It is a line too often used, but it isn’t true.

@Araminta1004 hubs work for some DC. They don’t work for others. That applies whoever the child’s parents are or what they can do. For those DC who hubs don’t work for, they shouldn’t be resigned to being placed there when it isn’t suitable just because their parents struggle to advocate for them. All parents should be supported to advocate for their DC. Alternatively, the system should work as it should so parents don’t have to fight for a suitable placement.

To blame parental concerns about the SEND reforms, hubs and otherwise, on trauma is very dismissive.

It is always the class teacher who is left to deal with the shit show. Not the LA, the school or the parents. It's why I quit the profession.

If it includes plans in the white paper where parents have less legal rights to advocate for their children, won't be allowed to appeal decisions etc then there will actually be less choices. It seems like the LA will decide and that will be that.

It's very concerning.

If there are sufficient state run special schools and state run hubs all regulated by the state and properly so, to a decent standard, I fail to see the problem.

Some of the for profit run specialist schools by private equity/foreign wealth funds are not sustainable for all children with SEND. The pie has to be shared out more fairly between all children with needs.

If you genuinely think parents of DC with EHCPs aren’t left to pick up the pieces you are very mistaken.

Look at how many are forced to go down the SENDIST route.
Look at how many are left to complain to the LGO.
Look at how many are forced to pursue a pre-action letter.
Look at the number who feel they have to deregister and EHE.
Look at the number left picking up the pieces because the education system has broken their DC.
Look at the number of parents whose caring role has taken a physical &/or psychological toll on them. Sometimes to the point they reach parent carer burnout.
Look at the number of families with disabled DC who are living in poverty.

Because you have faith that they will properly run and to a decent standard. I don't.

LA's sometimes get it wrong and the fact that they may be able to do that in the future and parents won't have any rights to appeal their decisions is frightening.

But they are the parents. For the class teacher its just a job and whilst everyone else tries to shift the responsibility onto someone else, its them who deals with it on a daily basis. I reached teacher burnout. Not the job I signed up for.

I am very disappointed that teachers as a group haven't made a stand against the situation, striking if necessary. Everyone is far too concerned with not appearing inclusive enough for that to happen though.

I didn’t say they aren’t the parents.

You said the parents aren’t left to deal with the SEN systems failure. They very much are, they very much deal with it on a daily basis, and you are clueless if you think otherwise.

You think teachers should strike to stop disabled children accessing a public service?

Oh I know they're fobbing me off and it can absolutely be done but thank you. Problem seems to be they haven't done anything about making sure there's somewhere YP can go to sit the exams in our county. They expect people to travel to an exam centre in the next county, which is ridiculous and frankly impossible for some send YP to cope with. As usual parents are left doing all the leg work to figure things out, or risk things dragging on forever. It seems schools in our county won't accept external candidates, can LAs make them if they're not actually named in section I? What happens in your area?

Nicely melodramatic.

No, I think that teachers should refuse to do a job for which they are not given the resources. Not gonna happen though, so you don't need to worry.

You should probably re-read what I wrote before jumping on that high-horse 🙄

As a parent of send children I wish schools would take a stand too. We'd be much better off working together to improve things.

We also need more money to fund clinical research into why there are higher needs (and not just pretend it is more being diagnosed).
Older DD has suffered from iron deficiency for a number of years which may or may not be linked to Long Covid and presents similarly. She has been told in no uncertain terms by certain professors that she is to make sure she is not anaemic before planning a pregnancy because it may well be linked to higher rates of ASD. I had never heard that one before! It is always about folic acid. It is theoretically possible that all women should have blood tests before planning a pregnancy and that the NHS should be managing proactively the health of women hoping to conceive. But usual maternal health/women’s health/largely female professions like primary teaching are at the bottom of the priority pile.

I don’t need to re-read what you wrote. You said “It is always the class teacher who is left to deal with the shit show. Not the LA, the school or the parents.” Parents are left to deal with.

The LA can’t force a school not under their control to accept external candidates. However, the LA can pay them a handsome sum to do so, which is attractive to schools who wouldn’t otherwise accept external candidates at their exam centre.

I have 2 DSs with EOTAS/EOTIS who have home invigilation. The LA paid a very large sum to an exam centre to do that.

Some in my LA sit exams via exam centres in person, some sit then via exam centres but via home invigilation. If the out of county exam centre near you isn’t too far, home invigilation can be possible. Needs booking early though because demand is high. It doesn’t work for my DC and it is only possible for some exams/boards and only if certain EAA aren’t needed, but there is also online remote invigilation for some subjects/boards.

There's a lot of 'it would be nice' in there though. Currently we don't have enough specialist places. That isn't going to change with the send reforms and if the gov get their way there won't be eotas packages anymore either so what will happen to those children? They may end up with no education at all which will have huge effects on the economy and society further down the line or they'll end up forced into specialist. The kids who need specialist won't get it because there's now even less spaces, they will end up in the hubs and the children who need the hubs then won't get a space and will continue in mainstream.

i do agree private run schools are an issue, as are private run care homes for looked after children. LA's are spending way too much money on these (because they have no choice) and are being profiteered from. It should be stopped, but until we invest the funding to ensure there are enough LA spaces for all the children who need them, they have to go somewhere. They've got themselves in a right mess.

I also dislike how academies are run for profit and think all schools should be brought back under LAs or be run on a CIC basis if they want to keep academy trusts. No one should be profiting from children's education.

Thank you. We're in quite a rural county so distance can be an issue for home exams but that would be the ideal.

As you said earlier, too often it is left to parents to arrange, but it is the LA’s responsibility. You could always put it back on them to sort by going down the pre-action letter route.

In my LA you go to the local college to sit gcses

What about those with EOTAS/EOTIS/C for whom going to a college as an exam centre isn’t appropriate for?

There will be children in every county who can't attend a school or college to take exams. The LA may not admit this to you because home invigilation is expensive. It's absolutely possible but it can be hard to get LA to pay for it.

Also note that the deadline for being entered for GCSEs is surprisingly late. I think it's sometimes in April. It gets more expensive the later you do it though and exam centres may close their application window before the exam board does. It's certainly easier and cheaper if you can get it sorted by the standard entry date which is mid Feb I think.

So the local authority at mediation decided to continue with not letting my son be assessed for an EHCP despite having an autism diagnosis, non verbal, not potty trained, reduced timetable. We now go to tribunal. Think how much money is being wasted on the LA doing this when if they just observed the child it would be so obvious my child needs a lot of help. Also without an EHCP my child wouldn't get a place in an SEN school. Maybe start campaigning to stop all these reforms which will make this even harder to appeal if you are really that bothered about kids like mine being in a classroom with your kids.