HELP - Secondary School Admissions Appeal - SEN

Thank you Megatherium . We have a meeting midweek. Will see what they have to say. Is it the same in your area? I mean the application process?

What should happen is that the LA sends the proposed school or schools a copy of the EHC Plan and reports (or the draft plan if it hasn't been finalised) and consults them about whether they have a vacancy and can meet the child's needs. They have 15 days in which to reply. If they say yes, the LA puts their name in the EHCP and finalises it. If they say no, the LA has to make a decision about whether to go ahead and name them in the EHCP anyway, or to discuss with them their concerns to see if they can be overcome (e.g. by more funding), or to give up on them and look elsewhere.

In your case, if the LA applied for the wrong type of place, presumably they need to go back again and consult about a resource base place.

Hello All,
Can anyone please advise on the application process for a SEN child to mainstream school? It has come to light that the LA made a botch job of my DS1's application as they applied for a mainstream school place instead of a resource base place. What does this mean?

I will appreciate explanations please. Thank you

Thank you all. We are now meeting with the LA next week to agree provisions. School said that EP should be in to see DS1 maybe Tuesday/ Wednesday. From the email we received from the LA regarding the agenda - we have been told that the meeting is not about naming a school but agreeing the provision.

Can anyone advise what kind of questions to ask and what points for naming out first choice school?
The school at the moment have children with similar needs who are making progress. School also has a resource base which may benefit DS1 if he needs additional support.

Thank you

They are just hoping you will shut up and go away, don't let them get away with it. Once they see you are getting proper advice and understand your rights they will take you more seriously. Good luck, you can do this.

Megatherium has the right plan - I would strongly support that course of action. Your LA are clearly not doing what they should be but should also back down very quickly if you push them on this as they will know they are in the wrong. Finalise ASAP and then appeal anything that isn't acceptable. You never know, they may just back down and get on with it knowing that you are now aware of what they should be doing!

SENDIASS advisers are very variable, and I'm afraid it sounds like the one you're dealing with isn't very clued up.

If you're going through the EHCP process, it isn't the school that arranges and EP assessment, it's the LA. And they should have done it long ago, as part of the process of converting from a statement to the EHCP. They should also have completed the EHCP by 15th February, to make sure that you have time for an appeal to go through if you disagree with any of it. It very much sounds as if you do need to disagree with it if the LA hasn't done any assessments.

Whilst it is obviously desirable for the LA to get an EP assessment, I would be really, really concerned if that means that it's another 6 weeks or more before the EHCP is finalised. Your child is entitled to know what school he is going to, and you won't be able to get an appeal through unless they issue the final EHCP quickly.

OP, I strongly suggest that you contact the LA and ask for a copy of the current version of the EHCP, and contact SOS SEN for their advice on that. Also tell the LA that you're aware that by law they should have completed the EHCP a month ago and that they have a duty to name your first choice mainstream school. The only exception to that is where admitting your child will prejudice the efficient education of other children and there are no reasonable steps anyone can take to overcome that - which sounds highly unlikely if they're thinking of naming a different mainstream school. Tell them you have also become aware that they should have got an EP assessment and you want this to be done, but you don't want it to delay finalising the EHC Plan - therefore you want them to finalise the EHCP now (or maybe by next week) otherwise you will have to go for judicial review. Tell them you also want confirmation that they will arrange an EP assessment ASAP, and that they will instruct the EP to advise in relation to the detailed and specific provision they are supposed to put in section F, and will amend the Plan thereafter to incorporate that advice. If you think any other up to date advice is needed - e.g. speech and language advice - the same applies.

With any luck, once they realise you know your legal rights they will stop messing around and sort things out, but if it doesn't work, do go to SOS SEN.

At the meeting we had with the LA, we were not asked if he should have an EP assessment - as we had never been asked before, we just assumed that it will be taking place.

If only I had known what I know now, things will not be in such a mess.

Apparently, amended draft EHC plan has now been circulated to the named school and we have not seen this amended draft plan

Me? Yes, I did. They issued a final statement with our catchment secondary school named, I appealed and got it changed to an independent special school. However I lodged my appeal in January and it took till July for it to be all sorted out, this is why you need the finalised EHCP ASAP. It is not good enough to get an EP assessment done via school, it is the LA responsibility to have assessments made on transition from statement to EHCP unless you specifically agree that they are not needed. Please call SOSSEN, they will help you.

Did you later get your named school?

Thank you for the information. I am in touch with SENDASS who has advised that we request an Ed Psych assessment through school. We have now emailed the school requesting this.

Does anyone know how long this takes if the school sends a request straight away? Who pays for this assessment please?

I've just seen this article about a parent who did eventually go the ombudsman route and had help from SOSSEN.

www.specialneedsjungle.com/how-does-a-parent-hold-their-council-to-account-for-send-failures/

I agree, do what Megatherium says, contact SOSSEN as soon as possible, they are fobbing you off here. If you don't have the finalised EHCP then you can't appeal, there is often a several month wait for an appeal hearing so time really is of the essence now.

Seriously, you need to send them an email along the lines I suggested above threatening judicial review proceedings if they don't produce the finalised EHCP by Wednesday. If that doesn't work, contact SOS SEN who will do a formal pre-action letter. It will be much, much quicker than faffing about with surveys or complaints.

No one has replied yet Megatherium. I have just sent an email off to SENDAS as apparently the first step is to fill in a survey to show that the statutory process has not been followed.

What do they have to say about the fact that they're now three weeks past the statutory deadline?

Hello All,

Beginning of another week and this has still not been sorted. We have now asked to meet with the LA, hopefully we should hear back as regards a time. Also spoke to SENDASS whom have been helpful. We have to push to have all assessments done to reflect a true picture now. SENDASS will be helping with this.

I missed the fact that they'd missed the 15th February deadline. It's usually much more effective to threaten judicial review proceedings - to go to the ombudsman you need to have gone through the LA complaints procedure first, and it takes forever. If you had to go for judicial review it would be an action in your child's name and presumably he would qualify for legal aid, but in practice the LA would never let it get that far.

At the moment the SEND tribunal isn't sn option due to the lack of a finalised EHCP, so the Ombudsman might be a possibility as procedures are not being followed correctly WRT the Feb 15th deadline. This is a legal obligation as the child already had a statement.

The LGO will look into delays in carrying out and issuing an SEN assessment. They will also get involved if the LA fails to implement the EHCP or carry out an annual review. They won't get involved in the choice of school or a decision not to assess a child and they are unlikely to get involved if there is an ongoing appeal to the SEND tribunal.

I don't think the ombudsman will deal with it given that there is the option of a tribunal appeal.

If they don't pull out their finger and get this sorted asap then just mention you will contact the local government ombudsman and make a complaint. They might just get their act together a bit more then?! (no promises!)

Thank you all. This is certainly the most stressful time I have had and belief me we have been through a lot of hair raising things. I will update as we go on.

Received a response today that they have gone back to consult with our first choice of school and things are being looked into in more detail and that we should bear with them on this and that we will be getting an update. I will be contacting all the organisations today to get more information.

Thank you

I should have said of course that if you do decide you want to mediate then obviously you say yes - I'm not trying to imply that it has to be a knee-jerk "no". However, if you start an appeal that doesn't prevent you from continuing to negotiate with the LA and it sounds like you really need to push them into getting a move on.

I would also suggest that you ask the LA for copies of their correspondence with the schools they had to consult so that you can find out more about why your first choice school hasn't been named.

I agree - we received our draft statement in Jan of year 6 with a school that was not acceptable and very little substance in the other parts so we requested in strong terms for it to be finalised with no further ado, which meant we could get on with the appeal. Otherwise we could have wasted weeks haggling with them over the draft and still ended up appealing.