SEND and Cambridge schools

I don't have first hand experience but Comberton has a rep of better provision and pastoral care than other village colleges. Can't speak for the city's colleges as I don't know anyone rich enough to live inside the boundary for those.

The perse schools are really really academic. I have two friends who go there and they looked really knackered all the way through school. Neither had send, and both were very bright.

You posted earlier in the thread about pursuing EOTAS. You will probably have to appeal to get a good, comprehensive package, but EOTAS can provide far more than the vast majority of parents can afford to fund via EHE, so personally I wouldn’t be put off.

If you are looking at private:

Both perses discourage SEN children. They are highly academic.

St Mary's may be a good option.

We went for King's Ely and our DC went by train. They have extremely good Sen support. One of our dc has adhd.

If you click view or create your own tables you can search by different LAs and various different statistics.

I know quite a number of children who have gone to St Mary's and none who have then left again. Also one teacher. That seems like a good sign. :-) I don't know any more because I don't have a dd.

I feel quite nervous about the prospect of having an EHC Plan now. I no longer really know whether it would be less faff just to EHE.

I've seen children not accepted at several independent schools named here because of SEND.

I can't see stats specifically for Cambs there - am I missing a link to click?

They are turning them around in 20 weeks in my experience.

That isn’t the case for many, unfortunately. You can search for the statistics here. For many, unless parents enforce the timelines, Cambridgeshire do breach.

St Mary’s has only been nominally Catholic for decades. I’m 60 and my friend a year older was there in the 1970s and she wasn’t Catholic

Could you consider St Mary's? I know that it is officially catholic, but a great many of the girls who go there are not religious. It's private so you'd have to pay, but they do at times have some quite small classes for the lower sets (e.g., in maths). They are less competitive to get into than some of the other independents, although there is still an entrance exam, but it is not just for the academic high flyers.

An awful lot of children at independent schools still have after/before school tutors, as do those as some of the state schools like parkside and others. So it might be that you need to explore some private tuition to supplement whatever she can get at school, and just find a school environment where she can cope and enjoy the school life, even if you don't get the very small classes or academic support that you need.

Impington and Comberton village colleges are both very large, but have SEN resource centres where pupils go for support of various kinds. Swavesy also has a good reputation, and Sawston seems to be quite a popular choice these days as well. St Bede's I think also has a small number of places that are given on distance, so if you lived very very close, you might have a chance there even without an EHCP, although if you've already missed the year 7 entry then that would be a moot point anyway and you'd have to wait for in-year places or EHCP. Living very nearby would still help for waiting list places though.

I worked for a SEND department and we would sometimes have children with SEND moving into the area from overseas. We did accept professional reports (equivalent type ehcp's) from other countries to use as evidence of need. The issue you'll have I think is showing that your dd meets criteria for an EHCP. A diagnosis of ADHD is common so that in itself isn't enough.
Contact the SEND dept in Cambridge and have a chat.

Also there are other settings for students with autism. Several schools have autism hubs. PM me if you want more info.

This isn't the same in Cambridgeshire. They are turning them around in 20 weeks in my experience.

I gather that you really have to be solidly religious to get into St Bede's but I understand that a child with an EHCP could get a place there if it was named on the EHCP.

Fair analysis, it’s a joint C of E and Catholic foundation and quite over subscribed. The usual sibling priorities and then based on if you are a member of a local congregation and the vicar/priest signs to say you regularly attend. The big local catholic city centre church has a Catholic primary behind it and their pupils form a large proportion of the cohort.

In the 2017 cohort our DC was in there were kids from as far away as Norfolk. A friend’s son who lived just streets from the school didn’t get in because their attendance at the city Catholic Church was erratic.

SOSSEN’s PAP Project includes breaches of the EHCNA statutory deadlines, so lack of money doesn’t preclude sending a pre-action letter in response to LAs failing to comply with the deadlines.

You did @GoldQuoter but then you spoke about mounting a legal challenge to have your current one essentially 'imported' and if that were possible you wouldn't need an assessment for an English EHCP (although I don't think that's possible anyway).

No one meets statutory deadlines around send over here it seems, but if money isn't an issue you can get a solicitors letter (pre action letter for judicial review) to ensure they stick to statutory deadlines.

The tricky issue would be if you end up at Tribunal if they refuse to assess/issue or over the contents of the plan or placement. That will take a while and you can't do anything to speed it up. I'd say you'd be looking a year minimum to get a decent quality EHCP in place as even if they agree to assess and issue, most plans are shit and require tribunal to get them specific and quantified (so they are actually legally enforceable). Not to mention they will frequently name an unsuitable setting because they know how long it takes to get to tribunal and save themselves a years funding.

There's an independent send setting called Gretton you might want to look at if you're specifically looking for a send setting.

@SpringingAlong we got the solicitor involved straight after annual review. The LA were dragging their feet with regards to issuing a draft - this meant our solicitor had plenty of time to work on our case. It also meant we had time to visit schools and do trial days. The LAs incompetence worked in our favour!

If I came from abroad and read how an EHCP worked in England I would probably think ‘sounds great’.

In reality it’s so hard to get an EHCP, most are valueless as they don’t specify provision, even if you have a good one their aren’t always places available at a school that could meet need, schools don’t always follow plans. Anyone I know with a genuinely strong EHCP has usually spent ££££s to get there.

Perhaps things are better in Cambridge

Cambridgeshire isn’t any better. They are one of the Safety Valve LAs.

But it is still possible to get a good EHCP even if you have to appeal and then enforce it. Sadly, this means DC whose parents know the system and can advocate for their DC get better support. It shouldn’t be that way but is only going to get worse.

Unless you can afford both legal advice and independent assessments, you would be better off saving money for independent assessments in case you have to appeal (potentially more than once).

Thanks @SuperSue77. Things are so weird at the moment. I'm really grateful to know that I'm not the only one who sees it.

The good news is that it does seem to be genuinly possible to home ed kids in England. All the exam stuff is online and the CGP books are great.

I really think the OP could do well if she could hire a governess to look after her DD and take her to events. I'm basically home edding at the moment, and it is okay.

@Skipgingalong I talked to two firms of lawyers. One was totally unhelpful. The other were extremely kind but ultimately they were so overwhlemed with work that they couldn't finish redrafting my EHCP form. In the end I had to submit my own draft of the form two weeks after the EHCP deadline, and I never heard back from the lawyer.

The advice to contact lawyers is everywhere online, but realistically, at the moment, it doesn't seem to be possible to find one who has time to draw breath, let alone do any work.

@SpringingAlong is talking reality. I am
in the southeast and EHCPs are taking years to achieve and even then getting one that prescribes what is actually needed and getting the school to deliver on that is another challenge in itself.

If you have the funds then you could engage a SEN solicitor.

Polly Kerr at Tees is brilliant and knows Cambs well.

I asked at Sancton Wood and they were full. Also it's worth reading the mumsnet local threads about them as I understand they are quite overwhelmed there and things are a bit chaotic.

re: doom and gloom, I think the difference between the north and Cambridge is house prices. Cambridge has london house prices but not London weighting on teacher's salaries which makes living here extremely challenging for teachers.

I gather that you really have to be solidly religious to get into St Bede's but I understand that a child with an EHCP could get a place there if it was named on the EHCP.

The other thing to be careful of in this country is that children are "entitled" to certain things, but the government doesn't provide adquate funding for the schools to provide those things. So teachers have to say that x, y, and z will be provided and could get in trouble for saying otherwise. But in reality the staffing is just not there. So if you are looking for a very specific situation for a child, it might be hard to get straight answers about what is actually feasible.

There are lots of articles in the press at the moment about a massive uptick in the number of EHCP applications and how the councils are actually declaring bankruptcy because of it, so it is a serious problem.

Sorry, I think I'm providing a lot of the doom and gloom on the thread, but I'm right in the middle of it at the moment and finding literally no good options and only very few people who will actually level with me and say what is actually feasible.

I think realistically the way forward for the OP is to be willing to pay £££, and talk to alternative providers or some of the new providers who are setting up to plug the gaps in provision.

For private you could look at St Christophers in Letchworth and live in a village near Royston so you are near the school and Cambridge esp the new areas near the M11. Plenty of horse riding the in villages such as Ashwell.