Ds is 5. He had 15 hrs of funded support at pre school, largely because he hit other children a lot. At 4 we got a diagnosis of aspergers. In reception the school put in place 15 hours of TA support. He had a mature, experienced teacher who set really firm boundaries and he made massive progress, making proper friends and only having melt downs occasionally. The TA was used to keep an eye on ds rather than for one to one close support. This gave him some independence. At the end of reception he got a really good report.
He moved into yr 1 and in October last year I was told he had made such great progress he no longer needed TA hours or even an IEP. I was over the moon.
I've since discovered that the TA hours were removed due to a reduction in budget not ds' progress and his behaviour has been getting steadily worse in school. He is in a class of 26 children of 2 yr groups and the teacher is often left with no TA support at all, despite there being 5 other children with some level of SEN in her class. In the last 3 weeks ds has started hitting children again, has drawn on the furniture, thrown toys, refused to do his work and spent a lot of time in the head's office.
I had a long meeting yesterday with the head and ds' teacher (who is also the SENCO) and am really unhappy with how it went. The head began quite defensively, telling me that only children with a statement received any SEN funding. I replied that this was not true, every school gets an SEN budget to share among children on the register. Statemented children get EXTRA funding. Well, yes,she said, that is true. She said it was evident that as soon as ds arrived at the school that he had 'severe problems'. I then asked why I had been told he no longer needed an IEP, why they had never logged any behavioural incidents and why they hadn't sought the help of an Ed psych. I asked if a fundamental error had been made last year. "no I wouldn't say that' was her reply.
The upshot seems to be they won't (they say can't) give ds back the hours he had. The head said we need to get him a statement in order for support to be funded. I pointed out that even if he got a statement it was unlikely to be for more than the 14 hours necessary to get an extra funding. The senco then said that ds would need to be two levels behind his peers to get a statement anyway. He is 2 levels above in reading and maths and average in writing. They say they can't put any extra support in now because they need evidence of the poor behaviour for the statement application.
So we are trapped. They won't support him without a statement, therefore his behaviour will get worse. He won't get a statement because he is too clever and even if he did it probably wouldn't bring any more money into the school anyway. They have said they will try to get an Ed psych appointment but that could take months. I ended up tearful and despondent. We have agreed to meet in two weeks to discuss his behaviour again but I can't see the point.
Please can anyone give me some advice on where to go from here? For what it's worth his behaviour at home has continued to improve. We see a bright, funny little boy who would be coping with just a little extra help.
thanks