Funding for a child with a statement

wonbview, if you pop over to SN: children, you'll get some interesting stories...

jma3, while that's possibly difficult for school, the internal income transfers within the education system really are not your problem (nor your dc's).

I can see that a school with vast numbers of statement end dc might have a particular difficulty, but the delegated SEN funding is going to cover a few statements (cos it's worked out on the assumption that each school will have a certain proportion of dc with major needs)

Just been onto your website wombview. Am I surprised as to what is happening? No. I do not have any good ideas either as to how to stop what is happening. I think one of the strengths the local authorities may have in doing what they are doing, is fragmentation. We don't know how to measure what is happening to each individual child that has a statement but no funding to deliver the IEP. Is this information available under the freedom of information act? Then my previous point is what evidence do we have that specific funding for a specific statement is spent on that specific child? This certainly needs looking at and if any politician knocks on my front door during this campaign I will ask them about SEN funding. Good luck.

My ds is now 19 but I have often wondered what actually happens to the extra money given to schools for children with special needs. Sometimes you can see where the money is going and other times the only extra help given is a TA who is a mum themselves and with the best will in the world "will do their best" but do not necessarily have specialist expertise and sometimes will not have seen the IEP which is not being implemented anyway. I will visit your blog site wombview. But I have felt the extra money goes into a big black hole which the school does not have to justify/evidence to anyone how they spend it on individual child and I suspect many will just answer it goes on TA. But how many children will that TA be supporting with that funding of one to one support under the excuse "a child will respond better if it is not singled out and the TA is helping others".

I've just written a piece on my blog about this. I'm trying to build some case studies to feed to the media. Although the article is about the local issue, this is obviously a national scandal, so I'll be going to the national press. The more personal stories I have the more compelling it'll be to get published. Hope it hellps anyway. You can access my blog via my website: www.tessfinchlees.com