Sensory diet in secondary school. Teachers, please can you help?

[TowelTopia]

DD12 (Year 8) is waiting for an asd assessment. She has been prescribed a ‘sensory diet’ for school which has to be done in one ten minute and one twenty minute block, every day. She will need someone to help her with this at school.

I asked my teacher friend and she laughed telling me teachers barely have time for a tea break and DD has no chance of getting this support.

Can any teachers help whether I should ask the school to do this or is it too much?

It’s a normal bog standard secondary school.

TIA

I am reading all of the replies, TIA. I am a bit confused now as the responses are mixed on whether an EHCP will be needed.

I don’t think it will get done as much as it should. Her school is not great and don’t understand that she hides her feelings.

What does this look like? Volunteering in SEND law?

Very unrealistic of the OT. Especially in a secondary school. These things look well and good on paper but expecting the school to put them into practice is (I believe) unfair. I say this of a parent whose child has asd also x but depends on the school and resources too you might be lucky x

I thought each child in the school got £6000 each? This is why they did not apply for an EHCP for DD in year 7 because they said they haven’t spent their £6000 yet. So if the assistant costs them £2000, won’t DD have £4000 left? It’s all confusing.

What schools could do with is a lot more funding to support all learners. That’s the reality of our education system these days.

Basically if a school cannot/will not provide the sen support needed then an EHCP becomes necessary.

@Soontobe60 why you think this is an OT overstepping the mark? This is precisely hat they are supposed to do. Identify needs, suggest provision to met the needs. This is how all therapists should work when it comes to sen provision.

Schools have no money. It's not a case of not wanting to give support. It's a case of physically being unable to find anyone with a moment of capacity without extra funding. We could not provide this in my school as every staff member is timetabled incredibly tightly. If anyone is away it falls on a heap. An EHCP would be needed.

This is the 'notional' £6k that schools have to fund for each child on the SEN register before additional funding kicks in. It doesn't actually exist as extra money. School are just meant to...find it. From somewhere.

The school don't want to apply for an EHCP because if they do, they'll be legally bound to make the provision your DD needs but will be forced to spend £6k of their budget on doing so before additional funding is given.

So don't expect that your DD will get this mythical £6k spent on her. The school can't afford it and don't want to be forced to spend it!

Apply for the EHCP yourself. Don't wait for the school to do it. You can do it tomorrow!

@Soontobe60 I don't disagree with you re school funding. The system is a mess. Less EHCPs would be required if better funding was in place. It doesn't help that Sen funding isn't ring fenced either.

No, the school has to found the first 6k from their existing budget.

You talk as if schools are deliberately choosing to not provide for their SEN children.
And whilst I’m sure there’s a few schools where this may be at least partially true it is NOT my experience of teaching overall. Where I work we my colleagues give up their lunch times and break times and ppa time in order to try and give our children what they need.
We are not funded for this. My TA (who earns a pittance by the way) doesn’t get paid more for working through her lunch break. Or the time she spends researching dyslexia or asd strategies when she goes home.

Even if everything is in place with an EHCP and additional funding to supply your child with this additional support the staff need to be there to do it. My school just can't recruit enough TAs. We are starting this September with several teaching departments not fully staffed and a significant number of TA roles not filled as well. It's very worrying.

Oh, and even with funding, good luck trying to find anyone with any training or experience who wants the job.

You don't need to worry about the 6k thing OP

www.ipsea.org.uk/FAQs/our-daughter-has-been-on-sen-support-for-a-while-but-we-are-concerned-that-she-is-only-making-very-small-amounts-of-progress

Ipsea are a fab resource. I would recommend you take a good look around their site. All the information on there is legally correct. Unfortunately you will encounter a lot of incorrect information if you rely on what schools and school staff tell you.

@Smartiepants79 you are right many don't. Many won't apply for HNF or ehcna. Many don't support parents to appeal ehcna refusals. Many do not challenge LAs on funding where they could. If you asked send parents this would predominately be their experience. This is why 96% of families win send appeals.

I agree they should be advising clients, and therefore schools, what that client would benefit from but in saying the school HAS to provide 2 sessions a day for OT when a student doesn’t have an EHCP isn’t appropriate. They are the experts on what they do, schools are the experts on what we do. Years ago, therapists would come into school to carry out therapy sessions but due to NHS funding cuts that no longer happens. Now we are supposed to provide the therapy, but we don’t have the funding either.

Yes absolutely apply for EHCP. Do it now yourself don’t wait for school to do it. Ask then insist school get an Educational psychologist to come observe your child and write a report. There are waiting lists for the things you need for the EHCP. Start nagging. There are lots of support and advice groups on EHCPs on FB, and many people in those groups understand Sensory diets. I recommend you join some.

As others have said you won’t get the level of support your child needs without the EHCP.

“She has been prescribed a ‘sensory diet’ for school which has to be done in one ten minute and one twenty minute block, every day. She will need someone to help her with this at school.”

“She said that she will need a teaching assistant to help her do the activities as it’s a ‘two person job’ to get the sensory feelings DD needs from being squashed and pulled.”

I would argue this training with staff needs to be done immediately. Being squashed and pulled by people who are not trained in why and when to do it is not ok. The child needs a good relationship with the TA.

Sensory diets should not be at prescribed times, prescribed activities or always the same. A child’s needs fluctuate throughout the day it needs to be done when and how the child needs it not when the qualified TA is available. Either the teacher or the TA in your child’s class needs to have knowledge of SPD and responsibility at all times for monitoring your child’s ‘sensory level’ and doing the sensory diet as and when he child is showing signs they need it.

Honestly the OT changed our lives. I used that report to apply for the EHCP, in the process they have to do SALT and Ed Psychologist. I've paid privately for ASD diagnosis as the waiting list is years. We are in a much better place now.

Do you understand that I’m not actually disagreeing with you from a legal point of view or from the point of view of what these children Should be entitled to. I understand and agree this is what they should be receiving.
My point is the reality on the ground. You can shout about legal info and the things that school HAVE to provide but if the funding and the staff are not there what do you suggest as the magic solution?

So on the £6k thing, what it sounds like is they get £6k per SEND student.
Only they dont. They get a certain amount of SEND funding which doesnt actually take into account SEND numbers in the school - although it takes into account things like deprivation.
The expectation then is that the first £6k of every SEND pupil's needs are covered out of the school budget (more complicated that the SEND element isnt ring fenced, but ignoring that for a moment).
So, for example, using a small theoretical school to keep the maths easy, a school might have 50 pupils with SEND. This does not mean they get a budget of 50x6k. They might have SEND funding of, say, 50k - the local authority partly designates it, its complicated. So they only actually have SEND funding of 1k per child with SEND. But they still can't apply for more funding for a pupils needs unless the pupil needs more than 6k worth of funding.
This only works if the majority of those 50 SEND pupils don't actually need much support at all, for example, 46 of them need only minimal funding so the final 4 at 6k each (24k) can be supported out of the 50k.
Except that isn't how real life works and we are seeing rising numbers of pupils with increasingly complex SEND so now perhaps 25 of those 50 need to use maybe 5 or 6k worth. But 25 pupils x 6k is 150k and we only have a budget of 50k but the LA is telling the school they need to find it from their budget, but they also cant apply for more if they havent spent 6k on that child.
The whole system doesn't work and it means schools and SENCOs are juggling and are having to make difficult decisions about which pupil needs the support the most - and it will usually be the ones who are disruptive or unsafe.
That's before we get into the recruitment issues of finding TAs.

The short version is:

1. They cant apply for extra funding for your child unless her needs cost more than 6k a year.
2. They are legally obliged to support her from school budgets up to 6k.
3. That 6k is actually imaginary and doesn't exist which makes (2) impossible
4. Even if the funding did exist, almost no one wants to be a TA, especially a SEND TA on minimum wage so the staff dont exist.

@YarisKaris

Schools and teachers aren't SEND experts. You seem to speak in a very derogatory way about schools. What experience do you have of teaching? You say you work in SEND law? Of course you will have more information and don't have to consider things like teaching large classes and meeting everyone's needs with no money and no time.

Currently, we have spent hours and hours of time and effort trying to get our LA to find special school places for some of our very high needs pupils. During the first week of the school holiday, I attended meetings, made numerous phone calls and still got nowhere. Schools are doing their utmost to get the funding / support for their students and come up against a brick was day after day. It’s offensive to say that schools don’t support pupils and parents.

At DS's outstanding school it took me 5 years just to get him sat at the front of his classes (he has an ASD diagnosis and can't filter out distractions so it makes a huge difference to him). It didn't require any money or any real time but because he was well behaved no one was really interested.

If your dd is disruptive and causes a lot of problems she is more likely to get the help she needs IME, if she's quiet and gets on with it then she'll probably get nothing as she's not a 'problem'.

Well said.

OP, you are probably feeling a bit depressed / confused reading these responses.

I'd suggest meeting the senco, but also going back to the therapist and asking if the same results can be achieved in a different way.

My sons sensory stuff is intergrated into his day (He is at a special school though) but there might be stuff like weighted lap mats that give pressure or things that can be done in 5 mins at a desk - even carrying a heavy bag between classes can help There is often more than one way of doing things.

The OT is right to suggest what your child needs but as that might take time to sort funding for, a temporary next best idea might help..