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

Id be interested to know what your understanding of a sensory diet is. Here’s a leaflet I hand out to staff and parents which talks about sensory diets amongst other things - it’s really useful to read and recommends some good books. It’s been developed by NHS OTs.
https://bridgewater.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Sensory-Information-Pack.pdf

@Soontobe60 I will look at the leaflet thank you . Is a sensory diet the same as a sensory motor plan? DD needs both. I won’t know what this will mean for sure until the occupational health therapist writes her statement .

Not comparable. The point is that OP's child needs this provision now in order to be able to access education. It therefore has to happen now, she can't postpone her education for four years.

The difficulty is staffing and space in a mainstream school. Without an EHCP it's unlikely that schools can facilitate this and in my opinion I think the OT is giving false hope by saying that a mainstream secondary will be able to have a trained member of staff available multiple times a day to do this. They also might have overlooked the impact of being out of lessons regularly and how school are going to manage this as if your DD needs these sensory circuits to access education, she's also missing education when she goes back into lessons. There needs to be a plan in place on how this is managed.

It's definitely worth applying for an EHCP and being the squeaky wheel if needed because there's lots of pushback when parents try to get their children what the need. EHCPs are needs driven and need to be very specific to be implemented properly. Some LAs write very vague statements like "have access to sensory opportunities throughout the day" which can be meaningless Vs "DD needs to have two sessions of... Led by appropriately trained members of staff..."

Needing a knee replacement but having to wait isn’t comparable. The OP should request an EHCNA. Then the EHCP process is governed by statutory timescales that can be enforced if necessary. And, parents can appeal to SENDIST if the LA refuses to assess/issue or parents dispute the content/placement - including if the wording is vague and woolly.

In my area EHCPs are taking way longer to process than the statutory timescales state they should

I think you need to push for an EHCP if a TA and a teacher are required. Schools are very underfunded and this doesn't sound at all realistic in my experience I'm afraid.

Saying it needs to happen now means nothing.
If they don’t have the staff, funding to do it then they can’t put it in place. She needs specialist provision.

In that case, parents should look at enforcing the timescales.

Sadly, DC’s whose parents know the system, can advocate for their DC and enforce their rights get better support. It shouldn’t be like that. Sadly, it isn’t going to change anytime soon.

You don't need specialist provision for a sensory diet. In some areas schools can apply for high needs funding; if that isn't possible, they should push for an EHCP as a matter of urgency.

Parents should enforce timescales by threatening judicial review.
https://sossen.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Judicial-Review-SOSSEN-.pdf

Did you get the OT report and a reply from senco during the holidays? I hope your daughter gets help this term