How do I find out why I went to SEN school.

[Youagain2025]

When i was a child 8 or maybe nine. I'm quite sure it was year 3? I jointed a school for children with moderate learning difficulties. I was not told why and I never questioned it. I feel like there's a big chunk that i don't know about myself. I'm not sure if things were done differently on the mid 80s like what would have been done to decide i needed to ho to a special needs school. I guess there were not ehcps back then ? I have read GP would have had records. Why would a GP have records about my schooling ? I read that i can ask for a SARS? But it said something about knowing the dates and what it is im looking for . I'm not even 100% on the dates. And I'm not sure how to word what I'm looking for.

I very much did read the thread but in the educational authority my family lived in children with severe SpLDs were definitely kept in mainstream schools and not given the support they needed in the 80s. My brother has severe dyslexia. My Mum was a newly trained teacher and did get a Ed Psych diagnosis for him but nobody gave it any credence and he would have left school illiterate, at 11 he could not read or spell, and could barely write, if she had not got a special tutor. At senior school he had a friendship group who we now realise had SpLDs and the next generation of their families like ours have been diagnosed. They are all bright, were extremely disruptive at school, left at 16 with no qualifications but have all succeeded in the real world.

Even with my own children I have encountered teachers who still don’t believe in a diagnosis, or don’t understand. One told me my DD was “cured”. This was the 2010s, let alone 1980s. It does seem from other posters that SEN support was extremely variable but certainly where we lived the only people I knew who went to special schools were severely mentally or physically handicapped or suffered prolonged mental or physical illness . As My mothers best friend’s son was brain damaged at birth I did actually visit the special school that served our area and the children there were either similarly badly affected or had extreme behaviour problems.

You do not seem to have much understanding of the way in which those of us with SpLDs were treated at school in the 20c. It isn’t perfect now but then it really was not recognised and it is a very common story to have left school having not achieved your potential thinking you were lazy /stupid /weird.

I filled in the GP form today. It was litterly just me details.

There was a bit I didn't understand. It (seemed) to be asking me what I wanted to see. I just wrote everything from birth in each section. I guess if I have done it wrong they will contact me.

Not heard anything more from the school. In reality its only been a couple of days and it could take weeks. Also my understanding is the school records probably don't exist anymore . But in my head im still waiting.

Also the local authority should have a file of your education , you could ask to speak to their records department, ask directly what their policy for data request /SARs is if you know the address you lived at ,your parent/s full names and your personal details dob and what schools you attended this should help them to locate the records you are seeking , my experience is currently that it doesn’t matter who you make these requests to they try to dodge them ,possibly because of the effort involved , today everything is on their data bases so there shouldn’t be a problem ,they may come back and say you are a complex case so need more time , respond by email only and keep all messages from and to as you may need to provide this for the information commissioner if you need to force their hand ! Don’t give up though as they will try to make you run round in circles , prepare yourself for a bit of a battle their was a lot of smoke and mirrors back in the day and there are more avenues today to uncover what truly went on , today’s transparency laws keep coming at them and it gets harder for them to hide behind their old boys school networks !

Thank you . So if my secondary schools was in Norwich. I should email the department of education in Norwich?

After this amount of time there is a strong possibility it has been archived at the county records office. This is the website for the Norfolk record office. There should be a general enquiry email address you can contact to ask.

www.archives.norfolk.gov.uk/

Thank you so much, that's helped alot . I was getting confused. I will try and contact them later.

I got a reply from the school i have copied it below.

Good Afternoon

Thank you for replying.

I was able to find your entry in our Admissions Register, helped by your date of birth and address. We have to keep pupil records for date of birth plus 25 years after which all files are destroyed in a secure manner. With regard to your records this would have been on or about 2002.

Parkside pupils used to have a Statement of Special Educational Needs and they generally had moderate learning needs to be on the school roll. Today all pupils have complex needs and have to have an Education, Health and Care Plan.

Norfolk County Council may be able to help with some dates about school enrolment and, possibly, at Statement of Special Educational Needs.

I hope this helps. If you have any other questions please do get in touch.

I guess i just wait to see what the gp records say for now.

What is statement of education needs? Is she saying i may be able to get a copy of the information that was written about me in order for me to go there ?

A statement is the old term for an EHCP (Education and Health Care Plan). So there would have been some sort of assessment of your needs, presumably learning or processing difficulties given the school’s response. This would have earmarked the school you attended and support required. It is possible details would be retained by the LA. Do you have any paperwork from your school days, reports perhaps?

No i don't have a single thing from school days. But its worth asking Norfolk if they have a copy of my statement?

You can go through the same DSAR process with them and see what, if anything, shows up. However it might be worth asking someone else you trust to go through whatever is produced first rather than you try to read and understand it by yourself.

I'm confused is the DSAR same as a SAR? Basically me asking in writing fir a copy of my statement?

When you say ask someone I trust to go through it with me. Do you mean if i get a report back?

DSAR is data subject access request , previously a SAR when records were mainly paper based but now updated to include electronic. A Statement might be just one document of many they may hold referring to your education. Yes I would advise not trying to make sense of it alone and have someone supportive look over whatever you are sent.

In case you have not found it yet, the email to request your data is [email protected] . Give them your full name, dob and describe the information you are looking for ie. Records relating to your education between x date and y date including for the relevant schools attended, assessment reports and Statement of Special Needs. Hopefully they may still have something useful.

Thank you. Do you think I should put both schools down . Woodside was the 1st sen school Parkside was the 2nd sen school. I'm thinking maybe I only need to do the 2nd school as the paper work would have been passed to them when I joined?

I'm also wondering if I should maybe ask for a year earlier incase I'm a little wrong with dates and also I'm guessing they would have bedn doing assessments at the mainstream school before I left there ?

Give them the longer timeframe. Was the first school under same LA as second?

No 1st one was in bexley. 2nd in Norwich.

I might leave it for a bit and see what my medical records say. The council type ones are confusing me. I just see things about bins , education.

You can email your request to the address I gave you. It is directed straight to their information officer, nothing to do with other services. Put Data Subject Access Request in the address bar. If you have no joy with Norfolk you could do same for Bexley in case they retain records longer,

Out of interest OP, what triggered you wanting to search for this now? And not last year or 5/10yrs ago etc?

Thank you i can see what i need to do now. I will do it tomorrow.

I have been wanting to do it for a long time. But I kept getting mixed up on how to do it. Life gets in the way as well. Then I would forget it for a while.

Sorry, mean Subject Line not address bar

If you can’t work, OP, and with the things you have said in this post, it sounds as if there is something going on.

If you don’t work, how do you live? Where do you get money?

And yes, there is help available for adults with LDS or autism. Your gp will be able to help.

With the quote you added i can't even remember what I was trying to say. Its written so badly. There,was a point to it but I can't remember what I was trying to say.

I think i was trying to say how I felt in a work situation. I'm just thinking them feelings are not normal.

But if you have ASD or something that comes under the neurodiverse umbrella then no you're not ill as in sick ill.

You have a brain condition. A brain disability. I think you should start the process of getting it looked into.

There are lots of self assessments where you can at least see if you're presenting any symptoms and now there are lots of 'right to choose' options available.
I used ADHD360 but there are other practices to choose from.

I would email the GP surgery to ask about your records. I've got my full medical records. There's things on there I don't remember 😵‍💫

No harm in emailing the schools to see how far their archives go back.

Good luck mate