Advice needed to support my friend (child’s EHCP)

[Besidemyselfwithworry]

I’m interested in hearing from parents of kids with Sen who’ve experienced this:-

my daughter is in year 6 and one of the girls in her class has autism and adhd, I’m friends with the mum via a hobby - my daughter and her daughter are not particularly close but get on but me and the mum know each other well and she’s a very nice person.

So she names a secondary school in the EHCP and they have come back saying that they CANNOT meet the child’s needs - she’s gone back to the caseworker and asked why not but she has quite complex issues. She’s waiting for a response as to the grounds of why not from the caseworker.

I’ve seen her tonight at the hobby club and she’s very upset and she’s said they set their heart on this school (it’s a local comp) and she knows I’m also interested in sending my daughter there (my eldest is already there) and she has asked me if any of my sons older friends have SEN and did they get in blah blah blah and are they similar and I think she was trying to get specific examples…..

It was awkward she was very tearful and upset so I said to her, wait until the caseworker gets back to you as it might be something that can be resolved but if not there is plenty of time to consider other options. I think this may have been the wrong thing to say as she became hysterical and said “it’s ok for you, you don’t have to deal with all this” and I fully appreciate how upsetting this must be and I said I did really feel for her and I hope she hears something back soon.

But I’m sat there thinking, if this was my child, surely if a school says “they can’t meet the needs” of the child, battling with them to try to make them change their minds isn’t ideal? Plus what happens if they go “oh ok we maybe can accommodate them” but then it doesn’t work out and the parents have gone against the intitial decision? I mean would this actually happen??

im looking for some words of wisdom-
I’m going to pop to see her tomorrow afternoon and take her some flowers but could do with some advice fellow mumsnetters!

If she has complex issues, your friend is probably worrying that all local comps will come back with the same answer and then what is she going to do as I'm assuming specialist provision isn't an option and if it isn't an option, one of these comps will have to relent and say yes or her daughter will have nowhere to go next September.

She is just incredibly stressed so I'd try not to take it personally or make a big deal out of it. I'd just tell her that you are there for her and you hope it will work out.

Some times it can be about the hours of support. Say the child only has 12 hours of 1:1 but the provision doesn’t match the funding and school are asking for more funding.

The mum may be underestimating how hard her DC may find mainstream.

Maybe chat through why she wants mainstream not special without offering too much advice.

This can be the problem with EHCPs - when children are in primary school their parents and the school fight tooth & nail to get support and go into great details about needs because EHCPs are hard to get.

This then becomes a problem when trying to move on because, as your friend has discovered, secondaries will then turn them away saying they can't meet the many needs detailed in the EHCP.

I work in the education field and, unfortunately, this is a common issue.
Parents and primary school Sencos then need to fight the other way and try to "dial down" the needs they had to ramp up to get the EHCP.
The truth of the child's actual needs is often somewhere in between.

It’s both common and reasonable for parents to fight for a school that initially say they can’t meet need: often they can, they just don’t want to!

If you let all the schools say they can’t meet need without challenging it then you end up with no school place or with a school that is set up to take the most high needs kids - and that environment may be unsuitable for your child (eg may not offer a full academic curriculum, may have kids there with very difficult behaviours that frighten your kids etc).

Also a school that is not perfect but is local, will have local friends there, has a short commute etc may overall be better than a school that’s on paper perfect where your kid won’t know anybody and has an hour travel each way.

It’s not fair for her to say “it’s ok for you” and so on, I’m sure you have your own challenges. But she must be very stressed and just needing support right now, so I think you’re doing a kind thing to go round later.

Thanks everyone
I’ll go round later - I think you’re right she is very stressed. I’ll be there for her but keep all comments upbeat and neutral. 😐

I can't stand upbeat and neutral. Just be real. It sucks.

its not unusual that a mainstream school will come back with a ‘can’t meet needs’. In today’s economy sometimes it’s simply a power play for more money/ resources and the children are pawns.
she won’t really know the reasons until she speaks to a caseworker, but often the school just ticks a box and doesn’t go into detail.

has the child had a recent annual review. If there were amendments to be made has the new school had an updated version?
id ask the caseworker to go back to the school and get specific detail about their concerns and what is needed to meet the child’s needs.

unless the LA are saying the child needs a specialist provision then the general assumption is that any mainstream can meet need. The LA can go ahead and name the parental preference school.

id encourage your friend to not take it personally. As I said often it’s just a batting off exercise, especially if the school is popular with SEN and they’ve had lots of EHCP consultations.

A school can say they can’t meet needs (often down to funding) but ultimately unless they have responded in a way that proves their setting is either a) not suitable for her age, aptitude or SEN or b) her being there would be an inefficient use of resources they will be named anyway if that’s her parental preference. If at her last annual review there was no mention of a specialist setting the LA will likely name her preferred mainstream despite their “no”. She needs to speak to her caseworker and think carefully about what she wants - whilst the school has said no they will still work with her and support her when she gets there.

Doee she think the ehcp accurately describes her daughters needs now/wjay she will need at secondary school or is it out of date? If it does then her daughtee cabt attend that school and she needs ro look elsewhere. There might be a mainstream school with an intergated resource for autism or a school for autistic kids nearby which she could look at. She could ask the current achool senco for suggestions. If it doesnt she need to requeat an urgent emergency ehcp review with the school.

Mainstream schools should be able to meet the needs of the majority of pupils, even the ones with send. So she needs to get the school to explain what they feel that they cannot meet on. It could be due to learning difficulties which they may be correct about. If it’s anything else then they do need to meet need even if it means employing an extra member of staff. Your friend needs to stick to her guns if this is the school she wants- it’s very frowned upon for a mainstream setting to declare that they can’t meet need- county will not be impressed with the school. Most of the time parents are fighting in the opposite direction- they want a specialist setting and county are saying the local mainstream school can meet need and that they are not naming a specialist setting. So this is unusual and it makes me think the school are wrong. She has a strong case anyway for getting the school she wants regardless of what they are saying.

You sound d like a well meaning person who has never faced this struggle. So you think yhe school saying they cant meet hwr needs just means the achool cant meet her needs.

What your friend knows is that it is a lot more complicated than that. The school mught not want to - they have as many children with SEN as they are (unofficially) willing to accept. There may be funding issues that would need fighting for. They may not have bothered to actually think about it. You assumr wveryone is acting in good faith, with genuine interest in helping the child but thats just not true in real life.

And as others have said, the EHCP is a do
difficukt document, often filled with compromises or things that cant happen or whatever.

This is an interesting insight. I’ve recently been through the EHCP process with my 6 yo and the school manufactured issues that don’t exist to ensure he definitely received the funding. He does need 1:1 provision so does need to be funded but they lied about certain things to make him sound more severe than he is. The ed psych who evaluated him (for 10 mins via teams) also added random things about him potentially being hypermobile because he had a pulled elbow when he was in reception. He isn’t hypermobile. This concerns me now for secondary though it’s obviously some time away and hopefully the EHCP can be dialled down by then. We’re considering a private secondary anyway.

The LA must name your firend’s preferred school unless the LA can prove:
-The setting is unsuitable for the age, ability, aptitude or special educational needs
-Attendance would be incompatible with the provision of efficient education for others
-Attendance of the child or young person would be incompatible with the efficient use of resources.

The bar to prove one of the above is high. Far higher than LAs and many schools admit. It isn’t unusual for schools to object when consulted when the high threshold isn’t met. It also isn’t unusual for their objections to be based on something other than the law. This is why friend won’t just accept the school saying they can’t meet needs. She, rightly, needs to know the specifics of why they have said what they have said and to dig into the reasons to see whether they meet the threshold and how she can pick apart their reasoning. This is because LA can, and must, name the school regardless of the school’s objections unless the LA can prove one of the reasons above.

(The rules are slightly different for wholly independent schools, but that doesn’t apply here.)