Are Primary schools BU with their inability to take in children with disabilities

[shattereddreams]

I was going to post in primary schools but it's full of newbies with appeal questions and this is slightly off topic....

I have over the last few months heard more and more of children with disabilities not being admitted to their local primaries because the schools didn't want them...

I am confused as I thought children with needs got absolute priority over their choice of primary. It seems I was mistaken and actually they are the bottom of the pile.

I've now come across in my small town YR this year (all different schools I may add)
Down's being refused admittance even though the medical people since birth said the child was suitable for mainstream primary education
Autism being refused admittance even with a sibling at the school
Cerebral Palsy because wheelchair was not suitable even though it was used within the school nursery
Diabetes high dependency on insulin being refused admittance even with a sibling at school and again the nursery staff being able to cope with the medical needs.

What gives the primary schools the right to refuse admittance to the examples with siblings?
Surely this is totally unreasonable!

I reckon that'll be it Mrs DV. It's logical at any rate.

I think that phrase is vile and should be removed.
A child could not be deterimental to the education of other children.
A lack of resources could.

But the child gets the blame.

One of the many reasons I transfered my DS to a special needs school. I 'gave in'.
He could be edcuated in mainstream, he should be educated in mainstream.

I just was not willing to let his education suffer in the hope that a group of people would start doing their jobs properly.

Some schools simply can't take on certain disabilities due to the stuture of the building

How would you expect a school on two floors and spread across two sperate sights to take on a child in a wheel chair say and as a parent why on earth would you want your child to go to a school that makes their life harder

Many schools espically in London are Victorian they don't have lifts and many schools the school playing filed is a good 15 minute walk away from the school

I know their is one school in London were they have a roof garden a child with physical disabiltys would not be able to acesss this

McHappyPants2012 if you son had a statement you would no its neigh impossible to get funding until a statement is produced

There is funding without statements.
There is a pot of money in each school for children with SN.
This money is diverted if a child gets a statement that does not bring extra funding.

There should be no need for statementing.

Mrbojangles - isn't that school with a roof garden one that was built quite recently, under the PFI Schools for the Future programme? If so, it damn well should be accessible. I'd be very surprised if you are right to use it as reason for denying disabled children access. And let's not forget that disability does not equal wheelchair use.

MrsDV, our LEA has told my son's school there is no funding for even statemented children - or, at least, that there is one pot of money that every school has to bid for, and our school won't see a penny of it. WTF is that about - why the hell should a child not have the support they are entitled to because they happen to be at my son's school? Are they saying disabled children can't go to good, popular schools?

The 'no money for kids at your school' thing is because we are 'well funded' apparently . What this really means is we have a stable staff team with lots of people who have climbed through the pay levels over the years. I don't know what they expect us to do, sack people - illegally - so that we can provide funding for children with statements?

There are some real misconceptions on this thread. The SEN Code pf Practice is very clear as to the procedure of placing a child with a statement:

-The provisional statement is issued.
-The provisional statement must not state a school at this stage.
-The parents name a school that they have a preference for.
-The LA send the statementing document to the preferred school.
-The Head Teacher reviews those documents and informs the LA whether they feel that they can meet the child's Special Educational Needs by making the provisions set out in the Statement of SEN.
-The school may say they can't meet the needs of the child. That can include practical reasons - for example, a classroom is designed to hold 30 children and 2 teaching staff, say. If the school is small and has a mixed YR R/1 class which already has 3 children with 1:1 (it happens; schools get a reputation for being SN friendly), then having a 4th child with the need for 1:1 means that you have 30 children and 6 adults in the classroom. That doesn't sound too bad, but it's 4 extra chairs, 4 extra voices during lessons, all talkng about different things, etc.
-If the school says they can't meet the needs of the child, the LA decides if they agree. If they do, they inform the parents. If they don't, they 'direct' the school to admit the child.

Schools don't always get specific funding to go with a child's statement. That is irrelevant. All schools get funding for meeting the needs of children with SEN, and at any rate, the LA retains responsiblity for children with Statements, and it is they who have the duty to meet the needds expressed on a Statement.

Bear in mind, though, that around 20% of children are on the SEN register at any one time, and only 2% of children have Statements. It doesn't necessarily translate that the children who need a Statement most are the ones who have them. Especially on entry to school, because funding is easy to access for nursery/preschool phase (all we needed for 1:1 was a letter from the area co-ordinator saying that DD1 needed full 1:1) and preschools/nurserys are notoriously under-trained regarding SEN. Unless a disability is entirely physically, or the child is disruptive, it's unlikely they'll get a Statement initiated by the preschool.

Unless parents are clued up, they won't know that they can apply themselves. Parents are fobbed off for years. 'too much progress' 'not severe enough' 'not 1st centile for x, y, z' 'coping well', etc.

I sincerely doubt things are as you say, OP.

We certainly don't have this problem at our school. We have children with all sorts of learning and physical disabilities and they are fully integrated into the school. Ps it's not very inclusive to refer to a child as downs, autism and cerebral palsy, it's putting the condition before the child, or in this case only the condition not even mentioning the child. Far better to refer to a child with ...

I guess it is down to the lea? Nothing is perfect but where I am, all 3 schools that dds friend has attended has had lifts installed or stair lifts ( lower school was built on a hill so lots of different levels. ) Maybe its down to good/bad practice altho head was a very positive woman expert in finding funding.

I wouldnt be so sure about the 'fully integrated' myself.
Integration seems to mean different things to different people.

To me it means being taught in a classroom with your peers and having the resources you need to fully support this.

Not being on the computer, colouring in, going off into special little groups, missing swimming because there are not enough staff, missing school trips unless your mum can come....

I agree that there is a huge (and growing) problem with Heads making it perfectly clear to prospective parents that their child with SEN would not be welcome at the school, which can be very effective without even going near the formality of an admissions form.

This is one of my main fears about the impact of Academies, who seem to be getting this down to a real art

The parents I work with are being put off at nursery level.
Fed all sorts of misinformation about schools not being able to take children without statements.

The inclusion officer at my DS's MS used to tell parents that children couldnt get statements until they were 9

He was also adament that the school could not give extra support to children unless they had a statment.

He is still there, still working his way up the SEN ladder in the borough.

Mrs D - perhaps the only (!) positive with him then is that the way things are going with LAs he'll probably be out of a job soon anyway........

although of course I'm not pleased about that really, as all the good people are going too.

It depends a lot on the individual child's SEN too. DS was rejected by all the local primaries due to his asd, which meant he had severe behavioural issues, though with normal intelligence. Some of theose primaries were happy to take children with very severe needs, including CP, sensory impairments, mobility and medical issues etc. But behavioural issues will often trigger parental complaints which many HTs want to avoid.

Our application process was as Lougle described - DS had a statement so we were able to name the school of our choice, but when the HT reviewed the statement, they said the behaviour would have a negative impact on the children already in the school. None of the local special schools could offer a place either, because they couldn't meet his educational needs as the other children were working at much lower levels than DS.

In our case the reluctance of schools to accept DS actually worked out well for us, because in the end, the only school able to offer a place was a private special school. It's something we could never afford to fund ourselves, the support he receives there is outstanding and provides a much better staff:pupil ratio than we'd ever get in m/s, with fully trained and experienced staff, and a balance of life skills/academics which is impossible to get in a m/s or most state special schools. I think many children with asd would really benefit from a school like that, as I know many of them who aren't really fitting into m/s and suffer terribly as a result, but their behaviour isn't severe enough to trigger the threshold for such high levels of funding.