AIBU to consider this as a last chance for my child? re - crowd funding and specialist schooling

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I have been around the mumsnet world since 2010!

I have name changed for this as this could be very outing but at this point we need all the advice we can get!

My eldest son is almost 11 and in the last year of primary, he is diagnosed with severe dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, dyspraxia, low working memory and under assessment for high functioning ASD.

He has struggled so much all his academic life and is currently 4 years behind in English and 3 years behind in maths.

we have been fighting for 5 years for help for him and he has been failed at every turn and finally this year in year 6 at school he was awarded an EHCP plan and this is going in to the school now, but it feels like to little to late he has lost his primary school education time.

last year we got in touch with a specialist dyslexia school and they offered to asses our son and then invited him down for a trial week last October.

The trial was amazing my son came out of the school that first day and said "mummy they are all like me" "they get it" i just sobbed! and even now the memory of that moment makes me cry and it is the main reason why i cannot get this school out of my mind.

This school work on a completely different basis that normal schools they use a different approach and it worked so well for my son and after 7 years of using the normal phonics approach to learning i think a new approach is best as the old one had not worked for him!

Now this specialist school is private they take EHCP plans and use them to pay the fees, now my sons EHCP while funded to £7000 at year no where meets the schools £5000 a term fees (rising to £6000 as they get older).

So we are stuck i am retired on ill health grounds from the NHS and get a small pension, my husband is my carer so we have no available funds to meet those sort of costs. our families do not have this kind of money though i am sure they would help all they could just no one has 1000s laying about!

my son had got in to a good secondary school on the basis of his EHCP but he will have to be separated from all hi peers separate lessons and support as he will be a key stage 1 child working at a year 2 level in a key stage 3 environment

Yet my heart and mind cannot let go that i need to give my son this chance to change is life i need to know i have done everything i possibly can to help him succeed.

so last night while lying awake and stressing again i thought about people who crowd fund or do just giving or go fund me, i googled and saw crowd funding for specialist equipment, charities, cars, homes and even holidays!!

and i though why not why not us to?

so would i be mental to attempt this??

the total cost of his secondary education would be around £84000 taking off the years of his EHCP funding this would reduce this amount to around £45000.

so a £45000 target

when i think that is just 45000 people giving £1 or 90000 giving 50p i would get on my knees and beg everyone of these 90000 to help change my child's life.

so the main question is, is this too grabby? would you do this, should we put ourselves out there for this? and probably some abuse that would come with it??

we don't know what to do?

but we see our son struggle every day and i want to be able to look him in the face when he is older and say i tried everything

I'm not sure posters are answering the OPs question....
Since you asked, yes, I would try crowdfunding if I were you, it's really worth a go. There are several online you could try....do a good explanation and write up and post a nice picture, people are more attracted to genuine causes which are explained well. It's the sort of thing I would contribute to and many others would too. It isn't grabby, you are doing it for your child and you will try anything to get him what he needs.
I had two children who needed various specialist help and for whom I had to apply (in my day) to charities and all sorts, I stopped at nothing and got there, even though it seemed impossible. Crowdfunding didn't exist in my day but I would have done it if it had.
You won't know what your options are if you don't try....

There is no harm in trying (IMO), people can be remarkably generous- Your child is more important than what a few people think about you

It might be worth a try, but that's a hell of a lot of money to be raising from strangers and I'd be amazed if you get it. Around here the local paper is full of parents trying to get this, that or the other funded for their SEN or disabled DC - scooters, companion dogs, artificial limbs - it really is amazing the range of things people are trying to get total strangers to pay for. Everyone is in need these days, funding has been cut, but people seem to struggle to even raise £5k, let alone £45k.

Even if you meet the costs for a year there is no guarantee that you would for any longer and then your DS might need to leave the school I think it's an impossibly high amount to raise in this way but give it a go by all means. If I knew the person I would probably contribute but it wouldn't be a lot just a token amount. Would a specialist tutor for a couple of hours a week not help if the special school fees are impossible to meet. And that would only be a fraction of the cost.

Worth trying.
Do you own your own home? If you moved could you buy somewhere much much smaller?
Would you be better off financially if you separated from your husband and moved areas? Honestly, in your situation I would do what ever it takes.

I would get legal advice if it was me.

You tried to get him assessed and supported for FIVE YEARS. The school didn't do it or get it. The educational authority didn't do it or get it.

Your son has been deprived of an education due to their failures.

I would get legal advice and push for a tribunal to make the county pay for the private school.

Their argument that you accepted a place with his statement is rubbish. EVERYONE is told to accept the place they are offered, even if they don't want it, while they are appealing for the place they do want. Otherwise, they wash their hands of you. Your child is no different to other children; he needs a school place; you accepted one while you are fighting for a better, more appropriate one.

Get help!

Do what you have to do. If you don't try, you won't know.

It’s not about crowd funding ‘yes or no’, it’s about finding out what he’s legally entitled to and not being deterred by the LA etc. There are people actually doing what the OP needs to do. She needs to listen to them and not be defensive & defeated. It’s not easy, but it is possible, it just takes annawful lots of bullish determination and good advice.

OP post on SN. You keep saying you can't ask for this school as it's so far away - but you can and you must. You have a legal right to do so, whatever your LEA says. You need to keep fighting.

There is nothing wrong with crowdfunding for this but being realistic you may struggle to raise that much money so I think you need to also look at other options.
Is it possible for your son to be assessed by an expert in his needs who can then write a programme/ have continued involvement in your son's education? This will cost initially but this is something the locally authority could be made to fund if you took it to tribunal.
Another option is local independent specialists who usually tailor the curriculum to each child. These are more expensive than the school you want but again can be pushed for via tribunal. If you son gets an asd diagnosis this will open up more independent specialists to him.
None of these ways are easy of course and it is awful that people have to go to these lengths to secure an adequate education.

Most definitely, especially in your case.
Even if you don't manage to raise the full amount you'll make a start.
At a rough estimate add up the years you will need the school then add 5% per year for fee increases.
I will be doing this for my dd when she starts Higher Ed, as I couldn't afford to help her out much either.
People will give or not, it's certainly worth a try.

What dragons said. The default setting of every LA is always "no". My son's school fees are quite a bit more than you've been quoted but the LA still pays. They didn't want to! Read the SEN code of practice for starters!

I don't have a child with those sort of needs, but I do know a bit about crowd funding.

I think that a target of £8400 is too much. If you're going to go ahead I would try and raise enough for the first two years -- and then start again a second appeal with a gap between the two to raise the next chunk for the remainder of the time. So aim for £30000 as a target and worry about the rest once he's been there a year.

Secondly trying to get 45000 people to donate won't work unless you are very skilled or very lucky. A realistic aim would be to get 700 friends, family and friends-of-friends to donate £20 each. That would be half your target.

Thirdly people donate a lot more if you are doing something. Could you run a marathon; do a parachute jump etc etc. Or can you run a quiz, event, etc etc

Lastly it takes a lot of work to hit these kind of targets. You've said you're willing to move but would you also be willing to spend lots of Sundays at car boot sales in the rain; charity football matches; build facebook pages; email everyone you know personal emails etc etc. you need to do that sort of work to make it happen.

I hope that sounds constructive and not negative? Good luck!

Does the school offer residential places? Your current local authority would have to name it as a residential placement.

As pp have said, you CAN name that school, even not being in your area. If it’s the school that meets your child’s needs, then they pay for it. The LA loves to say no to parents of SEN children, you know this as they’ve strung you along for years.

It seems a waste and a shame that both you and your husband are at home all day but you are sending your son to a school you can’t afford - why don’t you speak to the school about their methods and see if they can support you in copying them at home with your son, and home school him?

Or could you ask a member of your family to be your career so that your husband can go out to work and use the money for your son?

Ds went to an out of county independent specialist school. Our LA paid for the privilege at £50k per year they also funded the taxi and escort for the 55 miles a day trip.
You need to be speaking to IPSEA or SOSSEN and taking what your LA say with a pinch of salt tbh. LAs lie all the time if they thin parents will believe it.
I'm waiting for dd's EHCP to be issued (transferring from a statement) to start the battle to get them to fund independent specialist for her to.

If you would qualify for Legal Aid then you could get support from a specialist law firm (Simpson Millar) and go about getting the school you want with them handling the appeal if needed. Your child would get independent assessments made to support your case for the independent school you want.

Thing is that is a huge amount of money to raise, and without thinking hard I can think of 5-6 parents that I know who have similar. In that with a sum of money they could improve their child with sn's life hugely.
So I would only donate if I knew you really well, knew you were doing what you could etc.
I suspect most people are in a similar situation.

A few things occur to me. You've said what you would do if you don't get enough money. But people may not be happy to donate with a "this might happen/that might happen" scenario. But if you change what you were spending it on without saying they may, fairly rightly be annoyed.
You aren't going to raise that sort of money without publicity. Problem is you can't control publicity. So you put it out in a "please help my poor DC". It comes out as a "parents who haven't worked in 10 years are now crowdfunding to get private school fees" way. I've seen cases where similar has happened.

I'd start off by looking at the council route. Listen to the people that have gone through it. Crowdfunding seems to be very random. I've seen ones that seem to be really needed and sympathetic situations where they've raised almost nothing, and vanity projects that have raised huge amounts. There doesn't seem to be too much logic in it.

Thank you all so much

To answer some questions

Unfortunatly we do not own our own home to any things around that are not an option

While I word think of home schooling even I admit I do not have the skills to provide my son with the education he needs

As for my DH and me sitting at home, we are currently studying part time to retrain and set up our own business

my health and life long illness issues may have taken my dream career but I will not allow it to stop me from providing for My family

Our business may be enough for. Us to survive but we still would not have the funds to pay for Private school

We will be contacting the IPSEA tomorrow and see where we go from here

Also will look at a solicitor and starting a legal fight

My son attends a private school as a day pupil. Fully funded by the LEA as it was the best school to meet his needs. He gets transport funded too, 40 miles each way

Have you contacted ipsea, sen sos, national autistic society?

Got legal advice?

DS goes to a specialist school for high functioning autism. It's fully funded by our LA through his EHCP, at a cost of £130k a year plus transport. We had to get a solicitor to appeal for his EHCP and to show it was the only suitable school for him to attend, and get specialist assessments done by professionals. In all, it cost us about £25k to take it through tribunal, but that was a much better way of using money we had, than to pay directly for school costs (if we could have even been able to), especially as he will be there for his whole secondary school years.

OP you really need to get to grips with the SEN system and your legal rights, as there are ways to get specialist schools funded and councils will fight you all the way and mislead you. I'm afraid I don't think I'd contribute to a crowd fund in this way, as it's not really the right route to get the funding and it would make me think you don't fully understand the implications and what you need to be doing.

I for one would donate to this.

I wish you all the luck in the world.And should you go ahead then please let me have the link.
I have quite a large social media presence and contacts and would do my very best to spread your story.

www.helenarkell.org.uk/about-dyslexia/famous-dyslexics.php

Do the crowd funding and contact all these famous individuals with dyslexia. (The one's who are still alive anyway!) It's a drop in the ocean for people like Orlando Bloom and Branson.