School forcing 8am start for my SEN girl?

[emmapemma91]

So I’m having quite a lot of bother with my little girls school. She’s not settling in very well and becoming very distressed when going into school and can become aggressive.
She’s waiting on assessment for possible Autism. She’s 6 and in year 2.

She’s on a reduced timetable at the minute but the school are forcibly telling me they want her in at 8am to give her time to settle before her class come in at 8.45. I’ve told them each time my sons school taxi comes sometime between 8.15 - 8.25 and I can’t get her there, chase her around while she tries to run away, then carry her into school then be back in time for my sons taxi. Yet every day they say the same thing, she hasn’t settled and needs to be in 8am. If I miss his taxi I can’t get him to school as I don’t drive and it’s quite far away.

Is there any solution? I’m sick of fighting with the school to support my daughter.

The answer is to go to SENDIST who can now order social care provision alongside educational provision. I know of a case where the parent called the SW who had written to say there were no needs to appear and the judge ordered fifty hours per week of social care provision.

Onceuponatime

In my own family parents have been told no respite care available for severely disabled three year old with complex medical needs, no entitlement to the 30 hours free nursery care for same child.

I suggest the parents make a request to the CCG for an assessment for NHS continuing healthcare funding for children:

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/499611/children_s_continuing_care_Fe_16.pdf

It’s a parallel system to social care (and the CCG might ask social services to do the assessing), and if the child meets the criteria, then the CCG funds the health/social care.

A child with complex medical needs is likely to need collaborative working between education, social services and health - although, the funding for care may come from the CCG, as continual healthcare funding. There might be a Complex Needs Panel; and it could be that a school placement is funded by all three bodies in tripartite funding. I have heard of specialist placements funded entirely by the CCG.

It is difficult to predict how the law might change for a 3 year old in the next 15 years; but atm the massive advantage of NHS CHC funding is if it’s carried over from childhood to adulthood, all care is free!

So, for example if an adult is funded in residential care by SS, then SS takes all DC’s benefits, and leaves them an allowance of about £26 per week - which is not much for clothes, toiletries, gifts, a holiday, etc!

An adult on NHS CHC funding gets all their care for free, as the NHS is free at the point of use! So, if they get £200 per week in benefits, they get to keep them all!

PS - while the framework may say the CCG should not be constrained to provide only what the local provisions are; nevertheless if there are no respite centres in your county, capable of looking after complex medical needs; they cannot magic one up - but SS (and I imagine the CCG) can use agency nurses to come to the house to look after DC. For instance, we had nurses come to our house to look after DD from 10 pm to 7 am, after we complained about being woken up every hour of the night by DD’s medical problems for months.

Sorry you're having a difficult time OP, there are some really useful posts in amongst the many many disappointing ones!

How lucky must some of these posters (and their children) be to have the luxury of being so absolutely blissfully ignorant and unappreciative of just how complex your situation is!

Hats off to all you parents of children with sen. Understanding all that and fighting for your child like that is amazing. I know you do what you have to, but you definitely don't get enough credit!

OP's daughter undoubtedly has extreme anxiety about school, an illness and as such is entitled to the protection of the law and the LA have a legal duty to make provision as per LGO rulings.

Nevertheless the local authority is entitled to ask for independent evidence of that fact rather than simply take the parent's word for it. As I pointed out, unfortunately there are parents who will lie about this for various reasons.

Not sure why you are talking about court though, you don't go to court. You start a formal complaint on day sixteen, you contact the LGO and let them know that your child is out of school, you informed the LA, you asked them to make provision and you have made a formal complaint but you still don't have any provision.

You can opt for complaining and going to the LGSCO, but it's very, very slow and can mean the child has no education for months. On the other hand, a threat of judicial review proceedings is much more effective and much quicker. So, with the right evidence, you certainly can go to court. As any action concerns the child's rights they would be entitled to legal aid to pursue it. www.sossen.org.uk/admin/resources/website-jr.pdf

@hiredandsqueak

The answer is to go to SENDIST who can now order social care provision alongside educational provision. I know of a case where the parent called the SW who had written to say there were no needs to appear and the judge ordered fifty hours per week of social care provision.

No, they can only make recommendations about social care provision. It's a trial scheme which is due to end next August.

yes @moonjelly you could go to Judicial Review at considerable cost (been there done that although for clarity the LA folded once we had a date for a hearing. The legal bill to get there though was considerable as they squirmed and twisted a lot and Legal Aid doesn't kick in until you actually get leave so you fund the solicitor and one or two barrister appointments as well) but why would you when as soon as you contact LGO and explain you have a child without provision they order the LEA to put it in place anyway even before you exhaust the complaints procedure and get the complaint to an investigator.
I imagine that the LGO assume that the LA have used the services of Educational Welfare to ascertain that the child is safe (although our LA didn't bother) and LA would only need to contact the school to confirm child's difficulty accessing school.
It was only once dd was unable to attend school that I found out just how easy it is for children to fall out of sight. School didn't contact educational welfare because in our LA educational welfare don't prosecute parents of children with EHCPs who don't attend school and their role now is only around prosecution. I didn't phone school to explain dd's absence once she was no longer attending and nobody contacted me. LA were happy to have nobody see her if they weren't funding a tutor and CAMHS saw a seven month wait to be seen as fulfilling their part. Nobody bothered to make a safeguarding referral to social care which I had expected once she was out of school.

I assume school informed LA of dd's difficulties attending in dd's case anyway because I only sent in CAMHS letter confirming dd was unable to attend 9 months after dd last went to school because that was how long it took to be seen and for the letter to be written. School had made two referrals to CAMHS that were refused because dd attended as little as 1 hour a week in the three months prior to the GP referral that was accepted. CAMHS policy around here is that any school attendance even one hour a week meant that a referral for school refusal/anxiety was refused on the grounds child was in school. Had I known that beforehand I wouldn't have bothered trying a reduced timetable tbh.
It was a nightmare at the time but now after another Tribunal and another threat of JR dd is happy and settled in Independent Specialist and her attendance is 100% Of course when a child has been out of school for a significant length of time the chance of a successful re entry into school is small something I think our LA take advantage of particularly when faced with funding independent specialist costing many thousands.

OP have a chat with the council that provides the school transport. They might be willing to pick up from the school short wterm.i work somewhere that provides transport (we just do the cars - we don't arrange it) and we would be willing to do this but we can only do it with the council's permission.

@hiredandsqueak, I think you went to the wrong solicitors, and/or your difficulties were caused by not having independent evidence. Most only charge for the pre-action letter and maybe the legal aid application in a clear case. Plus in the great majority of cases the pre-action letter secures what's needed without having to start court proceedings at all - SOS SEN say that they find that to be the case over 90% of the time.

The legal bill to get there though was considerable as they squirmed and twisted a lot and Legal Aid doesn't kick in until you actually get leave so you fund the solicitor and one or two barrister appointments as well)

ITA with Moonjelly! I must have gone down the route of JR against Education about 4 times, and 3 times against SS. I only ever had to pay for the pre-action protocol letter in the education cases; legal aid covered it for DD in the community care cases. Three out of the four education were straightforward open and shut cases, but I remember my solicitor got Counsel’s opinion on the likelihood of success before proceeding in the other one - but we didn’t have to pay for that either. He never even brought up the possibility of paying for appointments with Counsel, in any of our discussions on JR.

@moonjelly the solicitor I used is now head of SOSSEN so no lightweight. First pre action protocol letter sent beginning of March for failure to issue a transition SSEN they twisted and turned issuing unworkable SSEN naming a school that three times refused to admit my son because they couldn't meet needs. Leave for JR issued 27th September after the HT of the named school (LA hadn't bothered to inform the school that they had issued a SSEN naming the school I did that) finally lost his temper and sent his correspondence with the LA direct to my solicitor. Leave was granted then that it was irrational to name a school that had three times said they couldn't meet needs.
It was very quick then though, nine o clock LA told independent specialist they wouldn't be placing son there. 9.30am we got a date for JR, 11 am LA told solicitor they were naming independent specialist.
Maybe not all LA's are as difficult as our LA which is in SOSSEN's top three of unlawful LA's but ours use the delays and unlawful practices as a means of saving money to spend on barristers at SENDIST. Not that they are successful I think last year their loss rate was 98.5%

So had a chat with the SENco on the phone today. She’s advised me that a EHCP NA won’t even be considered without a EP report, and two terms of help put in place with the general funding.

She says my little girl has only been there four weeks and she needs more time to settle.

I’ve already applied for the EHCP NA and I just don’t feel I can ‘give her more time’ when she’s so distressed 😟

emma my Ds has never seen an EP or been assessed by one and our LA agreed to do a statutory assessment a few weeks ago.

@emmapemma91 bluntly she is wrong. Persist with the request. If they refuse then appeal. The only two thresholds are 1) they MAY have SEN 2) they MAY need provision within an EHCP.

EHCP experiences on Facebook is a solid group for advice x

Part of the needs assessment is them doing an ED psych report!

Tbh it sounds like either the senco is new or never actually had to use her experience.

The SENco has been there quite a while, as she said on the phone she’s ‘very experienced with SEN’

a EHCP NA won’t even be considered without a EP report, and two terms of help put in place with the general funding.
I think there's a problem there, as she doesn't seem to understand either the word "needs" or the word "assessment".

We went to a school to look round and asked what their normal behaviour policies and procedures were and what they would put into place for DS. "These are the polices and procedures and everyone uses the same ones" replied the SENCO. It seems to just be a label for some teachers!

Well for someone very experienced with SEN she is wrong.

Send her an email with a summary of the discussion - so you have a paper trail of what has been said.

In my experience a senco/school that talks a lot about their experience can be very set in their ways and often not good at following the law.

Make sure everything that is said is on paper, create your own record of everything that happens in school ( you can send them that too) and press on with applying for the ehcp.

"very experienced with SEN" Er no she's not. She's just experienced in regurgitating the unlawful shit the LA spins to her.

She certainly doesn't know her SEN law and as PP said the only lawful test is

• whether the child or young person has or may have special educational needs (“SEN”); and
• whether they may need special educational provision to be made through an EHC plan.

(Section 36(8) of the Children and Families Act 2014).

This means these are the only questions the LA should be asking when considering whether or not to carry out an EHC needs assessment.

Insisting on having two terms of support put in place before that, or the school having spent £6000 (another favourite) or any other criteria is unlawful.

Thank you all for your help. They love saying assessments take a long time but they’ve rearranged the EP appointment twice 😟 and still have the HT on phone saying the only thing that will help is having her in early.

@hiredandsqueak, I don't understand how you could have used SOS SEN if you started JR proceedings through the court, as they don't have a legal aid contract and always say that if their pre-action letter doesn't work people would have to go a solicitors' firm with a contract?

Will school get the EP in? Dont let them fob you off. Leaving your poor child sitting under a table is not provising her with an education. They need to be doing different activities with her to engage her and build up a relationship.