To ask what's the law or policy on wrap around care?

[drspouse]

My DS is in a short stay school which is handily quite near our house and he goes to a CM twice a week but he can't stay there for ever, and we are only being offered far distant schools that involve a taxi ride and have no after school care or extracurricular activities "because of the taxis".
There is a local MLD school that has after school care but it's not suitable for him.
I work 0.6 and a colleague just asked to go to 0.5 and was refused. I'm the higher earner but DH is a KW who trains other KWs and he can't drop to school hours either because lots of his training is day long or has to cover a choice of hours (and he's likely to have a day a week in the office, an hour away).
Is there any legal obligation to provide after school care or consider this in placement?
Or does the government just not want my taxes and DH benefit to society?

The problem seems to be that you want different things for different days and that's not going to happen.
Well, really, the problem is that their regulations are only dropping at home.

We can manage all the pieces of the puzzle if DH is WFH most of the time but if he's doing training from the office, I'm picking up DD after school and someone also needs to be in to wait for the taxi... We need time travel or an extra body.

We don't even really want this school but we are going to find out what the practicalities are and what they can promise and then see.

Am I correct in assuming that there is an EHCP in place? Does that give you any flexibility with regard to the school placement?

If you don't want the school, is there no other alternative available? I think it's more likely to fail if your heart's not in it. Is it independent specialist? If so I think it takes some time to reappraise what your experience of school looks like to what an independent specialist school looks like.
So for dd she does just one lesson of Maths, English and Science a week. It's difficult at first to imagine that enough learning will be done as in mainstream she did five hours of each subject weekly. But because the stressors have been removed, classes are tiny (two in Maths and four in English and Science plus a TA) and teaching is tailored according to needs then teaching is more effective.
Just being in an environment that understands her makes everything easier tbh and the SALT, OT and other therapies that happen weekly means that she is more able to learn because teachers have a better understanding of the things she finds difficult and home life is so much more pleasant as I don't have to mop up after disasters or manage from afar.

@Foxyloxy1plus1

Am I correct in assuming that there is an EHCP in place? Does that give you any flexibility with regard to the school placement?

Well you'd think so, and yes, but apparently not.

@hiredandsqueak we asked for several others, all nearer and/or that we can collect from and have after school care but they have all said no so far.

He's in a specialist setting now and has learned a fair bit but not much more than we've taught him. It mainly seems to be us teaching him in odd half hours after school and at weekends anyway.

I think you are in a really hard place tbh. I could see that the mainstream schools were wrong for dd but if you aren't in that place yet then it must be difficult to grab an alternative. Dd travels out of County although that's only 16 miles for us.
Is there any scope for the school to put in place what you would want for ds? So dd's school don't teach French, dd loves French and speaks fluently and so they employ a tutor just for her. Independent specialists do tend to accommodate individual interests far more easily.

Parents wishes for mainstream have to be respected schools have very narrow grounds to refuse. see here on IPSEA.

@hiredandsqueak

Parents wishes for mainstream have to be respected schools have very narrow grounds to refuse. see here on IPSEA.

If the kid has been in mainstream with an EHCP including TA support and behaviour has brought about permanent exclusion and transfer to PRU they have grounds? IME they don’t offer a funded independent school if there’s another (cheaper) option

The last mainstream was found guilty of disability discrimination because his psych report said he needed a maximum of two TAs and they had a revolving door of up to 5 any given week.

Was that due to deliberate timetabling for him to have 5, or issues with staffing?

Obviously they've been found to be discriminatory so I'm not doubting there were issues.
I just can't see how stipulating no more than 2 is practical. If one has a medical appointment or is unwell, and the other TA is timetabled with a different child with EHCP hours is it expected that another child loses their TA because your child can only have 2 in a week? How does it work for staff absence, one member of staff is unwell and the other has an appointment? If his TA is late to a lesson due to needing to TeamTeach or finish dealing with an issue, then does he have no TA for 15 minutes because using another member of staff to cover would make it 3 TAs in the week, or is it expected that the TA walks out of a big situation instead of having appropriate staff present in order to be with your child so he doesn't have a different colleague with him? It seems like a stipulation that doesn't account for the practicality of school life.

@BungleandGeorge but schools are very different and what might not be manageable at one mainstream might be another mainstream school's bread and butter.
My dad went to an incredibly inclusive primary school. They took every child that had been permanently excluded in the County that they were asked to take. Some children were onto their fifth Primary after being permanently excluded from four others previously.
They didn't exclude any child even for one day and Ofsted said behaviour was outstanding. With the right ethos and the right support the children considered unmanageable by other school were valued members of that school.

@LolaSmiles my dd's EHCP specified a team of three because it allowed for absence, enabled communication and gave dd the chance to build relationships. It worked for her.
It's no longer in her EHCP as she's at a different school now where pupils aren't routinely supported my swathes of different people as the school values solid relationships.

If a parent insists on mainstream they would probably get it and accommodations regardless of cost may be made but it may well be a mainstream miles away.

[quote hiredandsqueak]@BungleandGeorge but schools are very different and what might not be manageable at one mainstream might be another mainstream school's bread and butter.
My dad went to an incredibly inclusive primary school. They took every child that had been permanently excluded in the County that they were asked to take. Some children were onto their fifth Primary after being permanently excluded from four others previously.
They didn't exclude any child even for one day and Ofsted said behaviour was outstanding. With the right ethos and the right support the children considered unmanageable by other school were valued members of that school.[/quote]
But all of the schools have said that they can’t provide for him, that doesn’t change just because of parental preference. There is a limit to what mainstream schools can provide, some children have very extreme behaviour. And the children who that impacts on most is often other children with SEN or other special needs. We don’t know the precise situation but ime the council want to pay as little as possible and expensive private schools are not offered if there’s another option at this time.

hiredandsqueak
3 makes more sense. I read 2 and instantly thought 'crikey there's no contingency there'.

"We don’t know the precise situation but ime the council want to pay as little as possible and expensive private schools are not offered if there’s another option at this time."

Expensive private school may well be the cheapest option but there can be others.

@BungleandGeorge Well the boy in my dd's class, whose mum I got to know well, was such a boy. Dd's school was last chance saloon, school number four. The alternative was a specialist school. He had fantastic support and was never unmanageable. Dd is highly anxious but was never worried by him. He did the full four years and went up to secondary with his friends having never been excluded once.
Really though if a parent wants mainstream in all likelihood that is what a Tribunal will order and the LA will be forced to make the provision to make it happen.
For me, I wouldn't want my child in a school that had been forced to accommodate them and if offered independent specialist I would grab it with both hands but other parents have other preferences and they should be respected.

There may be other options, op hasn’t considered. I don’t, however, think that if there is a significant history of problems despite EHCP a school who have said they can’t meet needs could be forced to.

@LolaSmiles he's hardly in lessons, including at the setting he's in now. So we see little point in specialist since he'd just be out of class anyway, he wouldn't get any of the parts he likes of school (music, worship oddly, big playground with play equipment, outings which he always loved in his first school). He finds the children at the SSS scary and the same category of SEND is the children who will be at the specialist school.
There have been issues with death threats, and he's got the idea (which he never had before) that girls and women are not to be valued and can't do anything. Swearing etc. So again, we don't see how this will improve at the specialist school since it's the same children with the same experience of DV, toxic masculinity etc.

At his first school he had one TA in the morning and one in the afternoon. He was in a small group for many sessions and he was settled enough to cope with the occasional substitution if warned - they weren't off dealing with anyone else, it was only if they were sick.

The LA can only refuse if a mainstream placement would be incompatible with the efficient education of others, and there are no reasonable steps the LA could take to avoid this. So my dd's EHCP came with £49k funding which can buy an awful lot of accommodations but is cheaper than her independent specialist school's fees.

Is it a SEBD school @drspouse? If so I might share your concerns tbh.

We are going to see about going down that route @hiredandsqueak - the SENDO gives the impression she just wants to not be bothered to actually think about what he needs as it's too much hassle and paperwork. Putting him in specialist would mean she could forget about him and not have to deal with us complaining all the time. We've just had a battle with her over OT which she said he didn't need any more "because he wasn't in the classroom".

The thing is sometimes schools are reluctant because LA's don't give enough funding. Schools would be better able and more willing to make the provisions and accommodations if the EHCPs came with enough funding. But to get an EHCP with significant funding attached you invariably end up at Tribunal.

Have you looked at other specialist schools or mainstream with specialist units? Is he in the same ‘category’ as the other pupils at the proposed school? Or is it that it’s the only option? Can you find an alternative even if it’s further away?

We have looked at every specialist school within an hour. He has SEMH and the school is SEMH. There is one SEMH unit in county and it's just as far (further actually - over an hour in traffic, could be 90 mins in bad traffic).

to get an EHCP with significant funding attached you invariably end up at Tribunal
Been there, done that, got the solicitors bill but it took a year and we don't have a year to give him a decent primary school experience.