To just let you know (re, SEN funding)

[theqentity]

That TA in the class that does 1-1 with the child that had additional needs is not funded by the school, but the LA, and a parent had to probably go to tribunal in order to get that level of support for their child.

What they are NOT doing is taking away from the school funding and the education of others. They are not there to support other children, although many do despite it not being in their job description.

Sorry, just the pass gag What's App group has really depressed me today.

If nothing else it's a quiet room for tests, or extra time, or being able to use a laptop to do assessments - none of those very expensive to implement but having a plan will ensure them.

Hi all,
We have made several deletions on this thread. We understand that this is already a fraught subject and that feelings understandably run high especially when there are differences of opinion over what's correct in law, but we cannot tolerate repeated personal attacks on fellow MNers.

In our county the school gets no extra funding unless the child has ehcp that declares MORE than 16 hours 121 support. Anything below 16 hours is funded by school unfortunately.

As bad as it may sound as a parent I don’t care where the money comes from. I will fight until my last breath for the right provision to be in place.

How that is funded - school and the LA can argue that out amongst themselves.

I have no idea how much the LA fund towards DS plan. He gets what he needs and that’s where my concern ends

Also my sons senco is amazing but agree it's hit and Miss. a lot of Senco's are not properly trained/experienced which is down to school plus they do work for the school at the end of the day. It's not the senco fault, the system is flawed.

IPSEA rep here, I’ve done 4 appeals on my own kids so far and have 3 pending. It’s exhausting. Most of the time I don’t look up, I keep plodding forward and onward and then close the files before bed. This thread makes me feel panicky and I wonder do I have some sort of PTSD related to the endless grind of this.

My children are at different schools - the Senco at one is an extraordinarily insightful and intuitive educator. And a human and a mum.

The other is nothing short of useless.

I give the school gate a huge swerve, I have my tribe. If I could change one thing I’d like to be able to do a presentation to the other parents at school, with a flow chart of what assessments my children have had, their cost, the timings, and a run through of the mountain of paperwork associated. I don’t think that the vast majority of parents have a clue about the mental burden of the admin - and that’s before we start with actually living with disabilities.

@ElvenDreamer

Gosh this thread is eye opening, I have another question if I may, thank you to those who answered my previous one. When DS was diagnosed, the paediatrician at the time said that he would probably need an EHCP in place to help with the transition to secondary, even though current primary arrangements working well. When I raised this with SENCO she flatly said that EHCP is not designed for that and we shouldn't apply. Who is right? Or is it not that cut and dried, in which case what do I need to look at? Again apologies for hijacking your original thread OP with my own questions.

If your child is in Year 5, as a Senco I’d be looking at what provision we have in place already, and whether that needs to be addressed through an EHCP. What is school doing, in addition to what they do for every child, that is working well? Sadly, sometimes health professionals can tell parents their child should have an EHCP but not actually do anything about it themselves. Any professional working with a child can apply for a needs assessment, as can the parents. If you feel the school are not doing their job in requesting a needs assessment, then please contact the SEN team at your LA and request one yourself - they will then send all the relevant paperwork to all the professionals working with your child just as if the school had applied directly. Obviously there is no guarantee that your child will receive an EHCP, school may actually be correct in that they are able to meet his needs within the provision they have.

@ElvenDreamer use the IPSEA template to make a request for an EHC needs assessment. You can ask the school to supply a copy of your son's school records through a SAR or even by asking them if they are particularly helpful. Regardless add copies of IEPs any communication you have had with the school regarding the support he receives. Copies of all assessments made for diagnosis and diagnosis letter and any ongoing support he gets through the CCG or CAMHS. The threshold for assessment is low it's not difficult to meet that threshold when you have a diagnosis and support in school already.

www.ipsea.org.uk/asking-for-an-ehc-needs-assessment link here. IPSEA is a really good source to have bookmarked their support is straightforward and law based. SOSSEN is another trustworthy source of information and support. Both have helplines as well although sometimes difficult to get through to it's definitely worth persisting to get a response.

@Iveputmyselfonthenaughtystep

If nothing else it's a quiet room for tests, or extra time, or being able to use a laptop to do assessments - none of those very expensive to implement but having a plan will ensure them.

Although there are hidden costs, because the quiet room for extra time requires staff. Even more so if a reader or scribe is required. That said, of course they should be in place if they are needed.

I have vivid memories of trying to juggle various kinds of support for public and in house exams, whilst attempting to ensure that the rest of the students who needed support, maintained it.

Thank you so much all, I have taken lots of notes and book marked many pages. I have decided to take this forward. I know I may get nowhere, but if I don't try, I definitely won't!

@ElvenDreamer Good luck just know that even if you are refused and very many people aren't refused that at appeal you have a 95% chance of winning anyway and mostly LAs give in when they realise that a parent is determined to pursue them. The odds are most definitely in your favour.

From another perspective, demand for EHCPs has risen by 50% in some LAs during Covid (I work for central govt) - LAs don’t have the money to provide that amount of support. Where does the money come from?
Not saying the system wasn’t broken anyway but it’s too easy to blame “corrupt LAs” when SEND is well and truly in crisis at a national level following the pandemic.

@SkeletonSkins

I don’t think it’s always as simple as that though. I was a Senco until fairly recently and many of our TAs were funded by school. We had several children who the LA didn’t fund, who we were going through the EHCP process for, who we felt needed additional support and so we paid in the meantime, sometimes for years at a time. And when we did get funding, it was normally between 6-8k, which doesn’t pay for a full time TA salary, so of course we topped it up.

But the school SEN funding comes from the LA if it's a maintained school, and from the Department for Education if it's an academy or free school. Schools get delegated SEN funding on the basis of a complicated calculation one of the main factors of which is the number of children on the SEN register in the school.

@Mincemeatbadger It was well and truly in crisis before the pandemic. Yes COVID has increased mental health issues and children are behind, but children don't magically get neurodivergent because they're not at school. The difficulties would've been present before the pandemic but a lot of parents only realised just how much their kids struggle and how behind they are, when they were forced to homeschool. The Sen boards were very active during that time. Parents were taking things into their own hands as they realised just how the system had failed their kids.

[quote hiredandsqueak]@Imitatingdory 39 Essex Chambers who our LA used to represent them at Tribunal no longer do so because their losses were damaging their reputation I have no sympathy for them though as their intention was to deny SEN children the provision they needed to access an education. Funnily enough when I stuck in an FOI LA's figures were such that Essex Chambers were working for less than £50 ph without travel or subsistence (we are a long way from Essex)[/quote]
Essex Chambers is in Central London.

@Meadowbreeze that and I’m sure there will be further case law soon is why I posted it don’t think the case law is as damaging as to say EHCPs can be vague and woolly and shouldn’t be detailed, specified and quantified.

No, I agree. It is clear that specificity is still the norm and there needs to be a good reason for departing from that. "Whilst there may be a need for some flexibility, it should not be used as an excuse for lack of specificity where detail could reasonably have been provided"

@Mincemeatbadger

From another perspective, demand for EHCPs has risen by 50% in some LAs during Covid (I work for central govt) - LAs don’t have the money to provide that amount of support. Where does the money come from? Not saying the system wasn’t broken anyway but it’s too easy to blame “corrupt LAs” when SEND is well and truly in crisis at a national level following the pandemic.

Tbh I'd just like an LA that met their statutory duty and didn't have to be dragged kicking and screaming through SENDIST, LGO and JR to meet their legal obligations. Our LA have the well earned reputation of being in the top three worst LAs nationally. They waste huge sums of money by doing everything in their power to evade their statutory duty. Parents then have to pursue complaints to LGO, go to SENDIST, pursue Judicial Review (I've done all three) just to get them to meet their statutory duty. All this is costing more in time and resources than it would do if they just did what they should do in the first place. Our LA have a department to deal with the numerous complaints called Quality, Participation and Engagement. It won't surprise you to know that they haven't been contactable since before lockdown. Our LA are quick to blame ignorance and incompetence as the reason for their failings but if that was the case they would learn from their mistakes and adapt and improve training. That parents are having the same experiences over and over again shows a complete and deliberate disregard for their statutory duty.

Part of the issues is the apparent lack of accountability for local authorities.

Like most ours got slated by ofsted a few years ago. Foolishly I thought things may improve. They haven’t. Ofsted have visited again and it’s still failing with very little change. But it seems nobody is being held accountable and these local authorities are just allowed to keep failing children over and over again.

It shouldn’t be the case that only the children with parents who are able to navigate the system can get what they are entitled to. Every child should but the system is designed to fail them. And that is in no way a dig at any parents. It’s just the system is so broken it’s impossible

@stripesonmyscarf

My dc is at university now, she got invited to perhaps 3 or 4 parties ever at school, not because she's violent at school, she wasn't, she saved that for me, but because school parents don't seem to accept those that are different, if you don't fit the exact ideal your kid gets shunned. We did move to a more accepting school but by then it was past the main party age. She does have friends now btw but she socialises online not in real life, ironically this meant lockdown didn't affect her as much except lectures going online (which she prefers)

" Johnny Autism"?

There is a lot of confusion regarding Sen budgets. My schools senco explained it as each school has a Sen budget which equates to approx £6k a year per child on Sen register

That isn’t really true though. A school is allocated a certain amount of money for their SEN support children which isn’t ringfenced.

That amount of money doesn’t go up, the more children you add to your SEN register.

in my experience as a qualified TA, what a lot of schools are doing is using parents like myself who volunteer as classroom support, rather than paying for it.

The thing is, not ALL parents are qualified to do the job :( I have qualifications as a TA, i'm a youth mental health first aider, and i have experience working with kids with SEN, so my kids primary school usually pulled me in to help with trips, or guided reading kind of stuff.

Were we not in a covid situation i'd have offered my services to the secondary school too, but i don't feel safe doing that atm.

@Howshouldibehave

There is a lot of confusion regarding Sen budgets. My schools senco explained it as each school has a Sen budget which equates to approx £6k a year per child on Sen register

That isn’t really true though. A school is allocated a certain amount of money for their SEN support children which isn’t ringfenced.

That amount of money doesn’t go up, the more children you add to your SEN register.

Clearly the person you're addressing needs to RTWT. Because the whole thread is about that £6k thing not being true!

@Bonkerz

In our county the school gets no extra funding unless the child has ehcp that declares MORE than 16 hours 121 support. Anything below 16 hours is funded by school unfortunately.

If your county is in the UK the LA is bound by law, just as any other county.