AIBU to now want to go above my DC's school and take things further

[ballerina1971]

I am very angry with my DC's school. My youngest DC, age 13 has an EHCP with 24 hrs support. last summer when it was exam time it came to my attention my DC did not have a TA for support in lessons when I raised it with the the school they stated all TA'S were helping with exams for 2 wks
• I advised that my DC TA was funded for them through the EHCP, a legal document, not to be used elsewhere DC wasn’t to be without TA again. The school stated they had always done this, I advised this didn't make it right. I had the conversation with the SEN Department, Assumed the matter had been dealt with. My DC then came home in September stating there was no TA again As they were being used for the year sevens, I rang the SEN & insisted that my DC had the
• TA in lessons & having had this conversation with them I didn’t expect to be having it again. A few weeks later my DC came home asking why I had been complaining about the TA’s I was quite shocked by this and I said why are you asking, my DC told me the TA had said to her during a lesson that she better not do ,anything wrong (the TA ) as your mom has already been on the phone complaining to the school about the TA’S! Then earlier this year after my child had stated the teachers seemed to be being nice to her, the same TA said to my DC it’s because they’re scared of your mom she’s notorious around here and laughed. WTAF! This is wrong in so many ways such as, unprofessional, breach of confidentiality. now I’m fuming this is just another incident in a long list of incidents that have occurred since my DC have started there. I’m not talking minor, insignificant things, as I would let those things go I’m Not someone who feels the need to complain at every little minor thing. Very significant things such as overdosing my child on paracetamol and not advising me as per their procedures that they had given paracetamol just to give one example. There are only so many apologies I can receive from the school before I have to take it further. I’ve now had enough, I want this to stop. AIBU to now take this further and not go through the Complaints procedure again. I have followed the school’s complaint process on everything and now I’m sick of it I wish to go to the Local Authoritytand further. The school needs to be accountable for what they're doing I don’t feel at the moment they are. I get a sorry but then they go on to do something else

You have one TA
You have two kids. One who needs a scribe for their GCSE or they can’t sit the exam.
The other has TA support written into their EHCP.

You haven’t got any more TAs. You can’t hire any more. You haven’t got the money.

So you have to pick who gets the TA. Who do you pick?

Of course it would be unlawful. Children can only be sent home in very closely defined circumstances which this would not remotely come near. Schools who do this ultimately would be subject to judicial review and disability discrimination claims. It's not a matter of producing staff out of thin air, it is a matter of having contingency measures in place. It's not as if things like exams are exactly unexpected.

It's a no-brainer. You pick the child whose EHCP requires them, as a matter of law, to have a 1:1 TA. Scribes don't have to be TAs. It's not as if the exam is exactly unexpected, is it?

This. Provison detailed, specified and quantified in F is not optional.

No one is saying its lawful.

But if you have to provide lawfully for and EHCP and exam considerations, and have five pupils in need and three LSAs available, what do you suggest the school does in the immediate moment?

The least worst option is to not fuck up exams.

No one is saying its lawful.

But if you have to provide lawfully for and EHCP and exam considerations, and have five pupils in need and three LSAs available, what do you suggest the school does in the immediate moment?

The least worst option is to not fuck up exams.

I thought it was implied in the question that there was no one else available to scribe for the pupil.

So you would choose to leave the kid unable to sit their GCSE.

No one is saying its lawful.

But if you have to provide lawfully for and EHCP and exam considerations, and have five pupils in need and three LSAs available, what do you suggest the school does in the immediate moment?

The least worst option is to not fuck up exams. Few

No, the least worst option is to plan for exams, not to break the law. You don't have to have LSAs for the exam candidates.

You don't have to have LSAs for the exam candidates

You do need trained people. When you can't recruit them so there's literally no option but the trained LSA, what do you do?

Why is it implied? All OP knows is that when the school needs more bodies it is regularly taking TAs away from pupils with EHCPs. It sounds like it's a standard practice, and they do this rather than make alternative arrangements because they think they will get away with it. The very fact that the TA apparently thinks it's unusual for parents to object speaks volumes.

It really is indefensible to try to guilt-trip the parents of children with SEN by suggesting they would be at fault if they are not prepared to leave their children unsupported to avoid the school having to make more appropriate arrangements for the GCSE candidate. The problem of a child being unable to sit their GCSE would only arise if the school had majorly fucked up with its planning for the exam.

Re “Just hire people for exam time”

we can’t hire permanent TAs. We can’t hire teachers. We can’t hire invigilators. Where do you think these people are coming from?

Start your recruitment round early enough to be able to train them? Upthread people are talking about drafting in office staff for this purpose. How long does it take to train someone to be a reader in exams?

Purely speculative, but I suspect that if schools advertised in the local community they could put together a pool of excellent potential invigilators, scribes, readers etc from, for instance, retired people (including retired teachers) who would be happy to have the chance to make a bit of money every exam period. It's not as if that would break the bank, either.

It's unlawful to exclude based on lack of staff and it's unlawful to not provide what is outlined in section F of a child's EHCP. You don't send a child home because essentially they're too disabled for you to cope with them.

If the school divert support staff away from children with quantified provision under section F then they absolutely know they are doing so unlawfully, and so long as you let them know that YOU know this too OP they will have to back down as ultimately they are responsible for designating TA responsibilities.

Money is allocated to the school based on EHCP, so no talk of this 'first £6000' balls. From Special Needs Jungle: "Additional support funding is an identified figure within the delegated budget which each school receives annually. It is provided by LAs for mainstream schools and the Education and Skills Funding Agency for academies and free schools. This element of funding is used to fund SEP for children on SEN Support and a proportion of funding for children with EHC plans. However, this amount is a notional one, not based on an assessment of current pupils' needs and the real cost of providing for them. While it theoretically equates to £6,000 per pupil with SEN, the actual amount of money available depends on what the school is already committed to spending. 'Top up’ (or ‘high needs’) funding for individual pupils is funding comes from the commissioning home LA, as and when required, and is based on the child’s assessed needs. It is usually, although not exclusively, used to fund support for children with Statements or EHC plans."

Posters banging on about the law have no idea how hard it is to recruit staff for exams or even TAs. If people aren't applying for the work then the head has to prioritise those taking exams. To say otherwise is ridiculous.

Some here live in cloud cuckoo land.

😂 😂 Recruit them early, there will be loads....

The reality is, no one wants to work in schools for shit pay with shit kids.

Why is it the job of the child with SEN or their parents to resolve that one?

Schools finding themselves on the wrong end of legal actions would find an answer, including shouting a hell of a lot louder at local and national government The truth is they choose to take away badly needed support from really vulnerable children for which those children's parents have had to fight tooth and nail, because they think they can get away with it. If parents object, they become "those" parents. And apparently people on MN think that's absolutely fine.

It’s not, but saying ‘schools should just hire an extra TA for exam time to sort this problem’ is totally unrealistic. Like schools have a) the money and b) people who actually want to work in them.

14 years of Tory austerity and people aren’t surprised when they can’t see their GP or find a dentist and yet still think that schools should be able to provide the expected level of service and if they can’t it’s the school’s fault.

Public services are collapsing all over. That includes schools.

This is why when we were having the meeting with the Ed pysch for my daughters EHCp, l was insistent that she didn’t want one to one in mainstream.

Its a legal document. Scribes and whatever else should not be taken from EHCp kids.

@GoldenTrout No word on where to get the extra staff from? That's the point here.

I'd pick the GCSE child, unless the result of the EHCP child not having the staff member for the exam times was going to be more disastrous for their future than a child being unable to take GCSEs.

LAs and schools often cite funding &/or recruitment as a reason not to provide provision specified and quantified in F, but that is not a lawful excuse. The LA must fund the provision at a rate it can actually be provided even if that is at a substantially higher rate, but, again, they won’t do this unless forced. Funding, staffing, resources are not actual barriers when faced with enforcement action (LAs often only start taking parents seriously when they see parents know the law and will advocate and enforce DC’s rights). Not to mention the pupil with the EHCP does have a 1:1. They are just being used elsewhere.

We fight tooth and nail for our children’s ehcp and when we get them we expect them to adhered to by the letter. We’ve appealed and sometimes gone to tribunal. That ehcp is a legal document outlining the provision our child desperately needs. Do NOT come at us with funding issues. We do not care. We have child(ren) with special needs and have enough to worry about meeting their needs at home and ensuring the damn schools do what they’re legally obliged to do.

The kids needing scribes also have legal rights to that help for their exam and I hate to say it but exams do have to take priority.

Boot on the other foot, when your kid's taking exams and their TA has to go off to a year 7 because their parent is kicking off, would you be happy? No, because those important exams should and do take precedence.

It's literally all hands on deck for gcse season. There's not enough TAs to scribe, invigilators to do the job and rarely does anyone want to train to scribe unless they're already a trained TA. It's not actually simple job.

Rage all you like, but it's at the wrong people.