To be so fucking angry

[Crystallizedring]

DS had another settle at school today which was storytime with teacher. DH had to carry him in to school (frankly I'd have given up then as it was never going to go well with that start).
DS cried when DH left and stood by the door for the whole session which was 30 minutes long and DH picked up early. During his session DH talked to the head, who admitted they wouldn't be able to cope with DS very well. That he would need short sessions and long transition period.
None of this is a surprise, none of this is unexpected but I'm so angry, not with the school, but with the LA who refused to assess him for EHCP.
We are obviously challenging this but I'm just so angry. Every single professional who sees DS knows he has additional needs, every single professional has said he's going to need extra support or a special school place. How can they refuse to even assess him with so much evidence? What if they still refuse? Even if they agree to assess and put a plan in place it takes 20 weeks.
What is supposed to happen to DS in that time? How can they refuse to assess a non verbal 4 year old who is in nappies and has the emotional, social and intellectual age of a child half his age?
What are the school supposed to do when they have 29 other children to teach? We're supposed to have a meeting with school before the end of term to work out how to help DS but I don't know what they can do.
I am just so sad that DS is going to start school and be lost because the LA are too stupid to assess him.
The amount of anger I have is unhealthy. Am I being unreasonable to be so angry?

Do you know specifically what grounds they have refused to assess? If not, you need to try and get this information to disprove it.

For example, in our case the nursery wasn’t very experienced in SEN and hadn’t tried a certain technique that the LA claimed would magically solve the very many and profound difficulties my DS was having 🙄

So if they say it’s because your DS is coping then your job is to gather documentation to prove that he isn’t. If they say you haven’t exhausted all avenues of support, you need to find out what they expect to have been tried so you can gather evidence about either why it’s inappropriate or how it has been unsuccessfully attempted etc.

Aside from the EHCP, what health professionals have you seen? Speech/language therapy? Physio? Occ Therapy? Paediatrician? Ed Psych? Have you sent these reports to the LA or are there any of these health professionals willing to help you appeal?

I rang our local special school and they sent an outreach teacher to do an assessment which I sent to the LA. You could see if your local special school offers anything like this?

Edited to add - apologies if this sounds obvious but we had a right fight to get the specifics from the LA initially. We were waved away without any proper explanation and we had to dig our heels in to get this info!!! So just make sure whatever reasons they have provided are sufficiently detailed because that info WILL be on their file. Do an SAR if you have to.

Sorry to correct you directly but the legal bar to whether the LA must secure an assessment is very very low, so please don’t go down the rabbit holes of finding out why. The legal test is that the LA must secure an assessment if the child “has or may have a special educational need which may require provision in the form of an education health and care plan.” So in your own case, the LA saying that school should have done XYZ first is simply unlawful.

You need to defer to give yourself time to support him to get back to where he was at least. It sounds like the nursery hasn't been the right setting since leaving toddlers and without support this school won't be either. If nursery won't accommodate him can you or your husband take a career break for a year to parent him?

Edited to add and I'm sorry your LA have been crap! Hopefully advice on this thread will help with the EHCP.

They said lack of evidence, despite 2 years of SEN plans, mind nap, report from paediatric doctor and a brief report from SALT, saying they wouldn't accept him because they felt he needed to be assessed for autism. This was done by nursery Senco who is incredibly experienced.
I'm going to get a copy of evidence and I now have more evidence from the school and LA Senco who both agree he needs specialist support.
Ideal world I would home educated him but I honestly don't think he would do anything as it's not his routine and he is stubborn plus I'm not sure how to extend his learning when he is non verbal with limited attention.
Thanks for the support and ideas everyone, it's given me a lot to think about.

My children are now teens - this was several years ago and we managed to get an EHCP, but thanks anyway 🙂

Unfortunately I'm all too aware how low the bar is. I'm also unfortunately aware that the LA doesn't always act lawfully. As well as having my own two SEN DC I was the SEN school governor for 5+ years. Some of the things I've seen from the LA have been shocking.

The point I was making - which may not have been clear - was that if there are specific objections that the LA has to assessing, being able to demonstrate how they are incorrect can be an effective way of getting the decision changed rapidly.

I think it is helpful to know why they have refused. The approach you might take on appeal would be very different if they believe a child didn't have sufficient needs compared to whether they feel there hasn't been sufficient efforts to support the child.

In our case, the LA acknowledged that my DS was demonstrating a need but felt that with more support that could be provided as part of the regular SEN support (and therefore within the normal budget), my DS wouldn't need an EHCP. Their argument was that because certain strategies hadn't been tried, there was no evidence that he would still need an EHCP.

If you don't know why the LA has refused, it's much more difficult to argue effectively. There has to be a reason and it's completely reasonable to expect to be told what this is. The LA will refuse to assess if they believe that needs could be met with reasonable strategies from the school/nursery. It's really important to know if this is the reason.

Obviously they were very wrong in our case as DS is a teen now with very high needs but plus ca change. So many similar stories from SEN parents. Heartbreaking.

Sounds like you have a good case there @Crystallizedring - do the school reports mention strategies that have been tried and not made any difference? We found that's a particularly compelling piece of evidence. The LA really do like to see SEN children fail before they issue any EHCP - I was told that specifically by our ATS team. Terrible but very true.

However, I did just want to say that we now home educate. My two were in school up to the age of 10 (now 14) and I really regret struggling in school for so many years. Don't rule out home ed. You don't have to follow the national curriculum or do school-style education. There are many, many ways to educate a child and traditional classroom learning often doesn't suit an autistic child (speaking as an autistic woman myself).

Switching to home ed was quite literally life changing for us. I'm a great believer in schools but it wasn't the best place for my DC, they've blossomed overnight at home. We have a lively and active local home ed community and I'm part of our local SEN group of parents. Both has been brilliant for us.

I won't derail this thread but feel free to pm me if you want any more info on how it works for us.

It’s still a Labour council choosing to apply a policy to blanket refuse assessments. And then blanket refusing the support until they run out of road. Ultimately the money comes out, they’re just running down the clock. The Labour Party should be screaming from the roof tops about this but they aren’t. Labour councillors don’t care. Increased funding for EHCPs isn’t specifically planned in the manifesto aside from general school spending to be more inclusive- I actually would support more specialist schools or units as mainstream teachers don’t understand ASD/Dyslexia etc and often make it worse. This leads to extra spending on private schools as there’s insufficient suitable provision.

It’s a game and you just have to keep pushing ahead and get the clock ticking. They have no leg to stand on. I didn’t realise they did this and mistakenly gave up the first time.

My summer born suspected ND child has been deferred, and he’s not in nappies (only just out of them, mind) and is not non-verbal. It very much sounds like your son is just not at all ready for school. I really would consider deferring, if it’s not too late.

Chase the mediation team asap. Also has your GP referred him to paediatrics for an autism assessment? If not it might be worthwhile looking into charity funded assessments as they are often quicker than the NHS. Nursery or school can refer to these.

Also worthwhile looking into getting a solicitor with knowledge of SEND Law or contact SEND and you for legal advice. Check IPSEA guidelines too.

Write down everything daily too, anything you notice e.g. repetitive behaviours, meltdowns, lack of eye contact with certain people, food, sensory things etc. When I did my child's application I added daily notes to it of things that had happened.

Good luck amd sorry this is a bit bitty, trying to write everything I can think of before I go into a meeting.

By law LAs are required to complete EHCPs, if they accept they are needed, they must complete them within 20 weeks of the date the request was received. There are a few exceptions but they are very limited indeed. If your local authority is taking 92 weeks, parents should be encouraged to speed them up by threatening judicial review.
https://sossen.org.uk/about/jr-initiative-the-pap-project/

No advice im afraid. Just wanted to say I feel your pain, my brother went through this with his little boy and it was very upsetting and frustrating for 2 or 3 years. In the end he went to a special school, but not before a very long fight. Stay strong mum and dad x

They already did.

I am really sorry that you are in this situation, but I do think that the school needs to stop telling you it can't cope very well and put a plan in place to attempt to support your son so that he can access some education until an EHCP is finalised and you have more choice with appropriate schooling. They can see he struggled with coming in so he will need to be a lot better prepared in the coming weeks. They should arrange for him to visit after school when the building is quiet to get used to it and at least make you a booklet with photos that he can look at before he goes to the school in September to familiarise himself with what he will see there.
The school need to visit the Nursery to see what they do to met his needs and observe his current staff working with him. They also need to arrange for the appropriate SEND advisory service to come into school to look at his behaviour and offer support. An extra person will be needed to support him and they will need to use Local Higher needs funding to support this. It is simply not good enough for the Headteacher to tell your husband they won't be able to cope. Yes, he does need short sessions and a long transition period, but they need to put that into place for you and focus on exactly what that will look like for you rather than setting him up to fail and moaning about it. I would arrange an immediate meeting with the SENCO and his teacher to work out an appropriate plan for him. However bad it may look in the beginning, with positive attitudes and effort your son will get used to it. This needs to begin now and the school should be anticipating the issues and working to minimise them, not moaning about it.

Did they get official pre-action protocol letters sent? SOS SEN say that in cases like this those letters work in close to 100% of cases.

SEND teacher here.
First of all, sorry you are going through this. Hideous and unacceptable.
Many (if not all special schools) are beyond capacity. Extra children are sent to us on appeal and classes increase. Your LEA will be stalling you as their priority is children who have been out of school for a year or so. Your local special school may not have an actual reception class.
When I say classes increase in size, this is without additional adults in the room. Totally unsafe given the medical and behavioural needs involved.
When you get an EHCP, fight for additional specific funding. We have had tribunal judges promise funding at hearings, only for it to be withdrawn. The situation is dire.
Good luck OP and hugs too.

You don't have to go through mediation if you don't want to. I'd suggest that, if you are no further forward with fixing a date next week, you tell the mediation advisor to forget it and ask for a mediation certificate so you can proceed to appeal.

No idea but there was a court case and then more funding for extra staff for the backlog.

im not concerned as im not going to bother, i dont think it would make much difference to my daughter or what they will provide to her I’m sure there are people who need them more and for younger children.

This is 100% the norm up and down the country. Children with significant needs are in mainstream schools with very limited support. Parents (like me) have to battle hard to try to get their children into special schools. This takes years and years. As a result

1. teachers are struggling
2. other children are getting disrupted, and sometimes, hurt
3. Most importantly, these SEN children are not learning or happy. Often not even safe!

Its a travesty and it impacts every single child who attends a state school.

The school need to be spending a certain amount of money to support your son before it triggers a referral for an EHCP assessment. Just having SEN isn't enough to make a referral.

No they don’t.

the criteria for an EHCP needs assessment is -

1. whether the child or young person has or may havespecial educational needs (SEN); and
2. whether they may need special educational provisionto be made through an EHC plan.

if a child meets that criteria then the LA have to conduct the assessment to see if a plan is needed. Many local authorities may try to claim different but the actual requirements are very clear

This is well known to be a myth. The criteria are as set out by @Sirzy . See section 38 Children and Families Act 2014.

I think the problem is that you said it was happening with EHCPs with a named special school. I take it you mean EHCPs that say that the type of school required is a special school but don't name any school.

Who told you this? It’s not true. I realise you’re trying to help but it just muddies the waters.

The school provide the evidence for ehcp assessment .have they done this ?

He is only just having settling in days for the school, they won’t know him enough yet to provide any meaningful evidence. The OP has already said the nursery have been supporting the application.