I had an EHCP review for my child at school recently. It was a somewhat bad-tempered affair unfortunately from both sides. At the very beginning, of the EHCP report there is a section for the child's views - specifically what the child thinks is working well, what they think is not working well, and what they would like to change.
When I read these first very short sentences they just didn't seem quite right. I said a couple of things about how the comments didn't seem quite right, and the Senco, obviously irritated, told me that it was right, that my child had written it with her TA, and the Senco got up from her seat, crossed the room, and came back with a document that was produced by my child with her TA and pushed it across the table at me. I didn't look at that document in the meeting, but read it last night.
It turns out that the comments in the EHCP document were identical to those my child had written, except with 3 differences.
Under "What is working well at school", my child had written "nothing (getting bullied)."
Under "Things I would like to change" my child wrote "The fact that I get bullied".
Under the section "What I find hard" my child wrote "Being Bullied".
None of these 3 statements about bullying made by my child to the school were recorded by the Senco in my child's EHCP report, yet all other statements made by my child in her document were transcribed.
I guess it's important to note that I would never normally have seen the full document that my child wrote - I only saw it because the Senco gave it to me bad temperedly to show that the statements in the EHCP were indeed made by my child - it was obviously never originally intended to form part of the meeting materials.
As it transpires, my child was being bullied, but she wasn't able to tell me who it was as it was boys 2 years older and she did not know their names. She told me she had told teachers. She had mentioned a few times around spring and early
summer. I did a "How to deal with bullies " workflow with her to defeat them with logic, but I couldn't really get to the root of whether it was serious bullying or just random slightly bad-tempered playground interactions, as my child can't explain past events very well and also simply did not know the names of the boys to enable her to report it properly. I feel guilty too as I was distracted as my Mum was dying in another country, and so I was flying back and forth alot dealing with that and there's no doubt that I wasn't on the ball.
Anyway, a chance event led to the discovery of the name of the lead boy bullying my daughter. Once I knew the name and description of the child bulling my daughter, I was able to talk to her to identify if it was the same child that had been bothering her for a while. It was. So it was not just one event, and it is clear that these boys were actively searching for my daughter, 2 years younger, in the playground to taunt her. My daughter is 9.
Once I was clear that the same boys were repeatedly doing this, I emailed school in mid-May to ask for a meeting. Deputy Head said he would call in a few days time as he was busy, but never did even after a week and a half. I collared him in the playground and he never even said sorry for not coming back to me. I said I wanted to talk about my daughter, and he INSTANTLY knew what it was about, and even said that these boys would taunt her given a chance. This tells me that school KNEW of this.
I'm a bit confused about how to go forward and I need to get some clearer thoughts. One of my first questions to you knowledgable people is this - are there any grounds or situations where is it right and proper that a Senco can ignore a SEN child's multiple comments about being bullied on the very form that they use to collect the child's input for the EHCP review, and deliberately omit them from the formal EHCP document? If they are omitted from the EHCP then obviously the parent will not see the comments, and the LEA won't see them either.
All thoughts appreciated. Thanks for reading.