She should be provided with an alternative education

[mychilddeservesaneducation]

(NC in case this is outing with links to previous posts).

DD is about to start year 10. Due to trauma relating to bullying, she's been refusing school for almost a year (she has panic attacks and can't cope with being in lessons / corridors / assembly halls etc). When this first started, we asked the school to consider allowing her to work in a small room or something but they refused. It's normal timetable or punishment for 'truancy' (even if she's in school they count it as 'internal truancy' if she doesn't turn up to a lesson, which happened frequently as she was hiding in the toilets crying as she was too scared to go in).

She's basically had no education since almost this time last year, except a few workbooks at home that we've bought. School won't set work if she's not in school, they won't offer small group teaching if she is in school and for the last term, we stopped sending her in as the stress and punishments were making her severe anxiety worse. Their line is she needs to be in school and in lessons and if she's not, it's an unauthorised absence. We've been threatened with court for her poor attendance.

We've had limited support from an attendance key-worker and have tried a phased return to school a few times but failed as she just panics. The GP hasn't been able to help much and CAHMS refused a referral request. We've paid for some private counselling but can't afford to continue.

After so long, should the school (or council?) not be offering an alternative education for her like online tutoring or pupil referral unit (not sure if this is appropriate to her needs)? The school will just not help at all. We cannot afford online schooling and DH and I have to work full time to pay the bills, so home Ed would be difficult too. I'm so stuck as to where to turn and any advice will be much appreciated.

My autistic child is at an autism school 10 miles away that I drive him too and get paid transport budget by the council so I’m one of the people on your post that’s helping my council go bankrupt. I would absolutely love him to be going to the local mainstream, I drive past kids his age walking on their own to school whereas I’m having to do a 20 mile round trip before even starting my commute to work. He is mainstream academic level and started off in mainstream, I’d have loved him still be to there now but it just didn’t work.

@mychilddeservesaneducation if you want some online lessons as a temporary measure, Oak Academy is free.

https://www.thenational.academy/pupils/years

What advice has the counsellor given so far? Has she discussed what she thinks the root of the problem is? Is it CBT based? I'd try and seek CBT rather than just standard counselling if possible.

"Threatening judicial review all over the place seems to have become the knee jerk reaction for almost everything. "

It is the only thing councils will listen to. Ds is 17, is severely autistic and has needs so complex he requires 3:1 professional support. Currently he is home with me providing all care and education and the LA are providing nothing. No school on his EHCP and no out of school provision. The LA won't communicate with us. Hopefully the imminent judicial review will do something.

Although the reality is that there are very few judicial reviews or even pre action letters sent. One LA complained that it was getting a "flood" of these when in fact it had zero of either that year.

Not schooling advice, but could you afford urgent EMDR therapy for her trauma?

Maybe the bullies should take responsibility in this case. If they hadn't been cunts, the little girl wouldn't be needing to find an alternative.

Threatening judicial review all over the place seems to have become the knee jerk reaction for almost everything.

It isn’t a knee jerk reaction. It is the process to enforce the child’s legal rights. Often LAs don’t take notice of parents until they threaten or then take enforcement action. Few actually get to JR proceedings themselves. LAs often concede before then because they know they are acting unlawfully. It is the course of action recommended by SOSSEN, a leading charity supporting parents with SEN matters.

Massively this. Why do mnetters now think every upset or worry is autism?!
OP's daughter was being bullied, its natural that yes this will have caused her to feel anxious. The way to sort this issue is stop the bullying. Ideally the school should be doing that but in this case they aren't, so surely the next step is to attempt to move schools, not try and secure an autism diagnosis, EHCP and Sertraline?!

But when they made it the case that a child has these legal rights, they didn’t foresee the explosive rise in parents enforcing them that frankly makes them unenforceable. The reasons for EHCP used to be serious disability, now emotional distress will do it. You’re breaking the system then complaining it’s broken.

that frankly makes them unenforceable.

No, it doesn’t. Enforcing provision is successful.

The reasons for EHCP used to be serious disability, now emotional distress will do it.

The legal threshold for an EHCNA and an EHCP has not changed. DC with SEMH needs (and BESD/EBD before the switch to SEMH) have always been able to qualify for an EHCP (and statement of SEN before that) if they meet the legal threshold.

Parents enforcing their DC’s rights are not at fault for the system being as it is anymore than women who have been raped who report it to the police are responsible for the low conviction rate in the broken system. (Not that those who don’t report are to blame either, my point was more about comparing reporting unlawfulness/illegal activities and trying to pursue justice.)

The number of students with an EHCP is teeny. Less than 5%. Yes numbers of EHCPs have increased but overall something like 4% of the school population had them 10 years ago and now it's 5%.

@endless has the exact figures I'm sure.

Schools do NOT have a deluge of students with EHCP.

The OP's daughter is not autistic, however, and does not need a special school. She needs another school to the one she is at, or an online school. My point is that the parents should be exhausting all the other options here before going in and threatening the Powers that Be.

4.8% of all pupils in England had an EHCP in 23/24 (at the time of the annual census anyway). To give historical context, this has increased from 3.7% in 20/21, 2.9% in 17/18 and 2.8% in 14/15 (when looking at EHCPs & Statements of SEN).

Transport isn’t limited to those with ASD &/or in a special school. Neither are EHCPs or section 19 provision, both of which can include online provision.

Less than 5% isn’t ‘teeny’. It’s slightly more than half a million children, or 1.5 in every classroom. How do we have enough severely disabled children to fill 1,000 schools? What is going on?

You don't need to be "severely disabled" to have an EHCP. They're for DC with educational or health needs outside the norm.

This might boggle your mind but I teach an academic subject that many people consider quite challenging and I have both GCSE and A-level students with EHCPs. And they will get good grades. As their needs are met.

Not perhaps that relevant to the subject of the thread, although the research on EBSA does show the majority of children in that position have un-met SEN needs.

What are the EHCPs for?

So 95% of children in average UK classrooms don't have educational or health needs outside the norm*. At least, according to the official statistics.

*It's probably higher than that as the small number of special schools tend to be accessed only with an EHCP that names them.

OP, just wondering, where is your daughter going during the day then if you're both at work? You say using online education's no good as she'd be home alone, but isn't she home alone mostly anyway, if she's been out of school for thr best part of a year?

EHCPs are Education, Health and Care Plans. They are legal documents that set out a child’s special educational needs as well as their social care and health care needs, the provision they reasonably require to meet those needs and the type of placement and name of placement they will attend (if they are to be registered at one).

It isn’t as simple as 1.5 pupils in every classroom have an EHCP. The picture is far more nuanced than that.

There are 25135 schools and colleges in England. 1850 of them do not have any pupils with EHCPs in the whole school.

9.1% of children and young people with EHCPs have EOTAS/EOTIS, are EHE, or are not registered at a school for another reason and 32.3% are in a SS.

In state mainstream primary schools, the percentage with EHCPs is 2.5%. In state mainstream secondary schools, the percentage with EHCPs is 2.4%.

@Blueybanditbingochilli I hope that you are not suggesting that there is anything wrong with children having their education and health needs met.

A lot of children with EHCP are autistic and the employment rate of autistic adults has been rather low historically. That is not a good thing for anyone, not least the taxpayer!

Are you seriously objecting to OP's local council being required to comply with the duties imposed on it by Parliament? Why should it be exempt?

Well, yes. But do you imagine that is all there is to it? She is traumatised and having panic attacks. If anyone thinks she will just trip merrily into another similar school with no further anxiety, they are deceiving themselves. You can't assume that OP has the funds for private therapy or that that on its own without extra support in and out of school will be enough; nor can you assume that a doctor will be willing to prescribe medication or that it will be effective.

You refer to councils being inadequately funded, which is of course true, but the answer to that does not lie in assuming that parents can pick up the bills for them, particularly given that it is frequently the case that one or both is unable to work due to their child's needs. You also have to look at the bigger picture: is it better that we invest in the education of children like OP's now so that ultimately they can achieve qualifications and become productive members of society, or should we ignore them and commit to the far greater expense involved in having them dependent on benefits or in the criminal justice system for the rest of their lives?

You really need to check your privilege. There are some breathtakingly airy assumptions here that people can just take time off work, that they all drive, that they can easily move, that they are not already working their socks off just to pay the bills and therefore can afford online schooling. Get realistic.

Bear in mind that elected governments have imposed duties on local authorities and schools that they simply are not complying with in OP's case. Why is it up to the parent who is already struggling with a traumatised child to do their jobs for them?

OP I hope you and your DD have been alright today. Hopefully the LA will get back to you early next week.