To wonder where these kids are meant to go?!

[Wonderberry]

Unfortunately, my child's school is closing due to the VAT imposition on private school fees. She has special needs, and her fees are paid for by her EHCP, as it is a cheaper alternative to a special school. I am not rich. She cannot attend a state mainstream due to her special needs, and the council agrees with this.

I now have no school placement for her. The special schools are hugely oversubscribed (over 10 applications per place). Even if she could go to a state mainstream, there is no space in any of them, due to lots of schools closing locally. I have called dozens of them in desperation, as I need for her to go somewhere.

I have been frantically contacting the council to get her a new school place. They won't even respond. I'm faced with her being without any school place shortly. I cannot home school as I need to work.

My DD is far from alone in this. Unfortunately, the government has paid no thought into the wellbeing of SEND children, when imposing the VAT.

It is sad. As the poster you responded to said the schools that have closed may have been closed to it but the drop in applications is significant. Two if the hugely oversubscribed private schools in Edinburgh are still advertising junior school places in March which is unheard of as there is always a waiting list.

There are increasing numbers of children locally to us who have their EHCP stating that they need special school, but then conversely saying there aren't any places. They are then naming mainstream schools whilst they wait . The children are then spending ages in mainstream whilst the parents go to tribunal which takes 1/2 years.

Are there other pupils with similar needs at the school closing down? LEA could buy a portacabin and set up a unit in existing school. As it is primary you are talking about teacher and Ta maybe. A small group could be different ages.

This is pretty much what's happening in many local schools. Not one has a teacher in them though-it's all TAs.

@TesterP0t for some DC, challenging behaviour is part of their SEN. No child gets an EHCP naming an independent school if it isn’t required to meet their SEN. They don’t get that just because they/their parents would prefer it.

@cestlavielife for lots of DC, a portacabin in the grounds of a state mainstream wouldn’t work. Most LAs already have units/ARPs/ERB/cabins (whatever they wish to call them) and these will have been ruled out before the LA funded an independent school. If the LA is funding the independent school, the parents will have demonstrated the LA’s proposed provisions are unable to meet DC’s needs &/or it isn’t unreasonable public expenditure.

Portababins can be a sensory nightmare for some DC, too. Then you have the fact it is still part of a busy state mainstream school and all that entails.

Of course that can work. Hoards of schools are managing challenging behaviour .You look at best
practice and how to make it work!

Sounds as if that’s going to be the way going forward and rightly so .

Actually they AREN'T working hence number of school refusers etc. Mainstream schools do not enable all children to flourish.

It can work for some. It doesn’t and can’t work for all. Otherwise there would be no-one successfully appealing BFI at SENDIST where LAs want to place in a MS with an ARP and the parent is appealing for a different placement. And more LAs would be trying to place DC in MS with ARPs rather than more expensive placements. I have 2 DC for who it could never work for.

Best practice doesn’t solve the elements of an unsuitable environment that can’t be overcome.

If she was at a “mainstream” private school so not a special needs school they would have every reason to try her at a mainstream state school with support. Most dc with additional needs attend mainstream schools. This is far more likely than a specific special school at first. The most important thing is to get her settled and that could be in a variety of settings

If state MS could meet the needs of the DC, a wholly independent school wouldn’t be named in section I of the EHCP.

Well fortunately for my DS, a number of professionals agreed, after meeting him and carrying out various assessments, that his behaviour was in fact due to his SEN and that this school was the closest one that could meet his needs.

As lots of state schools are closing locally it suggests the problem is demographic.

I’m truly sorry about his situation but from a logic perspective , don’t you think the answer is to actually fund more state schools and not fill the pockets of private schools ? Anyone who had a child with special needs has been in a situation where school may not fit them , you will probably need to home ed for a while , work from home or change your job . As hard as it is it’s far from uncommon. I’ve had to do the same as countless other sen parents so I would start preparing for that as finding a suitable place is hard , finding a suitable placement and it’s short notice is like a needle in hay . Tons of luck your way

You’ve spectacularly missed the point. You know that now, don’t you?

I agree that’s the solution. But the legal duty to provide an education is an instant and pressing one whereas the forward planning and budgeting it would take to build a school for “kids like this” 🙄
takes years. So the LA are compelled (rightly so) at tribunal to provide the provisions in section F and if that says low class size/low arousal environment and the only place that can provide that is independent then they have to pay for it.

@TesterP0t god you sound chippy and resentful
state schools aren’t working best practise is non existent in a lot and now this spiteful policy is being debated in the high court so some people think the same
as a side note how they got those briefs to argue it I have no idea since their alumni was pretty spectacular

Go through social services, they will answer to social services but not you. I’ve had that issue where a place tells me they can’t accept me but if social services do it all of a sudden they can.

I can tell you exactly how.

You pick the school you want, and work out what it does that no other does - small class sizes, access to other courses apart from GCSE, in-house therapies/facilities etc and then get your evidence (ed psych/OT etc) to state that the child must have this, and then get the school to offer a place. Then push for this setting and no other, at tribunal.
Job done.

Any professional who is well regarded by SENDIST, which is what you want for Tribunal, wouldn’t state a child or young person reasonably required particular SEP just because the parents asked them to include it in the report. They wouldn’t risk their reputation with SENDIST by writing a medico-legal standard report that they could not justify.

Sorry to hear this. Madness for the gov to want councils to pick up the cost.

They are struggling already. That’s VAT policy for you.

And if the fees were already paid you’ll be up against others now in state when parents paid previously.

You need to ask forcan emergency review of her ehc plan. You must have a case worker at the LA even if you don't currently know who this is. Contact them and ask for a review.

It needs to stop. Sounds as if they’re going to crack down on it.

This!

OP does not have to EHE and the provision the LA makes cannot rely on parents to deliver or facilitate it by giving up work/working from home/changing jobs.

Ahhh, the same kind of professionals that diagnose your kids with asd/adhd if you happen to have paid them privately to assess 🙄

It's weird how no one ever reports these unscrupulous professionals though isn't it.

The problem is that the resources needed to fund a sen school are huge and it can make more sense to outsource certain provision. Primary kids can only travel so far to school and it can be cheaper to go to a local private school than to get a taxi to the other end of the country.

Having said that, most primary schools can meet most sen needs. It is at secondary level that the problems really kick in as the curriculum at mainstream secondary is inaccessible to many young people with sen.

If her EHCP states independent school with small class sizes then the La legally have to provide that.

unless you live in the middle of nowhere they’ll be other independent schools around.

where I live 4 shut between 2019 and 2023 - they went elsewhere.

There’s still 6 within a 10 miles radius!