To ask what to ask in a first meeting with Senco?

[Spareincoming]

Long story short, my dear friend has very recently lost her husband and has asked me to accompany her to her first meeting with her DC’s SENCO as she feels she isn’t ready to go it alone.

I have of course agreed to go with her but my own experiences are predominantly with the Scottish school system, rather than the English, which is were she is.

Her DS is in year 1 (p2 equivalent?) and both she and school suspect he has strong traits of ADHD.

I asked her if she has anything she wants to ask specifically and she crumbled about how this is going to affect her DS long term and struggled to focus on the initial meeting - which is very understandable given the families current circumstances.

A local facebook dive implies the Senco in this academy trust isn’t the most effective at communicating with parents, but not a lot else, which I’m taking as a positive.

So, what should we be asking?

Thanks lovelies!

Who called the meeting?

What's the meeting purpose?
Is it to try and get an EHCP in place or just a review?

Really your friend needs to know what the school are going to do to help. Maybe she should ask ‘what can we all do to help DS?’

She needs to ask what the purpose is of the meeting so that the school and home are working towards the same outcomes. As another poster says do you know if her ds has an EHCP? Or do they want to 'gather evidence' for the assessment for one? This is called an EHCNA in England.
Perhaps the best support is to help her remember what has been said and then help her follow up with an email about what has been discussed. Make sure the meeting is minuted. If the senco wants to discuss his behaviour etc, what's the current plan and are they looking to change it. There is a system the senco should be following - our local authority call it 'assess, plan, do, review' which is supposed to underpin everything the school does for any child with any SEN even if not EHCP level.
Sounds like she needs to be able to know what they want to discuss and why... an annual review meeting for a child with an EHCP for example is different from an internal meeting to discuss a child's individual learning plan. Most of all. If there's anything she doesn't understand make sure she asks what it means.

I've been through this and it was a really tough experience. I too had a SENCO covering a few schools who was incredibly unsuited and incompetent. You usually need to get the Head involved.

The first thing for her to say is ' I believe strongly my child has ADHD. What are your thoughts/ observations?'

When you ask a school, they will very very often downplay it, make out there's no problem or blame parents. I can't stress how common this is. It's important to be strong and assertive here.

2 main things here that you could focus on after this are :

1. School to submit request for ADHD assessment via Local Authority provider

A request for an ADHD assessment is needed. You can ask the SENCO how the school are willing to support this and that you / friend request they do this. You ask, will they ensure the class teacher completes the relevant paperwork providing evidence to support the assessment request?
You ask the SENCO to initiate this request for the child and confirm they will do that at the end of the meeting.

The SENCO may say there are no problems in school. Sometimes kids hide/ mask behaviour in school. If mum suspects ADHD, I always believe that to be truth. SENCOs can lie or have no clue and there really will be struggles for the child. They are likely to minimise this, be prepared.

1. Tangible support in school/ SEN plan

The other thing is to ask school to outline what support they do already and will provide. This would look like a SEN plan. Even a piece of paper with some commitments would be a start. It's where the school specify the help and support.

Things could include this;

Allow a silent fidget gadget in class ( loads on the internet like squidgy balls, keyrings etc)
School to provide a wobble cushion to trial in class ( really helpful for alot of kids who can't focus)
Allow opportunities for exercise/ to leave class when overwhelmed
Provision of a separate sensory/ quiet space for calm when overwhelmed
Provision of additional support via TA

The above is quite generalised but it's a start.

What will happen is the school/ SENCO will try to minimise things, they will probably suggest the mum or environmental factors are the cause and will use any opportunity to tag that as the problem. They do this almost pathologically in many cases so please be prepared to counter this.

Resources are tight, staff are overstretched. Parents and pupils get gaslit into the stratospheric as a result. Be strong and encourage her to be strong.

Definitely do not base the opinion of the child having ADHD on the SENCO. They often know next to nothing and are juggling too much to fulfil this role adequately.

Thank you for the swift replies.
As far as I understand, the meeting was called by the SENCO after the class teacher and my friend had a discussion at parents evening earlier this year and the teacher then approached the Senco.

My friend has told me she signed a letter from school about putting her DS on the school SEN register, but there has been no other communications - I now know she missed or cancelled the original meeting due to being days after the bereavement.

Ok, so this may be about the 'next steps'
You should know that a child/young person doesn't have to have a diagnosis to request an assessment, the wording is something like MAY have additional difficulties.
Senco may suggest mum makes a GP appointment or that they call in an educational psychologist. As another poster has said, budgets are tight, waiting lists are long, Get your friend to ask what the plans are NOW, again as has been said fiddle toys, movement breaks etc should all be part of normal planning to enable her ds to be successful in school. As he's relatively young, the sooner basic things are put in place, the sooner they start the assessment cycle in case he needs further assistance as he gets older. Do not let them fob your friend of with they need 2 terms of evidence, she can start the assessment process with her local authority herself. Given that there's been a significant bereavement, the school may be looking at putting other interventions in place and will need mum to sign that she agrees (as an example local authorities sometimes have a small pot of funding that schools can apply for to fund play therapy sessions etc but they need parental written consent to share information)

That's positive in a way. I'd expect then that behaviour is obvious in some respects for SENCO to initiate.

They say a diagnosis isn't needed to implement support. This is true. But at some point, it's essential. Even with 3 ND conditions diagnosed there are problems now with school trying to suggest very obviously ND behaviour is ' naughtiness'. For example fidgeting. It really is important down the line as things get harder with school.

The 2 outcomes to walk out of meeting with are the agreement they'll apply for an ADHD assessment and agreement they're going to draw up a SEN plan for mum,staff and everyone in school to be aware of the support interventions. ( Those supports I listed for example).

Any pastoral support would be really helpful now too. An opportunity to just sit out and have 1 to 1 time once a week with a kind supportive TA or staff member. That should be referenced in the SEN plan.

They started music therapy in my child's primary which was great. He loved it and it was an escape from the difficult task of getting through a school day as well as helping process outside stressors in their life.

Take a notebook, write notes down, even bullet points.

I would type up the conversation and email agreed actions to the school every meeting I had. Yes they all hate me but if you don't do it your kid gets left behind to suffer atm.

What a lovely friend you are 🙏

Endure everything they offer us written up and circulated to all attendees and relevant agencies

so many meetings occur and they say they will do x y z and they don’t.

Everything needs to be minuted and times scales added so things might actually get actioned or more likely - you have evidence to complain when they are not.

Sorry to be so cynical but years of sen experience and the system is utterly broken.

unless you fight and document everything - nothing gets done.

some general advice re. Sen - don’t rely on anyone else to do that which you can do yourself. Every area is different but if you can self refer - do so. School have hundreds of kids needing referrals and help - your (in this case your friend’s) kid is one of many in a pile of the senco’s ‘to do’ and many others may be more urgent… the more you can do yourself the more you know it’s actually been done and the quicker you will get things in place.

I’d want to know these things:

Now that student is in SEN REG, what is the assessment process?

3 strengths the student shows
3 key difficulties student has now
3 ways teacher is adapting teaching
3 supports strategies from school other than adaptive teaching (used to be differentiation) - in class TA, TA withdrawal 1-1 or small group, outside agencies
3 actions needed from SENCO-, ADHD assessment referral, EHCP applications and IEP or Passport profile.

3 things family can do to support - show wiling

arrange another meeting in last week of term or first week of sept for review.

I take a laptop and type it up and email back to them but that might not engender positive relations! Who knows!? Set timescale for every thing.

@Lightuptheroom SENCOs are not qualified to give diagnoses on ND conditions - I would never have suggested to a parent that their child might have ADHD or ASD for example. Part of a SENCOs role is to consider the behaviours a child exhibits and refer to the appropriate agencies. In my LA it would be a referral to the paediatrician or SALT.

@soontobe60 not sure where I've said Sencos diagnose anything? It's typical for a parent to be told that a school needs to gather 2 terms of evidence before applying for an EHCNA. I havent said Sencos do the diagnosing?

Apologies, I misread a post that wasn’t even yours!!

Lol no problem x

Thank you very much everyone, you’ve all been so helpful!

The meeting is tomorrow afternoon, I’ll be driving down in the morning.
I’ve made some notes and we’ll see how things go!