Is it normal school asking us to pay for additional support?

[OnlyOneBike]

Son is nearly 5 years old and in reception of an independent school. We've been told he has behaviour issues in school such as making silly noises in classes or pushing down other children's lego etc. He is probably sat out two / three times per week. We've observed him playing in groups (birthday parties, clubs, etc). He's definitely the less destructive type but can become overexcited quite easily and do silly things especially among children. He's behaving much better with grown ups. Teachers and we all agree his main problem is impulse control.

We regularly talk to his teachers to make sure we can reflect with him any incidents in school. Now is the confusing bit. One of his form teachers (they have two because of job sharing) who is also school SENCO thinks he needs additional support and has asked us many times to consider additional support from a named therapist at an additional cost. The other form teacher seems to be ok with the current situation and is always quiet when we talked about additional support.

We are not against having more support if that's needed but we feel very unsure. For one, the cost really puts us off. For two, we don't know anything about this named therapist and don't feel very comfortable for our son to have to meet them regularly without us.

We asked the school SENCO if our son needs a diagnosis or can we go through the standard council process and request someone whose qualification is more visible like doctor from NHS to help us (EHC or something I think it's called?). But they said it was nothing like that and he didn't need a diagnosis.

Please can experienced parents share their thoughts on this? Does this sound the right approach? Should we accept what the SENCO proposed? Should we talk to the headmaster? We are definitely willing to work with the school and support our child as needed. But we have zero experience. Nor do our family or freinds. Desperately need some independent opinions. Thanks in advance!

This is so normal. I wouldn't worry at all. In my experience, private schools are a lot quicker to address even small things and to recommend early support. For this kind of referral, and given the way you describe your child, it sounds like they are suggesting some small things that will improve the way he comes across and manages in the classroom. Let them do their job, it will be fine.

You don't need an Ed psych or psychologist referral for this - they are not thinking adhd or asd. This is not at that level.

My dd was state school educated, but her Primary school saw behaviour we never saw at home. They’d often ask me what we did at home when we saw X and I’d say we never saw X.
I’m not doubting they saw the behaviour but I’m not sure now if it wasn’t really a sign that it was the wrong school for her, especially as everything improve massively in Secondary.
Private schools can be loathe up to a point to loose a pupil, but also can be quite brutal and fast about losing one they can’t cope with. I got my DD a diagnosis partly so her state school couldn’t pre-emptively get rid of her.

Before retirement I was a specialist teacher, employed by the local council, for children with hearing impairments. One child I had worked with weekly since he was a few weeks old went to an independent school aged 4. I was told by my line manager that I was no longer allowed to support him as the school wasn’t a Local Authority school. The school he attended told his parents that any additional support he required - LSA time, teacher training, support materials, assistive listening devices etc. would be at additional cost. They went ahead anyway as they could afford the extras and I made support visits and did teacher training for the staff despite being told not to. I couldn’t abandon this little boy, who I’d known since he was a baby, so I went in my own time and built up a good relationship with the staff.

A SENCO can decide if a child has SEN. That isn’t dependent on diagnosis but based on needs. For some DC with SEN, the SENCO will be able to judge what support a pupil requires. Best practice is to involve the parents in this process. For other DC with SEN, support from outside agencies (specialist teaching service - although many don’t work with independent schools, ed psych, OT, SALT, CAMHS, etc.) will be needed in order to know how to best support the child. So some DC will need the input of a psychologist of one kind of another, but some won’t.

If you don’t want particular support the school is suggesting you pay for, they can’t force it on you.

Some diagnostic assessments involve a psychologist &/or a child and adolescent psychiatrist.

It isn’t uncommon for DC to present differently in different settings.

Perfectly normal (I work in an independent prep school). Your fees are covering all the ‘normal’ things, if your child needs additional support then yes, it would be charged for. Things like this should be detailed in your parent contract

So whether you’re in private independent or state school, Sen issues can be referred to the nhs services for assessment rather than having to pay privately. Your school ideally or your GP should be able to refer you to cahms or CYPS where you can request a neurodevelopmental assessment. Getting accepted into this pathway can take time though and requires a lot of evidence to support needing an assessment so ideally school should make the referral and include any evidence of observations and interventions they have tried. Neurodevelopmental pathway would be for ASD or adhd assessments. You could also speak to your Health visitor or nhs school nursing service. Health visitors usually cut off age 5 and hand over to school nursing team. Someone should be able to put you in contact at either school or your GP centre. Your local authority should also have something known as their ‘local offer’ where they list all the services open to families around send. School nursing can put you in touch with Speech and Language or OT services for example. Or they could also support a referral to cahms/cyps.

If at some point you fell your child does have sen and requires additional support beyond that of his peers then you can request an educational health needs assessment - this is the start of the process for an educational health care plan. This is what children can be given when needs are beyond the normal school send offer and budget and comes with different tiers of funding. Being in an independent school might make this process harder but shouldn’t prevent it happening. Ideally school would apply for the assessment and would send in evidence of support and interventions tried. Someone above suggests 2 years of interventions need to have been tried but this is not true. Just plenty of evidence of what has been tried. Again, each your LA’s ‘local offer’ where there should be more information

5 can be a tricky age as it’s hard to say if things are developmental or immaturity.

This.

Very very normal in independent schools to oay for additional support. I did, until we got my son his EHCP. That covers the cost now, but was very hard to get. We're lucky the school have been so supportive with him.

At one point I think we were paying more than £80pw for extra support (SALT and OT). If you can afford it, I'd pay it tbh. It had helped my son enormously.

He’s in an independent school, so of course you will need to, like parents whose children have music lessons!

Have you had his hearing and sight tested?

State schools do offer more. My son currently has play therapy from an external organisation at school. He’s not got an ehcp but was identified as needing a bit more support.

I had a green tea today

Interesting thread. My child was referred to speech therapy through nursery and then to a developmental paediatrician through the school senco (state school.) There's a waiting list as it's NHS.
In the meantime the school put an IEP in place, my understanding is that it's not as serious as an EHCP but just the school's own personal plan for how to support specific needs and some of it was based on recommendations from the speech therapy. My child doesn't meet the criteria for a funded 1:1 or anything like that but benefits from little things noted in the IEP that the school can put into practice.

In your shoes I'd pay for someone to observe your child in a classroom setting and then advise if they think you should seek any sort of diagnosis. I don't really get how the school can ask you to pay for extra support and also declare that your child doesn't need to be assessed for anything.

Just to offer a different perspective, DS was in a private pre-prep/nursery from age 2. The school SENCO applied for EHCP which was granted at age 3, and then the LA paid for a 1:1 until the end of Y1 at the prep, when the school decided it couldn’t meet need.

I understand that anything in the EHCP will be LA-funded even if it’s a private school. It doesn’t sound as though you would meet the EHCP criteria right now, but might be useful to know the above if things change.

We have a couple of children in our school that are the same (not bad children but distractable and prone to acting up - being reviewed privately for autism and/or adhd) and the school have required the parents to pay for a full time TA for them. It makes sense because the other parents in the school wouldn’t be pleased if their child wasn’t getting attention because of the teacher having to sit with the disruptive child. It’s expensive though. £25k school fees plus £25k on top for private TA. They have done it (had no choice really or leave the school) and are hoping that when the children matures a little their behaviour will improve.

Have they suggested that this one named therapist offers both speech therapy and occupational therapy? If so, that is strange because they are two different professions and I doubt there are many people trained in both.

It is normal to pay for extras in independent schools, but I would expect any therapist to be appropriately qualified, experienced and registered. Go to the HCPC website and put their name in. The term "therapist" is not regulated and anyone can use it for any reason.

Or d) you pay privately for input. Choosing a state school doesn’t preclude you from paying a private health or therapeutic professional.

We paid extra for help. It in no way helped other than it kept the children in the school.

Normal to have to pay at a private school

Had a similar experience in first term so removed my child. Has excellent support now at a state school.

Pretty normal to be asked to pay in a private school.

If it's speech/OT therapists they are wanting you to fund, I'd want to look at their qualifications.

We asked the school SENCO if our son needs a diagnosis or can we go through the standard council process and request someone whose qualification is more visible like doctor from NHS to help us (EHC or something I think it's called?).

What did you ask the SENCO if your child needed a diagnosis for?

If you want to go through the LEA to request an EHC assessment, you can, but that would be for a very small number of pupils with high levels of SEN. That has nothing to do with the NHS/paediatricians or getting any kind of diagnosis though, it's about what level of support is needed.

Yes it is normal to pay for any additional support needed. However your son is only five and I feel is too young to be labelled; it's not at all unusual for some kids to be like him at his age and they outgrow it. I'm sure he isn't the only one. He may need a bit more stimulation, who knows. I've come across that behaviour in some young children but when they find something that really interests them, they become quite engrossed and sensible. Calming down is part of growing up anyway, he's only five. What does he like doing at home?

Definitely normal. We pay extra for additional support same as we do for instrument lessons etc.
I would also echo others posters mentioning that refusing the support offered to your dc puts their place at risk. They can say in the future that your child is disruptive and that you have chosen not to take up support offered. Therefore leaving them no option but to reconsider the place.
Also take the advice and just use the therapist!

I don't know if this was some time ago, but SEN in State Schools is on life support these days.

Without an EHCP you are very unlikely to get any help at all beyond exam access arrangements.

'Legally' means nothing - if there is one pot of money and huge demand, it goes to those most in danger of failing everything.

And getting an EHCP is years of slog and half the time not worth the paper it's written on.

If he’s being so badly behaved he’s being sent out, it does sound like he’s in need of extra support. They do give the reception/y1 kids a lot of leeway. If he’s being sent out sounds like it’s got bad and he may benefit from the help.

So sorry I meant to reply to someone else