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!

Just to add, all state schools have a sen budget and access to an Ed psych and speech and language therapist. Independent schools do not. This is why parents are expected to fund everything themselves and the therapists they suggest may not be adequately experienced.

I have 2 children who had ehc plans. It is really important to get support as early as possible - wait and see isn't really a good strategy at this point.

A good state school will have lots of support, not just a class TA. Sometimes what you need is flexibility, OT type interventions, playground assistants who focus on the more needy children, specialist equipment. My girls' school had an OT programme twice a week before school for children who needed help for example. It had youth workers for break times. An emotional support teacher with a room with sensory equipment.

The Equality Act means the school must make reasonable adjustments. That doesn’t mean they can’t charge for SEP that goes beyond that duty.

Not sure anyone is fit to assess that based on such a brief description. Op also doesn’t really seem to know the nature or purpose of therapy, so no one here can say whether it is appropriate or not, even a vastly experienced professional such as yourself 😉

The school pays the first £6000 of the EHCP. funding, whether state or private. Getting an EHCP should take 8-9 months without an appeal. There is currently no evidence of additional needs, so a panel would turn down a parental or school EHCP request unless additional evidence is available.

In our experience, if you want support as early as possible you have to go private- in our LA anyways, which is one of the ones facing bankruptcy due to send costs. Any sort of support is a wait of literally years. Great that your school isn’t facing such dire shortages, but the send crisis and funding gap is a matter of public record and it is distasteful to see so many posters claiming ‘all fine here’ about state schools within that larger context.

I looked into an independent school for my DC who is autistic. When looking at a specific one I did see that there are extra charges for children who require SEN support. I didn't apply as the fees alone were already to much of a stretch for me, so I don't have any actual experience of it but did read that there are extra charges for SEN support.

We've been told he has behaviour issues in school such as making silly noises in classes

Making silly noises is developmentally normal at age 4.

or pushing down other children's lego etc.

Normal play development. Is he hurting anyone?

He is probably sat out two / three times per week.

I find it sad that a young child is excluded from playing so often.

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.

4 year olds are often overexcited at parties and around other children.

He's behaving much better with grown ups. Teachers and we all agree his main problem is impulse control.

Anyone with knowledge of child development would know that impulse control develops later in childhood.

I don’t know the child, but I have my own child (now an adult) and I wouldn’t have sought therapy for this apparently perfectly normal behaviour.

@Octavia64 your statements about the support offered at state schools is completely incorrect. It is incredibly common in state primaries for individual children to receive support from speech therapists, educational psychologists, behavioural therapists, art therapists, occupational therapists etc etc. All within school time, at the school's expense, or the local authority's if the child has an ehcp. At the very bog standard primary I work in we have associate psychologists, training to be ed psychs (with close supervision), who have a full timetable working with children 1:1 or in small groups. As well as 2 speech therapists doing 3 full days a week of 1:1 speech programmes. As well as highly trained emotional literacy support assistants who work with children identified by school/parents as needing emotional support. All of which is, of course, free. In my opinion SEND children are very often much better catered for in mainstream state primaries than private schools, where the reasons for any 'misbehaviour' are often ignored. May be a different story in secondary.

Private schools often use out of date teaching methods. Most schools won't be sending any reception aged kids out of the classroom

I was suggesting that the OP looks for a suitable state school. My elder daughter attended a small, quite upmarket CoE school which had very few SEN resources. She was like a fish out of water there. So I looked at other schools and that is how I found the well resourced school. It was a huge community school with a much more mixed intake.

It prioritised sen support in a way in which the other school didn't.

Later, working in ehc parental support, I got to know which schools were good with sen support and which weren't. Rule of thumb, the bigger the more resources, the more mixed socially, the greater emphasis on sen.

The school pays the first £6000 of the EHCP. funding, whether state or private.

Ultimately, the duty to ensure the SEP detailed, specified and quantified in F is provided lies with the LA. EHCPs can be fully funded, but LAs won’t do that unless forced.

Getting an EHCP should take 8-9 months without an appeal.

If you don’t have to appeal, the legal timescale from EHCNA request to finalising is 20 weeks, not 8-9 months. Although there are a few limited exceptions to this timescale where it isn’t practicable for LAs to comply.

I didn’t comment on the likelihood of the OP getting an EHCP, with or without an appeal. I was commenting on incorrect information posted by another poster.

This all sounds a bit much in Reception. Some children, especially the younger ones and often boys, are less compliant and more prone to being "silly". My own DS was simply not ready or able to sit still and concentrate like some of the others and preferred to wander a bit and play with the tuff tray activities instead of sitting on the carpet for "input". His teacher recognised his developmental stage and left him to it a bit, making sure that she had 1:1 input time with him when he was receptive to it.

He's now KS2 and absolutely flying, has taken many positions of responsibility in school, has loads of friends, achieves well and loves learning. He simply wasn't "ready" for school as school is in the UK at Reception age.

As others have said, private schools have to juggle parental expectations to a greater degree and if other parents feel your ds is detracting from the experience of their own DC, then the school are going to put the responsibility and financial burden of sorting that out on you.

I would be careful not to pathologise what could be very developmentally normal behaviour, nor put pressure on a very small child to conform when he is not ready or able to as it could damage his relationship with school and learning for a long time. Being sent out of class (for what, with whom? How long? What does this achieve?) at this stage is a form of punishment and humiliation completely unsuitable for R aged children.

You could offer to pay for a TA to help manage his behaviour within the classroom but I'd be considering moving schools to somewhere a bit more accepting of normal developmental variance tbh.

They will be under pressure from parents to have all children behaving.

Maybe he’s better behaved at home either because he’s getting the attention from adults he craves or you intervene before a problem arises.

Why does he say he makes silly noises? Why does he break children’s models? Does he understand that it’s unkind and will upset the other child?

I know you’ve said he’s not the worst you’ve seen but you don’t see these children at school.

This is correct - state schools buy in speech and language therapy services, Educational Psychology services and specialist advisory teachers. It is paid for from the school budget. Some state schools have art therapists and nurture teachers, paid for from the school budget.

I wouldn’t have a problem with this in principle, but I would want some details. I’d want to know the hourly cost. I’d also want to know the name of the therapist, and their qualifications and credentials. And I’d want to meet them first. You don’t want to be paying £50 per hour for the maths teacher’s wife who did a 2 hour online module in child care to come and sit with your son.

The plan-do-review cycle takes about 8-9 months, although it can be shorter if there is significant medical evidence, such as for a physical disability such as cerebral palsy. The timescale from agreement to assess is statutory and is an additional 20 weeks.

I would be careful not to pathologise what could be very developmentally normal behaviour, nor put pressure on a very small child to conform when he is not ready or able to as it could damage his relationship with school and learning for a long time. Being sent out of class (for what, with whom? How long? What does this achieve?) at this stage is a form of punishment and humiliation completely unsuitable for R aged children.
You could offer to pay for a TA to help manage his behaviour within the classroom but I'd be considering moving schools to somewhere a bit more accepting of normal developmental variance tbh.

I agree entirely with this.

@Denimrules @PurelyPoppy Thank you for the kind words. I started to question myself of not being open minded or looking out for my dc enough after reading some responses. Your words made me forgive myself for a second for thinking dc wasn't that bad.

I didn't mean to deny that he might need extra support. But really it never occurred to me that he was disruptive to other children or behaved so badly that school was managing him out. I can get that children behave differently in and outside school. I can accept that a boy who behaves well in front of parents may need a bit discipline in school. But if you say the same boy behaves so badly in school that he's being sent out I'd be mad not questioning what's going on.

This really puzzles me. We do lots of playdates, birthday parties, afterschool clubs, etc. Every time I see him among other children I feel assured that his behaviour seems ok compared to peers if not better. I somtimes even feel a little proud of him not causing any trouble in what ended up a very chaotic situation. He often get praised by friends of ours for how easy to communicate with / how concentrate he is on his activities. And he has made quite a few friends in school who happily have playdates with him on weekends. If it wasn't the SENCO contacted us, I would think he's one of the better behaved ones in school. And now we are talking SEN.

And thanks for others' inputs too. I'll try to come back to comments / questions but I probably won't be able to reply to every response. But I did read all of them carefully and will definitely listen to all the useful advice. There is so much helpful information that I couldn't possibly imagine before posting this. Thank you.

I think we'll talk to the SENCO about more details of his behaviour and ask to speak with the therapist first. We have been talking but I guess I'm just not having enough detail to understand what exactly is happening to him in school. I have no concerns with using private services if that's a standard procedure. I didn't appreciate it was quite normal as where I came from private = more varied quality. If the school is indeed using this as a way of managing him out we'd be more than happy to look elsewhere.

The timescale from agreement to assess is statutory and is an additional 20 weeks.

This is not correct. The 20 weeks timescale starts from the initial request for an EHCNA. It does not start from the agreement to assess.

APDR cycles are not part of the legal test for an EHCNA or EHCP. They can be helpful and form part of the picture. However, despite what some LAs claim, 1/2/3+ APDR cycles are not a legal pre-requisite to an EHCNA or EHCP. It is a myth some LAs like to perpetuate.

Literally none of the primary schools near me have one tenth of what you describe and support isn’t generally available unless mandated via an EHCP (and even then not at all certain you will get what is in the plan).

I have found our indie teachers much much more tuned in to send and individual learning needs, and the kinds of support available much broader and readily available. some of the support costs extra and some is included.

the state primary we started in had 1 teacher and a part time ta for a class of 31, and largely relied on parent volunteers to keep things ticking. The sendco was shared between 3 schools, and only on site one day per week. They had intervention groups for students at risk of not passing SATs, but nothing for SEMH. It was an ‘outstanding’ school in a reasonably affluent / middle class community.

I must be wrong, then. My NASENCO tutors must be wrong. The Code of Practice must be wrong. Oh well.

“We do lots of playdates, birthday parties, afterschool clubs, etc. Every time I see him among other children I feel assured that his behaviour seems ok compared to peers if not better. I somtimes even feel a little proud of him not causing any trouble in what ended up a very chaotic situation. He often get praised by friends of ours for how easy to communicate with / how concentrate he is on his activities. And he has made quite a few friends in school who happily have playdates with him on weekends.”

Honestly, I wouldn’t worry. Good luck with whatever you decide, but he sounds like a happy little boy. My DC was quite ‘lively’ at that age but settled down in Y1 and is now 26 with no diagnoses whatsoever.

@Labraradabrador sounds like you were incredibly unlucky then. As part of my job I visit many other local schools, and with three kids in state primaries I've visited/heard a lot as a parent too. Whilst send support obviously varies I can't say I've heard of many at all that offer as little as you describe. You've obviously found an 'indie' school which suits your child, but similarly many would not have. My point was that it is more than possible to find excellent support for children with or without ehcps within the state school system. Not everyone will have the resources for private schools and they shouldn't be made to feel the only way their child will be catered for is in the private school system, as it's untrue. The vast majority of the teachers I work with, and who have taught my children have been very 'in tune' with the needs of the children they teach, and most are passionate about educating children from all backgrounds.

Sorry, but it isnt really possible to ‘find excellent support’ for send children in the state sector for many many parents. Hop on any of the send boards and the vast majority of us are not getting close to what we need in state. It is only when the comparison with private comes up that we hear about all of the amazing support that is hypothetically available in the state sector.

@Todaywasbetter @Labraradabrador

They mentioned speech therapy before, recently occupational therapy and also mentioned some "strategies" to help him. We have tried mood colour zone (green zone, yellow zone, etc) in school which seemed to work to some extent. The suggeted provider is a partner practice of the school which I guess have different types of professionals. From what was discussed last time, it sounded like someone would observe him in school first. I'm not sure about what would happen after that. Will need to speak with the therapist first.