SEND - children’s needs to be reassessed from year 6 2029?

[missbish]

Are they taking the piss? After the struggles parents have trying to secure support for their child, they’re then going to threaten to take it away once they’re due to go to secondary? Ds goes to secondary this year so I don’t think it will effect him but I am so angry for those it does effect.

My dc needed more support in secondary school, not less. I know there is no money but I've got a child in year 7 with the emotional development of a toddler. He's in mainstream secondary school and needs his ehcp to keep him safe. It's so scary, he's already getting the bare minimum of support.

Christ.

Children don’t “want” spinny chairs. They “need” proprioceptive input. Look it up.

The ignorance is almost astounding. Almost.

I think this is the problem. On their own, each child may need 'small things' but when you put a class of 30, with perhaps 10 children needing 'small things', but they all conflict. Impossible.

I don't know how DD2's primary school did it. They would take her out of assembly and give her a pre-teach of that day's maths content. The SENCO was her teacher and she scaffolded her written work (she had become mentally paralysed and couldn't write anything), gradually building the amount DD2 could write Vs the teacher's input, using white boards, stop watches, etc. I think she was lucky that not many children needed that level of support at that time. Now, teachers say that so many children need support, yet the Government are taking away the support by stealth.

Sounds like he should be in a sen school. How was it possible for him to stay in a mainstream if you don’t mind me asking ?

Why do people often say ND kids coped better in the 90s then before such items existed?

Because they’re wrong, really.

"There are children getting equine therapy on eotas packages."

And I have seen nothing in the proposals that says that will change. Children with EOTAS always have complex needs because otherwise they will have been given a school place.

If I had my time again I would not send my child into mainstream. Extra units with multiple needs in one room does not sound like it will work. Extra staff training, I would like to know what that entails. It is 50/50 depending if you get the teacher that tries to understand or the one who is too busy. I am concerned that the ehcp is about to change for everything we fought for. That I rewrote myself because the senco in the new secondary school changed one paragraph despite multiple requests from the la and an annual review. For a lot of children with Sen this is about the effect on mental health. I hope the staff will be trained in that also. I think many Sen parents have a lack of trust as we shouldn’t have to fight to have an education and needs met.

the country simply cannot afford this many SEN children and instead of the govt being honest its doing exactly what it tried to do over PIP and say that they are going to toughen up the requirements. why did you honestly think it was going to be otherwise? I cannot for the life of me understand how in the space of a couple of generations we have gone from the numbers of special needs when I was younger to the explosion of it that we have today. what is the real issue here and why is no one getting to grips with that? every forum I am on, people suggesting that they have this that or the other disorder. why are people so desperate to label themselves and their children when there is no real hope of a resolution to it other than making life a lot harder and more miserable down the line.

If DLA is used to pay for therapies, then can I claim back the £30k I spent on independent pediatrics, Ed Psych, OT and SALT that should have been provided by the NHS and/or LA? I receive about £290 a month for DS (middle rate DLA) so it will take another 9 years to break even (assuming DS doesn't need any other therapy or equipment before then - unlikely given his needs). Or does the subsidising only work one way?

FWIW I am the parent of an autistic/ADHD child who goes to an independent specialist at a cost of about £100k pa and has the additional flipping cheek to get LA-funded transport there and back. All I need is a bit of equine therapy and that's a full bingo card, I think?

Happy to talk about it. I wanted him to go to sen school but the LA wouldn't budge. The mainstream secondary school said he should be in a sen school and that they couldn't meet his needs but the LA named the mainstream school on his ehcp anyway and didn't even tell the mainstream school they had been named on the ehcp. To be fair to the school, the staff have been amazing with him but he needs constant supervision. My older son is struggling too because other people in his year make fun of him for being my youngest child's older brother. My older son is very protective of his little brother but it's not easy for him.

Yep. That's it.

People are just desperate for their child to be disabled. 🙄

The explosion is down to the internet. People have always had these conditions, there was just no way to look things up before or talk to anyone else about it. People were locked up not that long ago ! As a society we’ve become much more aware and able to research things like never before.

Did you appeal?

Why wouldn’t they, it’s a walk in the park.

I don’t know about you, but we are positively dancing (crawling) through life!

Yep.

It's so fun staying up all night worried sick about your child's education. Who wouldn't want that? Living the good life!

Of COURSE there are a core of truly disabled children who need and deserve support (including yours, if I can add that; I’ve seen your other posts).

But part of my job used to involve reading EHCPs and truly, there are a number of parents frankly mithering for diagnoses while neglecting the most basic parenting functions. I’ve seen parents let their child lie in bed all day eating crisps and watching TV because ‘they’ll have a meltdown if I make them get up, so they must be autistic’. They’ve had social workers to the house to engage with the child and it’s blatantly obvious these parents don’t want to put up the slightest bit of resistance to their child, have created a monster and now want it to be rebranded ‘SEN’. By this point you have an 8 year old who has been pandered to their entire life and yes will throw a huge tantrum if told what to do. It’s all then branded ‘SEMH’ and ‘sensory needs’ and after a protracted ‘battle’ involving cherry picked ‘expert reports’, they then land their taxi and special school place.

I’m sorry that sounds so Daily Mail, I didn’t actually believe it myself until I encountered it at which point it was undeniable. All my colleagues felt similarly.

Meanwhile, yes, children actually in need of these places miss out because they’re filled to the rafters with children like the aforementioned one.

I’m not surprised it’s those types they’re looking to remove legal obligations from, what else is there?

Sorry but that’s rubbish. The last ‘asylums’ closed in the early 80s, all this ‘they were locked away’ stuff is just a myth.

Because ‘normal life’ is increasingly hard, relentless and unrewarding. And the playing field isn’t level and never has been, and never will be.

It might not be able to afford but if more children are being born with autism and other disabilities then they need help.

Agreed. There’s people in all kinds of jobs with neurodiversity, anxiety or depression, from the very highest echelons to the lowest. It isn’t something that should be monetised.

EHCPs are not based on diagnosis.

If their child already has an EHCP and special school and essentially got what you deem they wanted, why would they continue to be 'mithering' for a diagnosis?

Also from what I can tell, if a child is in special school they will be less likely to lose their EHCP? My son is in mainstream and it says that the vast majority of children with EHCP's in mainstream will lose them.

Yes, I have OCD, depression, type 1 diabetes and am likely ADHD (won’t be assessed as no point, but have been encouraged to by others), my colleagues have an array of diagnoses themselves, we all just cobble along supporting each other and doing our best. Most people have something that isn’t trivial.

No. I asked the autism specialist teacher if I should but she said there was no way he would qualify for a place at sen school, she laughed at me actually.