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.

How do you think our kids get the help they need, before they get an EHCP?

I taught for 5 years, I didn’t only help children with an IEP (as they were then). There were (and still are) children without a statement of need or any funding, who were still lower attaining and needed support. Differentiating for, a member of staff available to support their learning, small group work etc etc.

If your children require support than they’re not getting, it’s the school’s responsibility to meet that need - or at least attempt to through targeted interventions etc.

If they’re not doing that, take it up with them.

The easiest comparison is old age pensions. When they were introduced, you got your pension at 65, and life expectancy was only 68. The law introducing them was based on people only actually receiving them for a few years at the end of their lives.

As life expectancy has increased, we cannot afford to provide state pensions at 65 any more. So we have reduced entitlement to only people older than this, and more in need. If you want to retire earlier you can, but you must fund it yourself.

We can no longer afford the additional costs of non standard education because the pool of "eligible" children with SEN has grown too much. So now we must restrict who qualifies to prioritise those with the most severe needs.

I agree. The numbers are vast. They truly think people will just pay more taxes to enable this to continue indefinitely.

With relief and regret it looks like the govt have done the only thing they can do; which is dramatically reduce the number of children whose provision is legally mandated.

Nobody wanted to reach this point but there is no alternative.

Our youngster’s secondary has a “SEN hub” - it’s a fairly new build school and was purpose built.

Works well. Great SENCo leader, provision for pupils who can use it as little or as much as they require. Progress in getting school refusers in on a part time basis, with aim to be full time. And a mainstream school just there if it becomes possible for the pupil to move across.

Is it perfect? Obviously not. But it helps.

Nice deflection. That's not what you said is it. You said courts are awarding eotas packages based on what parents want, rather than evidenced needs. Are you back tracking now and acknowledging this is completely untrue and fabricated?

That’s why EHCPs are reviewed annually.

You're right that TA's meant for the whole class are having to act as 1:1's.
The problem could be solved if children who needed 1:1's were always given them, but they're not, meaning staff have to rally round and make do. My child's school would love to be able to give him a 1:1 instead of the TA having to be an unofficial personal helper every year but he wouldn't meet the criteria. I agree it would benefit the other children as well if he could have a 1:1 and the TA was freed up to do her job.
My child is well behaved, doesn't disturb lessons but needs a lot of support to be able to focus and understand instructions. I will just have to hope that because he is lovely teachers will always help him, I doubt he'll get an EHCP for secondary school now.

That is not what I said.

I think what you define as a need, I do not truly believe to be a need. The law was drafted in a way that may consider it a "need" because the law was not drafted to be applied for the range of SEN it is now forced to encompass.

it's not unusual to find semh needs emerge becauseother SEND needs are unidentified/unmet. Proper identification and support can see semh needs reduce dramatically.

I completely agree. Some autistic DC have SEMH needs but their primary need is C&I. If their C&I needs were met, their SEMH needs would need far less provision. Similar for some DC with a primary need falling under the C&L broad area of need or with a primary need falling under the sensory and/or physical broad area of need.

that doesn’t mean the best education money can buy that fits them perfectly.

That doesn’t happen though. DC with SEN aren’t receiving the best education. That isn’t what the law entitles them to.

EHCPs are and always have been based on needs. Diagnosis of ASD/ADHD isn’t relevant. A diagnosis does not equal an EHCP. And a diagnosis is not required.

My DS has autism and probably ADHD (awaiting diagnosis but everyone agrees he has it) he has had an EHCP in place since he started school and will be transitioning to secondary in 2029. It makes me really anxious, as he is currently coping well in a small mainstream school but really worry about how he will cope at secondary, the school I think would best suit him has a sen hub attached to the main school but his only hope of getting it would be with an EHCP especially as we are just out of the catchment area!

Oh and eotas packages in particular are very much what is wanted. No child needs equine therapy. It might be good, it might make them happy, it might help them.

It is not a fucking need.

What ‘right support’ in mainstream do you envisage the White Paper putting in place? What would this look like?

I think we need to look beyond school to life beyond school.

The government seem to want to maintain EHCPs for the physically disabled. So they should. This has been effective meaning that (alongside PIP eligibility) around 53% of those with a physical disability are in work.

Unfortunately only around 23-30% of autistic adults are in work. Will removal of legally sanctioned support in mainstream or legal right to access specialist education mean that more adults with autism can access work? I fear it will lead to more DC out of school whose parent’s are denied legal redress with concomitant costs on family’s were one person (usually the mother) is forced to be full time carer and increased inability to access work for the young autistic person.

Exactly.

and that is all the majority of SEND parents want.

I just want my son to be able to continue to attend his mainstream school but if they take away his EHCP because he's in mainstream then he won't be able to attend mainstream. He and his class will have to suffer until his school decides that they can't accommodate him by the sounds of it.

But people's healthy life, as well as their life expectancy, is increasing as well. So, people are more able to work between 65 and 68 and put money back into the pot. Them not retiring won't mean they are able to contribute less later - in fact, the opposite - they are able to contribute more. If they are genuinely ill or disabled through working as long, they can receive benefits, but most people can work that long.

So this is actually an appalling comparison - because children with SEN who are educated properly are able to become productive members of society, whereas children who are left to rot at the bottom of the class and get no qualifications because nobody has taught them in a way they need to be taught, children who can't attend school because it is too anxiogenic, children who don't have the right therapies - are not going to be productive.

We would love my DS to be in mainstream school because his specialist school has zero ambition for him and expects him to clean cars for a living. However, there are no mainstream schools set up in a way that he could access, so he has to be in a school that will leave him age 16 with no qualifications and no future.

The country not being able sustain it is one thing. You alleging courts award eotas packages based on what parents want rather than on the evidence submitted to them is quite another and I'm sick of people perpetuating this utter nonsense. Why do you feel the need to deliberately villanise SEND parents by spreading falsehoods like this?

I don't think any child who had an EHCP in primary school should have it taken away, so that's the concern with a mandatory reassessment. But I do actually think a new EP report would be a good idea. DS's EHCP is already massively out of date 18 months in and the caseworker didn't bother to make any of the changes I or the SENCO suggested at the annual review. Let alone thinking about new targets or goals.

Yes, that’s what’s already happening. To fund these spaces (some are barely bigger than large store cupboards) with enough money to pay teachers is not what is happening and not what the government are intending to pay for.

There are children getting equine therapy on eotas packages.

Do you genuinely believe that is a NEED?

Im almost laughing at the absurdity of really believing children need this. The entitlement is breathtaking.

If it wasn’t reasonably required legally to meet a need in B, it wouldn’t be provided.

Your posts lack of understanding of SEN and the current SEN law.

I have 2 DSs with EOTAS/EOTIS. It is laughable you think their packages (which don’t include equine therapy since they are allergic to horses) are wants. Find me a school who could even meet their needs in the vaguest sense and they would be going. The LA would bite your hand off. So would I. It isn’t the easy option. Hell, find me an AP setting who is willing to work with DS1 even with his own 2:1 staff also attending.

Also, things like equine therapy are often cheaper than the alternative. For example, if you remove equine therapy, some DC would need OT, physio and CBT instead. That would be more costly.

At the end of the day, there's no money

It doesn't matter what anybody needs, we can't spend what we don't have.

But also no reason it will be, may be that extra support is provided if the child's need changes too? I don't think it's a bad idea, I presume the children that need it will continue to get help.

The figures sound huge then work out to be a few thousand per school, it's a dismantling of rights hiding behind a billion pound figure

My daughter has been ill for 2 years now, as a result of her secondary school experience. She had simple adjustments at primary school, and thrived there. Loved school. Happily took herself there every day. We are slowly trying to transition her back to school, but her resources are very low and it will take time. She has been diagnosed with ASD, and we are applying for an EHCP, because the school's hands are tied. If she is registered, she has to go full time. But she can't currently cope with full time.

The thing is, she shouldn't need an EHCP. Her needs are small, but make a huge difference for how she can cope with school. That threshold between happy and falling apart is very small for her. Had her adjustments been put in place from the start, then we wouldn't be in this situation now, but the school system doesn't allow flexibility for kids like my daughter (and her story is very common). I completely see how children like my daughter overwhelm the EHCP system - and I'm not entirely sure that there are adjustments that the school can put in place that will help now. But neither will she meet the criteria for a SEN school place. Schools need more teachers, more funding, and provision for classes designed for kids like my daughter. Kids who need more consistency, smaller classroom sizes. It's not about the quality of the education they get, it's whether they get one at all. Or, the resulting impact on the their physical / mental health if they do manage to make it to school.

everything in an EHCP helps the child, that's the whole point of it.

Well lots of judges disagree with you. But I'm sure you know far more about each individual case than they do. equine therapy is far from common. Do you have the same objections to swimming/OT/physio?