Even the end of year 4 I’d say would be far too late. It has taken 5 years and 4 legal cases to get an EHCP in place for one of my children, despite them being diagnosed with autism in Reception, due to the Local Authority obstructing it at every possible stage of the process.
Each time I have to take them to tribunal, resulting in a delay of 12-18 months. Then, when they are found to be in the wrong all that happens is that they are ordered to do what they should have done in the first place. There are no consequences, nobody is fired, there are no fines, no professional qualifications are removed, and so they go on to do this to the next family and the next and the next because the financial incentive is for them to delay provision as long as possible: every week they delay doing what they are required by law saves them money. They do not even have to pay my legal costs back when they lose each hearing (e.g. Paying thousands of pounds each time to have expert witnesses attend unnecessary tribunal hearings when it’s already crystal clear that they have no case. And the LA being so disrespectful that they don’t even bother to turn up to the hearing to defend their indefensible position, because they know already that they have no case and it would be embarrassing for them).
I actually had to call the school as a witness to these tribunals: the LA didn’t want to call them because the school disagrees with their position, so the LA didn’t want them there to give their evidence and wanted to have a hearing without hearing their evidence, or that of any of the medical specialists who unanimously disagree with them that this child didn’t require an EHCP.
They have ruined almost all of the child’s time at primary school with this behaviour, with them rarely able to attend and learning little when they are there as well as having their mental health completely destroyed. This is a very bright child who is kind and sociable and desperately wants to learn but has committed the arch crime of not being violent or disruptive, so therefore apparently doesn’t deserve any support to access education.
I have had to pay tens of thousands of pounds for private operations, therapy to try to repair the damage the school has done, physiotherapy, private SALT therapy because the NHS SALT service falsely claimed it was only commissioned by the ICB to treat non-verbal children (which the ICB subsequently confirmed to be false) so what calls itself the NHS SALT service discharged the child after having met them for 5 minutes because they could speak in sentences.
And that is just one of my two children for whom these incompetent and shameless law breakers have ruined primary school and their mental health, when prior to school they were happy and well-adjusted children despite being autistic. Between the two of them I’ve had to go through 7 tribunal cases now with more to come and still neither has been placed in an appropriate school that they can actually attend regularly, 5 years later.
And much more not listed here as well: the legal costs, and the stress, and trying as a lone parent who is autistic myself to manage all of the legal paperwork and additional parenting they require plus a full time job and having them off school for up to 4 months at a time because the school has made them suicidal, as primary school children, when I am a lone parent and also need to provide for them financially. Absolutely heartbreaking to see the damage done and one can only hope that Dante’s 8th circle of hell awaits these disgusting people at Local Authorities who are complicit in deliberately harming autistic children and causing lifelong damage to them to save themselves money, spending money that could be used for appropriate educational provision instead on armies of vultures to fight legal cases against the exhausted families of disabled children and feed off their carcasses. What kind of career choice is that? As a result of all of this they have now caused such extreme damage to my own health that I am unlikely to be able to continue full time work because I have multiple organs failing. Slow hand clap - that’ll be tens of thousands of pounds per year in tax lost, far less than it would have cost to put them in an appropriate school that they can actually attend.
If one were to start the process in YR4, of even getting a diagnosis, the child would likely long have finished school before they have a diagnosis and the parent has completed the 4-5 year battle to force the LA to put an appropriate EHCP in place.
I don’t know how these people sleep at night: they know the damage that they are doing to disabled children and their families and continue regardless. 99% of tribunal cases across the country are won by parents, a statistic that’s been static for many years now, so these aren’t “mistakes” (I mean, if they were, then surely the staff would fired anyway for gross incompetence if they are getting 99% of their job wrong!?). No: it is systemic, deliberate law breaking that is well-evidenced. The solution to that is extremely strong enforcement, coming down on it like a ton of bricks with very significant consequences just like would be the case if regulated professionals in law, finance or medicine broke the law.
Yet the Government is doubling down on the failed “one size fits all model” and trying to force MORE autistic children into mainstream state schools which will never be appropriate for a significant proportion of them. It’s state-mandated child abuse, effectively, which they are desperately trying to “sell” as though it’s for the benefit of the children. Kafkaesque.
They know exactly what they are doing. One couldn’t design a more torturous environment for most autistic children than a mainstream state school if one tried.
It’s not education law that needs changing, it’s enforcement of the law. Everything would change overnight if there were robust enforcement and appropriate consequences for unlawful behaviour, as there is in every other regulated sector. It requires a regulator with a mandate requiring it to take firm, zero-tolerance action itself on the systemic illegal behaviour, not gaslight parents by treating each case as an isolated and unfortunate event and expecting the parent to enforce the law.
Sadly our disingenuous and appalling excuse for an Education Secretary ignores anybody who points this out to her, and is hell bent on making a broken system even worse - not just for autistic children, but for all children in state mainstream schools by pursuing a policy which has already been shown to be an utter failure. It’s quite something for somebody to manage to devise a way on making the situation even worse than it is currently. Her pathetic response to the Local Authority whistleblower on ITV news recently was quite hilarious: she denied that she had any knowledge of Local Authorities breaking the law, despite the fact that they are found to have done so in 99% of tribunals, a fact of which one would assume she is aware after two years in role?! She said she would “take action to hold law breaking Local Authorities to account”. I wonder why she hasn’t done so for two years? I wait with bated breath for her to tell us what this “action” will consist of….