Admissions criteria: what does "children with particular needs" mean?

[TuttiFrutti]

My ds is mildly autistic, and we have a diagnosis but not a statement. One of the (very popular, oversubscribed) schools I want to apply to has "children with particuar needs" as number 2 in its admission criteria, with only foster children above it.

Does anyone know what this means? Is "particular" needs the same as "special" needs? And do you need to have a statement, or is a medical diagnosis enough?

Can you tell me which school and which LA we are talking about please. PM me if you prefer. I will then take a look and see if I can advise.

What is PM? Would prefer not to out myself in RL by revealing the school on here.

... but I should have said, thank you for offering to help!

PM is personal message

click on "message poster" to the right of the bar the poster's name is

then you don't have to out yourself :)

It sounds to me as if you would qualify as he has a diagnosed need. But previous poster sounds like she has specific knowledge so would defo pm her (it's private between yourself and her then)

Thank you both for enlightening me about PM. I have PMed the previous poster.

I am sure that prh47 will be able to give specific an accurate help, but my DS was accepted into a particular school on the basis of particular need, without a statement.

What we had to be able to do was demonstrate that the school in question had particular attributes that made it espcially suited to the need in question. In our case flat access, but it may be a special unit, or that the school is small, has a structure or teaching method that will sut the child. You have to send your own explanation along with two medical or other professional testimonies as to the needs of the child and why the facilities or practice or environment of the school will support the child's needs.These had to be submitted with the application - some LAs will not accept a new case for need at an appeal .

On the wording in their admission policy, it covers "individual or compelling family circumstances or medical needs". So a medical diagnosis could be enough but, as Blu says, you need to justify why your child's condition means this is the only school for him. Mild autism on its own is something that they may think any school can handle, so expert evidence supporting your application would help. Note that the expert needs to say "in my opinion" or something similar. If they say "TuttiFrutti told me" or similar it will sound like they are simply repeating your views rather than giving their professional opinion.

Thank you very much. That is very helpful.

What you would need to do is to get a medical professional to write a letter explaining your ds' situation and being very specific about exactly how his particular SN translates into terms of specific needs. You then need to show in your application that the school you want is the only one that can fulfill those needs (this involves having done your homework and investigated all the possible schools very closely- so they can't come back and say "

Be very specific about needs: don't take any basic common sense for granted. We failed in our application because we thought the LEA would understand that the disabled access a wheelchair bound but otherwise NT child needed was lifts and ramps but not additional provision for the visually impaired. As far as they were concerned, a school that did not have the full works in terms of Disabled Access for every disability could not be suitable for any disabled child, so they concluded that dd could not really be disabled and allocated a place in a school with no access whatsoever. We appealed and the panel got our point instantly.

lost half a sentence there:

"this involves having done your homework and investigated all the possible schools very closely- so they can't come back and say "ah, but these criteria are much better met by sink school at the other end of the city"