Autistic son didn't get the perferred reception school: considering appeal

[TLSP]

Just found out that my DS2, who is autistic but do not have a statement, has not been offered a reception place at the any of the two schools which I really want him to attend. Prior to the application, I have visited the nearby schools and met their SENCOs to see what helps they can offer Autistic children and it was based on the info that I ranked these two at the top of my preferences. I have also ticked the "medical" box in the application and included a supporting information pack which contains a supporting letter from the Nursey's SENCO, the EP's report and my findings.

The local authority response was that they have considered my info and in their opinion any school will be able to provide my DS2's SEN needs, and therefore he has not been given any priority in the consideration.

I am considering an appeal as I thought Autism, being a mental disorder, is a medical condition. I also like to understand what processes the authority uses to arrive at the fact that any school will be able to provide his SEN's needs as autism has such a wide spectrum. I would really appreciate advices from parents who have gone through similar problem with school placement, and understand how they have gone about creating a successful appeal case. I am planning to challenge their sweeping statement that any school can provide his SEN needs.

I too am a nursery SENCO and have been told by our EYAT and area SENCO that they are phasing statements out and making way for something new, so the LA are currently reluctant to go through the statementing process. Think it is called an Education, Health and Care Plan or something like that

This is a reply to the first page posters, I have not read the other pages.

The statement system failed, as it was supposed to ensure children who needed extra funding for their education got it, but statements were never fairly issued. Mostly they went to the loudest and most determined mothers, many children who needed a statement who did not have a vocal, active or caring mother, did not get a statement, many children who became in need of a statement later on in life could not get one, because they were only issued to younger children.

We used to find it was never the most disabled children that got the statements, it was almost always the "middle classes":the system was a nonsense, and just perpetuated inequality between children. For example, a 12 year old refugee child with learning difficulties would not only be in a foreign country, coping with a foreign language, learning difficulties and bereavement, but would have no access to the SEN money either, as it would go to the statemented children, who were possibly suffereng from 10% of the refugee child's difficulty

This is why they are no longer used. You can still get them, if the LA feels it is easier just to shut the parents up than to argue, but they are often ignored.

These days what matters in the Child health and care plan. These are issued much less often than statements, and not because of any action by the parents.

I realise that it is anecdotal and therefore only gives a partial picture, but in the small school I work in

• The children with statements are all on FSM. One is from a very disadvantaged ethnic minority, with parents who not only are the opposite of MC and pushy but lack functional literacy.
• In one case, where the child arrived in Year 2 without a statement, a statement was in place within a month, complete with full-time TA funding. The child is also in addition to PAN, and due to his complex needs we have a lot of outside experts working with him and a lot of additional equipment....definitely not a case of 'ignoring statements'. What is the advantage to a school of ignoting the statements that make it possible for such children to be educated and make progress??

prh47bridge

I do not think you work in state education?

Of course school teachers interview and enrol pupils. How else would they get into a school? What are you talking about?

There is a school admissions form which can be at two specific points in a child's lifetime, to enter primary, to enter secondary. Apart from that, staff decide on an individual basis. And recent mock ofsted advice....delete on information about statements from class records, because it isn't used, and just record the information of in-school assessment instead,

(prh47bridge might not work in the UK)

Newmoontonight. schools no longer even handle admissions, even outside the normal admissions rounds. It is controlled by the LA.
Most pupils come to a school through the normal entry points.
Outside of this if a school has a vacancy then if someone applies then they have to give it to them. If there are multiple applicants or a waiting list, they are sorted according to admissions criteria. If you appeal the appeal is no longer heard by the Head/Governors but by LA, Diocesian or other appeal body.

Yes there are schools which do their best to get around this, but not any of the schools I know. And would you really want to send your child with a statement to a school which would do anything, including cheat to not take them? Admittedly I wouldn't really want to send my child to such a school, and they don't have statements.

newmoontonight - You clearly do not work in state education nor do you know anything about it.

It is illegal to interview pupils or their parents to decide whether or not to enrol the pupil. And as mummytime says, the LA deals with admissions, not the school. Staff do not decide on an individual basis at all. They are not allowed to.

Those who frequent these forums will know that I am an expert on school admissions. And yes, I do work in the UK.

Schools have their own admission criteria which are then applied by the lea as admissions authority.

All schools I've heard of round here have no. 1 on admissions criteria, children with special educational need, followed by (or superseded, can't remember which) by "looked after" children I.e. children under care of the local authority.

The lea decides where children go depending upon how they fulfill the admissions criteria.

There are no interviews, even for the local superselectives (where places are allocated purely on test results). There might be teacher/pupil informal meetings after places have been finalised. Is it possible that you're confusing that settling in meeting as an interview newmoontonight?

p4h47bridge - You are in no position to state that anyone else is fake, fraud lying or a"myth"! What has been described is common practice. If it is outside your experience, that just shows how limited your experience is.

What has been described by asiatic and newmoontonight is not common practise at all. Most of what they have said is illegal and provably wrong.

You have no idea how extensive my experience is. It actually encompasses nearly every LA in England. I am very well placed to say that asiatic was a clear fake and newmoontonight (who was, I believe, asiatic again) did not have a clue what she was talking about. The rubbish they spouted about SEN practise is just that - rubbish.

Newmoontonight, you need to go back to school, you are talking out of your arse!
i have have 4 children and don't recognise the admission process you talk about

newmoon's posts are just weird. What possible point can there be in making up untruths about a well documented process (ie school admissions) of which every one of us with a child at a state school has first-hand experience?

^Of course school teachers interview and
enrol pupils. How else would they get
into a school?^ What the blinking Norah are you on about?

Newmoontonight,

There have been relatively recent changes to in-year admissions (ie not at the normal entry poins to Primary and Secondary) to move all responsibility for those admissions to the LEA. If your experiene e.g. as a parent predates this, then you may not be aware of it. I know that when I applied in-year for my son to join his current school 5 years ago, that application was initially to the school, who communicated it to the LA, rather than the other way round as is now the case.

Equally, it can sometimes feel, as a parent or applicant, that the process runs in a particular way whereas in reality behind the scenes things are rather different.

For example, parents wishing to move their children to the school where I work usually ring the school in the first place [which could be understood by the parents as 'applying to the school']. They then meet and are shown round the school by the head [this could, handled in a different way, possibly be interpreted as an interview - though it plays no part whatever in whether the child gets into the school]. A formal application is then made to the LEA [however, as we have a high number of illiterate parents, much of the form-filling is often done FOR the parents rather than BY the parents, so agian it could be invisible as an application process as far as the parents are concerned]. The LEA then decides whether that child is admitted and the decision is communicated to the parents.

Some schools DO like to pretend that they control admissions. Certainly a primary local to where I live has used that kind of subtle misinformation to encourage the 'right' kind of family and deter the 'wrong' kind of applicant. If you have personal information about a school doing this, then you should report it, as it is illegal.

I think sometimes it is difficult to get a handle on how statements work, because incorrect information may be peddled by schools or the LEA. When I rang the local LEA re my dd I was told in no uncertain terms that she would never get a statement because her SN are medical/physical and statements are only issued for learning disabilities. At the time I took it as gospel. Later I have sometimes wondered what would have happened if I had put this to the test.

Dd's HT told us some absolutely bizarre things about how the school system works, particularly as regards disability discrimination questions. Of course that does not make his advice correct or even legal, but it did mean that it would have been difficult to get much help out of him.

In the OPs case it might help (depending on the PAN question) to get an expert who knows her ds to explain exactly what kind of needs her individual ds has due to his individual form of autism. We found when applying for dd that there was a general assumption that all disabled children have the same needs, e.g. that a large school with complete wheelchair access to every last room would be better for every mobility impaired child than a small school with some wheelchair access. We had to get her doctors to outline the details of her daily needs to make our case at appeal.

What a shame that this thread started by an ordinary parent has been high-jacked in this way.
As said by previous posters such as PanelChair having a named medical condition does not guarantee that your child will obtain a place at your preferred school(s). However, although most schools will say that they can support these conditions there may be differences to how they carry this out in practice. A letter from a hospital consultant may carry more weight than a GP. Charity's with specific expertise in your dcs medical condition may have guidelines about the sort of school and support such children may need. If your chosen schools have staff who have had specific autistic spectrum training for example this may support your Appeal.

Thinking about this, a possible source of confusion in this thread is the difference between 'statements in general' and 'statements which name a specific school'.

The children we have with statements do not name our school in the statements. Had the school been over-subscribed at the time they applied, then the statements would not have jumped them to the top of the list. The statements do, however, specify the types of support, hours of TA time etc that these children need and that we supply. FWIW, one of those statements is for ASD, and as a very 'normal' primary school we do meet that child's quite complex needs (lots of staff training, lots of outside support).

Thus, my understanding is that even if the OP obtains a statement for her child, it does not mean that they come under the 'statemented child in which the statement names the school' category of admission. That would only apply IF the statement names the school - which I have enountered most specifically where a school has a specialised unit for a particular SEN - e.g. for deaf children at my children's school.

Teacherwith2kids - Now I'm really confused and I have a statemented child!

My DS got his statement in year 1 so didn't apply with a statement to primary school.

My experience was that when you have a statement your application for secondary is completely separate to everyone else, you do not fill in the standard secondary school transfer forms, you have a special transfer meeting where you state your prefered school. The council will then amend your statement and the school is named on your statement.

I presume there are discussions between the school and the council regarding your suitability for the school, but if a school is named on your statement you have a place.

So I knew before everyone else that we had a place at the school, I have never seen a statement without a named school, there is a section in our statement for this.

Maybe not all statements are the same??

Both the primary and secondary schools are mainstream without specialist departments.

TLSP - Have you considered trying to get a statement for your child? I have found it very useful (DS has aspergers). Especially in the early years where he did need quite a lot of extra help.

Having a statement meant that we could ensure he did get extra help, it did not ensure that this help was always provided by the best qualified people or people who had any experience which was quite frustrating, but it did mean that he was always included.

You will find it hard to insist that everyone is trained especially in mainstream schools as that will be down to the individual school, sometimes you can only get that type of setting in special schools or units within a mainstream school, which we did not want, but it did mean we had a few hopeless TAs who through no fault of there own (school unable to train due to cost) were not the most suitable provision, but overall I think some mainstream schools are able to provide for the high function autism quite well.

My DS's best friend in his class also has aspergers (without a statement but school action +) he has had much less support and most of the support he seems to get is when he is paired up with my DS, so although it took a long time to get the statement it has been very useful getting it.

In my case although we did get our school place early ( as pointed out in my earlier post) I would have got into the school anyway (without a staement) as dS was a sibling and in catchment.

I do know things have/are changing with regards to statements so it may be more difficult to get now, but I would look into it.

All statements of SEN have a section to name the school. It is part 4 of the statement. Have a look at the SEN Code of Practice section 8:42. If a statement doesn't have a part 4 it is not legal. I don't know what teacherwith2kids experience is of statements, she is obviously not a SENCo or she would know this. Parents, not LAs, decide which school will be named. Soonbesailing, you are right, teacherwith2kids isn't.

Apologies for getting the information wrong - please follow EllenJane and SoontobeSailing's advice instead and accept my apologies.

Aww teacherwith2kids. I shouldn't have been so grumpy.

No, it's fine. Glad someone was there to give out better information. :-)

Hi Prh47bridge,

I am new to this forum and sorry for hijacking the old thread.My son has got special needs and has been given a statement. The only problem here is the school i named in the statement is a academy now and is now refusing to admit my son.I am not in the catchment area, but my son has been going to the preschool/nursery (for the past 1-1/2 years) which is on the same campus as the main school. What i have heard from other parents is that 6 kids in the catchment area has been denied admission due to over-subscribing ( infant class size appeals.). Are academy schools different from state maintained school in admitting a kid with a statement?.i have no clue about the academy admission process. Please help.

Thanks a lot,
Vshah.