Legal cases against academies refusing to take children with SEN

[Rosebud05]

Here. Their funding agreement with the SofS outweighs their responsibilities under the Equalities Act, it would seem.

www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/may/24/academies-refusal-pupils-special-needs?fb_action_ids=10150804997217805&fb_action_types=news.reads&fb_source=other_multiline

Vile.

I'm afraid this is yet another case of the Guardian having a go at academies for being just like LA-controlled schools.

Mossbourne is an old academy and is therefore bound by its funding agreement. Under the Academies Act 2010 new academies have the same obligations as state schools with regards to SEN children. Indeed, most of the old academies (including Mossbourne) also have the same obligations as state schools under their funding agreements but there were some that do not.

LA-controlled schools can (and do) object to being named on statements on the grounds that admitting the child will have a negative impact on the education of other children already at the school. That is one of the grounds under which an LA can refuse to name the school nominated by the parents. Having advised a number of parents where the LA has refused to name the nominated school I can say that it happens far too often.

The real problem in both these cases seems to be that the LA caved in to the schools' objections - something that happens with LA-controlled schools as well, although I suspect that some LAs think (wrongly) that they are in a weaker position to force the issue with an academy. The LAs concerned should have forced the issue, in which case the academies could have appealed against the decision to name them instead of leaving the parents having to pursue the matter.

Note that the parents in both cases are taking action against the LA, not the academies. That is absolutely right. The problem is the refusal of the LA to name the school.

It would seem that the real problem is that Mossbourne have refused to be named as the preferred school on multiple occasions.

I agree that weak LAs are part of the reason that some academies are able to do what they like.

Yes, I know. A friend of mine whose child has SEN was told by a (community) secondary that they 'didn't cater' for children with SEN when she went to look round, and was advised to look elsewhere.

Our primary school has never not accepted a child, nor excluded one - it actively facilitates admissions from parts of the community eg Roma that other schools obstruct. I'm concerned that the greater pressures on school to produce 'results' and the 'extra freedoms' that academy schools have will result in more schools behaving in this way.

Exactly. Academies have more opaque structures than community schools - there is little upward accountability for example - so have more scope to do this.

The sponsored ones like Mossbourne are run by distant companies who are primarily concerned with their public image rather than the needs of individual children within the local community.

As I said above, I agree that LAs should stand up to be bullied by individual schools.

Of course all schools and Heads are under similar pressures, more so for community schools who are under threat of having an unwanted sponsor forced upon them. The stakes are very high.

My point is that a hands on Head with a governing body who are rooted in the local community are more likely to see children as individuals, rather than just data represented on tables. It gives a completely different perspective on children's needs, imvhe.

I live in London. Our Head is in the playground every morning, knows all the children by name and also other family members. We are a local community.

What about non-statemented children with disabilities/chronic health issues? Our LEA told us it wouldn't be possible to get a statement for dd because she did not have learning difficulties.

But she is exactly the kind of child no target-driven school would want to have: frequent absences from school, medical appointments every week, mobility needs which make for harder work for her teachers. She is a bright, well behaved girl but basically bad news for anybody's attendance tables. Her former school made it quite clear that they wished she was elsewhere, and I suspect they would have found a way of excluding her if they could. We felt the LEA stood in the way of that to some extent.

This is the thought that worries me: that unless there are very strong checks on schools, a child with SN could end up passed from pillar to post.

I don't think we're disagreeing, tiggertape.

What a worry, cory. I share your concern about these issues - certainly, I know a few parents who have tried to complain about academies 'managing out' their children for various reasons only to find that there's no-one to complain to. If the school is completes its complaints procedure and the EFA (formally the YPLA) agree that they have done so satisfactorily, then that's it. No recourse or appeal. As you say, at least in a maintained school there is a LA to provide some sort of accountability and middle tier.

I think this is a little unfair on the school if those figures are correct. It seems only 3% of applicants have a statement yet the proportion in each year is 26-28%.

Do you mean Mossbourne? They have 12.5% children with a SEN statement or on action plus according to the DFE performance tables. Abour the same as Haggerstone and the Petchy academy which are just down the road.

It's a pretty average %.