Question for teachers /school leaders etc

[fleshmarketclose]

If the LA were to place a child in your school but outsource the academics to tutors teaching 1 to 1 and paying £40k pa for the privilege what problems do you foresee? Should add that the tutors would be teaching at a level above what the school generally caters for so tutors teaching GCSE's to one child in a school that does not have a GCSE curricculum.

Speaking as a school governor, so maybe not the response that you are after, but I can't begin to unpick all of the potential difficulties.

Is this student only studying one subject at GCSE or are the LA proposing to fund multiple tutors? If only one subject what happens to the student in other lessons? Does the £40 000 cover all costs associated with this or are there on costs or costs for equipment etc that will need to be met by the school?

I take it that there are compelling reasons for this scenario rather than eg the student going to another school. It also seems quite isolating for that student to be learning alone and provides no opportunities for collaboration or discussion with other students.

Multiple GCSE's LA have allocated just over £39.5k to cover tuition for five GCSE's. I go to SEND Tribunal on Thursday to fight against this proposal. Dd has ASD and was top stream at mainstream secondary until she had a breakdown. LA placing her in a special school with no GCSE teaching. I know it will be disastrous for dd but wanted to know the school's difficulties.

This is in no way an area that I have any knowledge of, but applying what I do know

I would want to see how that £40 000 is broken down. So how many sessions, per subject, does that cover?

Are the tutors subject specialists? So will your daughter be getting the same level of teaching that she would in mainstream school?

Does she not need to be working with other students on any of these GCSEs? How will they facilitate discussions etc?

Does the school have any experience of this set up? If so, what are their views?

What are their views anyway? Are they in favour? Can they foresee any problems?

Do you have any experts working with your daughter? Are they in agreement that this is the best way to meet her needs?

I have no experience of this and so it might be that it is a common place set up in special schools and one that works well.

My gut feeling though is that £40 000 doesn't buy you much in the way of teaching hours for multiple GCSEs, if you look at how many hours they get in mainstream school, per subject. Although as it's 1:1 maybe you don't need as many hours.

I think I would be talking to school to see what their view is on this and then go from there.

Are there any organisations that can advocate for you in this instance?

Is your problem with your DD going to the special school or with her being tutored 1-1? Lots of people pay a fortune for 1-1 tuition for their kids so the LA might be a bit if you object to this on academic grounds.

What are the difficulties at your DD’s secondary and what is your preferred solution?

noblegiraffe

Isn't being taught in isolation in a special school with no gcse provision different to having additional 1:1 tuition to top up mainstream education though?

I definitely see the advantage of 1:1 tuition but do those advantages persist if the tutors aren't subject specialists or are there no advantages to learning alongside peers?

I can see what the OPs concerns are tbh. If it were my child I would like assurances from people with experience of this set up.

Taught in isolation is a problem. Being in a school without an academic peer group is a problem.

But 1-1 tuition isn’t necessarily a problem and in fact it usually yields better results than class tuition (otherwise people wouldn’t pay so much for it). Which means if the OP wants to challenge the proposed set-up, objecting to 1-1 tuition for academic reasons is unlikely to be fruitful.

Taught in isolation is a problem. Being in a school without an academic peer group is a problem.

Isn't that the nub of the problem though? (correct me if I am wrong OP).

The LA have placed the student in a special school with no gcse provision. Their solution is to provide £40 000 worth of 1:1 tuition, within the special school where no other students are studying gcses so in isolation and without an academic peer group.

I'm not sensing it's the 1:1 per se that is the issue but everything else that that means.

OP, do you think this is the best solution for your child, albeit not the ideal?

Do you think that she needs to be in the special school and that this is the best solution to provide her with an education or is there a better option in your view?

It sounds as though they are trying to offer a personalised education to your daughter and to take account of her welfare, ASD and breakdown. Only you, your daughter and those specialists who have engaged in her case can guess at how successful this plan is likely to be.

It might be that tutors can be more flexible and adapt to her specific needs better than whole class teachers and she would be better in a less crowded environment. I don't know. Some questions that came to mind are:
Who chooses and vets the tutors and ensures they are able to accommodate your child's needs and cover the required content and practise within budget to ensure she can access her target grades ? If the student and the tutors are not a good match, 1-1 could be very stressful and a waste of money.
Will there be "Cinderella" subjects because more of the funding will have to spent on more expensive tutors/resources leaving too little for the rest? Is there a local pool of experienced, trained and qualified specialists or will she have to make do with generalists for some areas?
Where will she be taught - will her 1-1 be in a suitable room where she can concentrate or will she be put in an open area or corner somewhere? Some small work rooms are really bad to be in for any length of time.
Will she have access to all the resources she needs and those that make learning more engaging?
I do sympathise with you both - and although I have many years of experience in schools, there are no glib answers that are likely to be able to take account of all the relevant matters involved for your child.

I've lots of concerns, primarily the isolation and a lack of a peer group but also quality of teaching and who is going to oversee the teaching, consider whether or not she is making good progress etc.
LA are planning this for A levels too, school probably didn't get a choice really but agreed to take dd before seeing any reports or knowing precisely what provision was planned. Suspect they were sold it on the "unlimited budget" they were offered if I'm honest.
They also intend to fund a TA from the school for one hour each day after school to cover homework which seems ridiculous to me seeing as they won't be present in the teaching sessions and won't have at any point covered a GCSE syllabus.
I was stunned when told they were naming a special school and horrified when I heard about the tutors tbh. It's a really intense way of working and I think it would be difficult to manage for four or five hours a day even if she wasn't as fragile as she is.
She currently has a tutor at home but two hours is probably as much as she manages that's in her own home and me supporting when needed and the tutor is SEN trained.
My preferred option is an independent specialist school with a peer group and a programme of GCSEs in place as well as on site therapies which the LA need to cost on top of the £40k.
I have independent reports supporting my choice, LA are taking Ed Psych whose report suggests getting an Art tutor for dd at home but definitely no mention of special school.
Our LA have lost 99 out of 100 Tribunals this year so hope they don't manage to buck the trend with mine even if they are taking a barrister against an unrepresented parent.

I understand your concerns OP.

Have you considered InterHigh on line school? Would that be an option?

I have considered Inter High but I think dd would be better placed in a school. She has rarely left the house in twelve months and I think it is becoming ingrained tbh. I can see her never leaving the house again without specialist ASD support to address the anxiety. CAMHS have been worse than useless but now some fifteen months after I asked have decided she needs ASD specific support and that was only because they feared they were next on my hit list when they became aware the LA had had to pay me compensation for failing in their statutory duty.
The specialist school would provide all therapy which would mean we wouldn't be lumbered with CAMHS then either.

My first concern would be that you have a pupil who has significant needs that quite frankly are not going to be helped by putting her in a special school with 1 to 1 teachers. She will be totally isolated in the school and from your description it would seem totally the wrong way to be going. If the pupil has to be reintroduced into school life after being at home for 12 months plus she needs a school that is going to allow her to reintegrate at her own rate (with some pushing) into small classes where she can pick up the pace of the curriculum with some 1 to 1 teaching where necessary. If the LA do not have that facility in any of their special schools which would not be a surprise then they need to consider independent schools.
With out seeming to be rude about the LA, if they really have lost 99 out of 100 tribunal cases then I really think they need to be rethinking their SEND strategy. Apart from anything else the cost of loosing so many tribunals with barristers presenting their case will have cost a small fortune.

admission Thank you, yes I'm wanting independent specialist school because the LA don't have a maintained provision to meet dd's needs, hence the cobbled together farce bespoke provision they are pushing. Independent specialist have factored twelve weeks as a transition period, the special school organised a minibus for the first day of term with no transition plan in place, in fact without dd or I having even seen the school, so you might see why I'm worried.
The Tribunal statistics are right I did a FOI and got the results last week, they had used a barrister in nine cases to date and will be using a barrister in mine. Even if only calculating costs on the average according to .Gov they have spent upwards of £650,000 this year up to November 6th to win one Tribunal.

FOI request here name is a pseudonym. Out of interest do the Barrister fees seem low to you? For my case he was at case management call, will be there a full day tomorrow and he is travelling from London.

Is the school responsible for finding the tutors? All specialists? For how many subjects? As you say, how will they quality assure the provision? Particularly if it is outside their usual curriculum. What if a tutor quits? Or is off sick? Do they cover? I can see all sorts of problems where a child's whole curriculum is delivered by outside staff. Who is accountable??

No idea who is sourcing the tutors, it will be six GCSEs, Maths, English Science, French, Art, and one other possibly Japanese as she has been teaching herself.
The quality is a worry, as is who will be monitoring, what is their SEN experience, there will be no one in school to take over if one is ill or quits, no idea who is accountable I think I'm going to learn that at Tribunal as LA are taking Deputy Head of special school.

As a teacher I have been sent to educate pupils off site and had it timetabled. The pupil in question had English, Maths and Science specialists and then a TA to deliver the rest of the curriculum (ex teacher)

Purplesky Would that be in a school or a PRU or at home? Where were the child's peers? Was it always 1 to 1 or were other pupils there at times? Was it successful? Were the parents happy? Did the child achieve predicted grades? Was there SEN? Why couldn't the child learn in school?

Pupil had severe mental health issues and remained on role at school, but didn't attend school.
She was taught at home. Her mum was always there.
Mum was really happy with the support her daughter got
She more or less achieved her target grades and was able to do the college course she wanted to (she got 7 B/C grades).
She met some of her peers out of school -
Mum was very good and kept that going for her

She completed her college course and enjoyed working. She has recently become the mum of a beautiful baby.

Dd has tuition at home currently but I don't want that as a long term plan tbh even though tutor is very good and experienced with SEN. I've no idea where dd is currently on roll though. Tutor liaises with the mainstream school she used to attend because LA hasn't told her otherwise and school have resources and knowledge of dd. I assume the special school is named on the EHCP although of course our LA haven't bothered issuing an amended EHCP yet in spite of naming the school in July. I'm glad it worked out well for your ex pupil though.

The barrister fees do not seem high. It depends on experience the barrister has as to what their charges will be. An average seems to be from £75 an hour through to £275 an hour. I think you can assume that the top-end is not going to have happened.
Taking the bottom figure and dividing into the total cost gives 178 hours of support, which between 9 cases says on average 20 hours per case. That i think would not be an unreasonable level of time per case, so maybe the figure is correct.

Assuming he's not top level either seeing as the last three he attended against unrepresented parents (who I know personally) DCC still lost and they hadn't had any legal input at all did it all themselves