Maple Hayes School - Or similar in West Midlands?

[MamaTess]

Does anyone have any experience of applying to Maple Hayes? Or a similar type school within the west midlands. We are in Birmingham, my son has ADHD, Dyspraxia and we are just awaiting a Dyslexia assessment. He is really struggling at school, emotionally as writing is so hard for him - he is in yr 5. We have applied for an EHCP but his school is awful and I think he needs support ASAP.

I have been looking at schools and Maple Hayes looks great, but I'm not sure they will accept him with ADHD, it looks like it will be a fight even if they did.

I'm so glad that some of you have got places at Maple Hayes, sorry you have had such a battle!!

I originally posted this when my son was really struggling in school. He has since had a dyslexia diagnosis and huge battle at his primary to get some accommodations but once in place he made so much progress. Did so well on his KS2 SATs (scored just below meeting expected standards, and a year before there would have been no way we would have considered having him sit them!) He just started at a mainstream secondary, and so far doing well. 🤞

We still don't have a EHCP but I am only going to fight that battle of we need to now, as he has alot of medical needs too and need to prioritise for our own sanity!! 😁

I hope you all get what you need for your children, wish we didn't have to fight so so hard!!

I did have an interview. The school has clearly been brilliant for lots of children and I was so pleased to see there is an option like this. However, I was quite concerned by the attitude to autism..there was talk of ‘induced autism’ which I felt was seriously outdated and not helpful for my child. I don’t know how indicative this is of the general approach but I didn’t feel like this was the right place for us.

This ☝🏻is meant to be a reply to your message to me above from ages ago @Sunnyd1234 !

@PMizzy I did go and look round and they said my child had dyslexia and dysgraphia. Unfortunately the assessment done by the external psychologist was not very professional (yawned and sighed all the way through, lied about the test results that I saw done, disappointed considering I had to pay for it myself) and the resulting report was not in line with what was wanted by the school so we didn’t get in.

We are desperate for our son to go to go to MH. He got offered a place by MH last May. He felt so at home and 'just got' their approach.

We have 2 private EP reports showing his lack of progress, academic potential and backing us on MH being the right place for him. Furthermore we have MH Report about his week there. We have 5 years of LA Learn and Support Service reports and targets showing no progress. Furthermore the LA current primary school and local high school both provided negative responses saying they could not meet our sons needs due to phonics failing this far. The LA still named local primary and now local high on the EHCP. We are mid tribunal process but unfortunately the tribunal date is not until the new academic year. The LA have not disagreed about the suitablity of MH for our son they've just said it is an unreasonable use of resources basically more money than the local school.

We are just after any advice for the tribunal.

The waiting process is just horrible, during this time our son is just losing more and more confidence and getting fearful of secondary school.

Thank you in advance for your support and replies!