Really upset with my sons' primary school.

[Snowwhite83]

I found out today that DS (5) primary school are no longer letting his speech and language therapy into school for sessions because of space issues. I have been told previously my son who has low muscle tone affecting his speech is not bad enough for an ECHP but there is no NHS provision for SALT so we have been paying this ourselves. For information it is quite a large school and his therapist has offered to be extremely flexible about the times she sees him (was visiting in the afternoon when the school is less busy). Myself and my husband work fulltime so this means he won't be able to access therapy. I do not know of any therapists that work evenings or weekend and it was hard enough finding ond as most have long weight lists. Is this fair? They didn't even contact me and just told the therapist which I thought was poor. Is there anything I can do?
Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Thank you, I see what you mean. I've only ever had two schools not allow me in (in 11 years). They can always find somewhere if they try, even in the tiny village schools. It might not be the best of places but they always find me somewhere. I've had to work in the corridor next to the toilets with the noisy hand dryer constantly going off, that was definitely the worst!

titans - how are the staff who spend time with you covered? Who teaches the class instead of the teacher, or are they directed to spend training time with you during their PPA? Or just during their breaks? Do most of the children you work with have assigned 1:1, or are these class TAs being taken from their day to day roles for training with you? How is their day to day role - for example in managing children who display very challenging behaviour -covered, or is the class expected to manage with 1 less adult while you are there? Is this every week, or every term / half term? Have you noticed a difference recently as staffing has become so much more stretched?

I've had a mix of children that had 1:1 support and those that haven't. Obviously it's a lot easier when they have 1:1 support! If they don't, sometimes the TA can join for the last 5-10 minutes of the session so I can talk about what we've done and what they can do to support in school. Sometimes it will be a chat with a member of staff when the majority of the children are busy or I join them as they go out in playground duty to talk to them. Frequency depends on the child and what parents can afford. Most of my caseload at the moment is once a fortnight and most alternate between home and school so I'm only taking up staff's time once every four weeks. Fortunately I've worked with lots of lovely teachers and teaching assistants who are very eager for the extra support and to get some new ideas to try!

I am a lovely teacher, and I always spend time with anyone coming in to support or observe any of my pupils., and release a class TA (on the rare occasions I now have one) to do the same.

I am not sure whether those experts, or parents, have any idea of the impact that time has on me or on the remainder of the class, though! I have had a couple of slightly offended ‘but why can’t you meet me NOW?’ moments over the years, and with behaviour becoming a more and more significant issue, it becomes less and less possible to leave any class unattended even for a moment. (I have had no breaks at all for weeks at a time having to 1:1 supervise a child to keep others safe, for example)

I think there is a danger that individuals can forget that whilst their single request seems reasonable, schools have to look at the bigger picture and they might have multiple similar requests that just cannot all be accommodated.

I'm not sure if schools have any obligation to allow a) space for private therapists or b) time for the child to attend such sessions. Can you imagine if every parent could afford / find private therapists, this could be SALT, OT, Physio, Psychologists etc. Where would it end? How does the teacher ensure the child hasn't missed out on any major learning and what space are they meant to use? When my DS had SALT (NHS) we had to attend their clinic either in the local health clinic or hospital. Both myself and DH work full time and it was difficult to facilitate in terms of A/L but needs must.

No I don't think they do but if they want to do the best for the child, they should. That's ridiculous to say 'imagine if every parent could afford it....' There is never going to be a time that every parent could afford it (nor a time when every child would need it!). When ever I've gone into schools it's always just been me, there's not been dozens of private therapists there wanting to be provided with a space to work with a child.

Sorry to hijack your post but, I'm sure as you can tell, I'm a passionate SALT! And people have just said some ridiculous things. The other thing people need to remember is that other children will be benefiting from you paying privately. This knowledge that the SALT is sharing will be useful for that TA/ teacher for other children they work with at some point. I've given resources that TAs have photocopied and stashed away for other children they work with. I've provided programmes that can be used with the whole class that other children (who's parents can't afford private salt) will be benefiting from. We don't just positively impact on that one child. Sometimes the private therapists get bashed a bit but we are doing good!

And to the lovely teacher above, you are very much appreciated. Tell them you're a bit busy right now, send me an email!

I know it’s not what you asked but what in earth is the SALT doing once a week in school with no follow up at home that would make any difference to the speech of a child with low muscle tone? There’s simply no evidence base for this. Be really honest with yourself here - have you seen any change in his speech? I know you want it to work but is it?

Is this fair?

It’s fair if there’s no room.

In this case, having home-based therapy or trying to arrange with school to use a room there out of hours both seem reasonable solutions. I understand that is difficult for the op who has to vary their work hours to accommodate it, but I do not think it is fair to assume that the school is being unreasonable.

Agree with this.

Contact you local SENDIAS and they will take you through the process if getting your son the support he needs. You will probably need to follow The Graduated Approach rather than jumping straight to ECHP , but you will have plenty of leverage against the school.
Working full time probably isn't a good reason that your son can't access the care he needs though, school might find they are more motivated to free up space if your son is consistently absent for morning or afternoon registration.

IEPs don't exist anymore.

you will have plenty of leverage against the school.

I think this is - at best - an unfortunate wording. You want to work WITH the school for your child’s best interests, and this will require understanding of the constraints that everyone is working withins. The school will be balancing the needs of all children and all staff within a constrained building (remembering that a child whose parents are able to buy private speech therapy, with speech therapy as the main need, is very unlikely to be amongst the children at highest need within the class or school); the parents balancing their child’s needs against constraints of employment and their own time.

An adversarial stance may well be less successful than a collaborative one focused on finding a compromise solution (which may not be perfect for either party but will allow the therapy to take place).

It's not a case of " motivated "to free up space, we simply don't have any! We have specialist teachers, support workers and social workers coming in, if they do I have to leave my office and go sit in the admin office on a cabinet! We pray for good weather so they can go meet outside in the playground😁Interventions take place in the corridors, staff do PPA at home as we have no space in school, meetings take place in classrooms whilst classes are doing PE, logistically it's a nightmare!

Sadly many schools are already very overcrowded with no spare space to run their own interventions properly, let alone external ones sourced privately for one child. It's a juggling act in many schools every single day.

I'm not saying that it's right or a good thing, it isn't. But I can see why many schools might struggle to provide this.

Not always possible. A lot of staff rooms contain confidential information and double up as work rooms for staff on PPA. So pupils and external agents cannot use such rooms.

We would make it happen. Even a corner of the library or someone making their office available for an hour.

Your post contains two assumptions-

1. primary schools all have libraries . I can think of only one that has one that is not a corridor, and it is fully timetabled for school intervention groups)
2. there is ‘someone’ with an office. In my experience, only the Head has an office, used for everything from their own confidential work to child protection conferences to all meetings to EHCP reviews to finance discussions to working with the most dysregulated children who need an enclosed space for safety. (See spanieleyes’ post) Balancing the needs of a child for private speech therapy vs the Heads and others for the single confidential enclosed space within the school may not come out in favour of the therapy.

I'm Head and DSL and SENDCO, I'm the only one in school ( apart from the reception area) with an office, which I gladly leave if it is needed for confidential meetings between children/social workers etc. Our library is a corridor and already used for interventions/phonics/reading groups and, as it is a thoroughfare and located between the boys and girls toilets, not really best suited for speech and language therapy! Obviously, if we CAN host private therapy, we will but it is a little naive to assume the school is just being difficult. If a child needs to arrive/leave school for therapy, that is perfectly acceptable and would, of course, be authorised absence ( I'm responsible for attendance too😁) but would need parents to participate in the therapy , which would surely be a desired outcome?

Don't be so ridiculous thousands of children have all kinds of therapies in school get your priorities right.

Were you in those schools as a private therapist paid for by the parents, or as an NHS therapist working in tangent with the schools?

School are required by law (see the statutory guidance) to ensure that he has an IEP

There is no such legal requirement. Having an IEP is not statutory.

Private

But it does have a knock on and needs balancing to make sure it isn’t having a negative impact.

when Ds was in year 3 we got to the point where he had so many interventions in school he was missing big chunks of lessons. He was miserable because it tended to be the non core subjects he missed which he enjoyed. We ended up scaling things right back in school to make things workable. It meant me doing a lot more at home but that’s part and parcel of having a child with additional needs.

I think you are underestimating how tight for space some schools are.
There simply isn't always spare classrooms, a suitable office space, etc. If the room isn't there what can they do? they can't just make room where there is none.

Many primary school libraries are open plan, off a corridor - so not suitable for most of these kind of interventions.

Many schools only have one office - the headteacher's, which all of SLT need to use and will have confidential paperwork on the desk/walls so not suitable for an external agencies.

The hall may be big area, with a walk way through, and needed to be used by a tight rota of classes doing pe, singing, drama, lessons etc.

And it won't be just one child/one agency. Most schools these days have several children with needs. We have a series of interventions, affecting many children, right across school. These have to be fit in and space found.

If only it was as simple as just finding the space.