EHCP denied AGAIN!!!

[MoreDataPls]

My lovely child has ADHD, ASD and hyper mobility. They attend an ofted outstanding school, however it does not have a SEN department, but has a SENCO. I have just been notified by the council that my child has been denied an ECHP again. The councils reasoning is that the school are providing sufficient support for my child. The only additional support my child receives is reading intervention once a week. They are a proficient although reluctant reader. The EHCP request was thorough, I provided plenty of evidence and documentation, but the request was still denied. So my lovely mumsnetters, based on the attachment of their work, similar to what I provided to the council when requesting the EHCP, what key stage of schooling do you think my child is?

The document I linked to earlier on the thread is better imo: it links specifically to PfA headings which makes EHCP writing easier, and is also designed to be completed by the young person who then can identify their own priorities for working on as coproduction is important at this age. Of course parents and or support workers can fill it out on young people's behalf, but it's designed to support youngsters in being actively involved in their own progress.

Here it is again
https://www.iasmanchester.org/post-14-personal-development-program

schools don't need an ECHP to give computers / extra time for exams - you are not too late for this.

my suggestion would be to ask mumsnet for recommendations for educational psychology testing near you. Not uncommon for ADHD kids to get computers to organise their thoughts more easily in exams.

@DrRuthGalloway I wasn’t meaning instead of but as well as because whilst there is some overlap, there are also some differences. That’s why I said 'also'. The things included in the links fall under the various headings.

Thanks once again for all your comments. I have no idea how to quote people but lots of great advice and links.

Im not expecting my child to get a place at Oxford but it would be lovely if they could get a place as the local tech that does hands on and practical courses or just be able to write well enough to fill in a job application form! I do not think my child has the right level of support and I do expect the school to provide him with the tools and support to learn. I provided him with the laptop, not the school.

My child does not enjoy school but he has almost 100% attendance. He struggles with friendship groups and is silly and immature with his peers. He still gets lost in the buildings at school and he’s been there for over 2 years! He does feel in his words ‘stupid’ as year on year his grades have gone down in every single subject and he now is in the bottom set for all subjects except one. This has really destroyed his self esteem although I do tell him not to worry about what others think. I provided this info to the LA when requesting the EHCP.

I do feel that any additional support he gets now in school will help him as he goes through life. Currently he’s very much left to fend for himself.

I will try and commission a speech and language report. I have previously tried to engage an educational psychologist but struggled to find one.

@MoreDataPls
I dont have any knowledge of ECHPs, but my oldest DC was given extra time for his GCSEs and A levels due to his horrific handwriting. He has no diagnosis of any sort of SEN and doesnt have any additional needs. He is now an adult and has a great job which luckily involves him writing reports on his laptop rather by hand!

He was given 25% extra time for all his exams. This was requested by a teacher and he had to do some sort of test and it was then agreed by the exam officer of the school. Another of this friends was given a scribe for some of his exams as he has dyslexia.

So as far as I know you don't need a ECHP or any diagnosis to be given extra time or other support (i.e scribe) so if you are worried about that particularly speak to the school and ask for the exam officer who should be able to explain how you can request additional support for his exams.

Good luck

Where in the country are you roughly OP?

Bless him. At the end of everything, all we want as parents is for our children to be able to function independently and be happy in society. Definitely ask about the extra time in exams!

I mean - based on my drawing skills which are pretty similar I would say 42

Fortunately extra time is given to any child with SEN for their exams, you don’t need to have an EHCP. An EHCP can be extremely hard to get and it can be really frustrating when you have a teacher who is working against you. I’ve just started the process at secondary school as my child’s primary refused to refer for ASD/ADHD assessments or start a my plan. Secondary are struggling a lot with my child. Having the EHCP would help a lot in getting the right support. Keep pushing, you know your child best and know they are capable of so much more with the right support in place.

I've worked with a lot of secondary school children as a TA, in classes and 1:1, and your son's work is a lot better than many kids I've worked with who do not have EHCPs. They're rarer than hens' teeth, and as previous posters have said, not necessary for exam access arrangements.

Even if he had one, he wouldn't be guaranteed one-to-one support in lessons, which is restricted to the most needy children. He might be in a lesson with a few others with EHCPs, and one TA. This may also be a badly behaved class, so not always the best option...

I honestly think you are overstating what level of writing ability is normal in year 9. This level of writing is not the standard of someone who won't be able to fill in a job application form as an adult.

Who is making you think your son's current level is so behind? Is school saying he's not going to get 5 GCSEs at 4+ etc? What do they say about how he is currently performing compared to peers?

I say this because we've seen one piece of work and it's something where short sentence answers would be expected - that's the narrative style - and no one is going to be tested on their drawing ability on a history GCSE. If he would do the same sentence complexity etc if the objective was to write an essay, that might change what everyone is saying.

DS has ADHD and he would have produced this level of work in year 8 (and probably 9) unless someone had made it very clear that how good this was mattered. He's year 10 now and predicted a 7/8 in history. If he didn't care about the task, he wouldn't do much better now. I'm not saying that your son and my son are the same, or that your son can get a 7/8, but I'm unclear why you're worrying (based on this one piece of work only) that he's going to fail entirely.

I think you have been directed how to appeal the refusal to assess and also people have given opinions on whether they think an ehcp is needed. But ...

In the meantime you need to try an make sure your child is getting the support they need without an ehcp as they havent got one. This is very hard to do! Partly because without the assessment it's hard to know what support they might need, (privatre reports can help, but there could also be free outreach or toolkits of strategies to try if this are outside of your means) and partly the lack of statutory status or ring fenced funds for SEN support is a challenge.

Have you looked at the schools SEN Information report which should say how the school supports pupils.

Are they living up to thier own policy and the information report.

This special needs jungle article has a bit of info at the start about sen support which might help with some conversations as it explains how sen support can work (it then goes on to propose changes to fhe system which is less helpful for you today)

https://www.specialneedsjungle.com/should-sen-support-legal-requirement-children-and-young-people/

If you plan to seek assessments and use the reports for a SENDIST appeal, make sure whoever you use has experience of writing Tribunal standard reports.

Fortunately extra time is given to any child with SEN for their exams

Not true. An EHCP isn’t required, but having SEN does not automatically equal extra time. Some DC with SEN will not qualify.

Having an autism diagnosis means extra time is easy enough to get though. No form 8 application is required.

The pp didn’t specifically say ASD diagnosis, they generalised to “any child with SEN”. But, yes, no Form 8 for extra time applications made for candidates under the non-learning difficulties criteria or those with learning difficulties but with an EHCP/IDP. A Form 9 instead.

That should say EHCP/IDP/Statement of SEN.

Year 3