EHCP help

[HelloKittyHelloKitty]

Need advice please, you honestly can’t make this up, my son’s school is terrible. I had an annual review in july for my son, with the school senco, I said all the changes I want made to his ehcp etc she wrote them all down and we went through it all together.
Then a few days later she informed me she was leaving at the end of the year but would make sure the LA got all the paperwork from his annual review, well it’s november and I have never had an outcome from his AR, ive emailed the LA on the 20th of October but they never responded. I called them today and guess what?! they’ve never received ANY of the paperwork! senco has since left and now that’s it! what do i do now? the guy on the phone was suggesting an emergency annual review but that doesn’t seem right given he was due one anyway? case worker never responds to me. Can I go above the LA? is there anyone else to take this further? i’ve found an ehcp means nothing honestly not worth the paper it’s written on.

Have you contacted the school to speak to the new SENCo?

yes and apparently there isn’t one 😕

The LA barely respond to suggested changes in my experience, let alone make requested amendments.

Anyway, this should all be going through the new senco-what meetings have you had with them?

They will have access to all of the files from before. If it’s a case of lost paperwork-the new senco needs to locate it and resend it.

Someone will be acting as senco-if it’s not a new member of staff taking the role, it may be the head. Explain what’s happened and ask them to look at the files.

If the AR genuinely hasn’t been received, the LA will be hounding the school for it.

i know they don’t but without the outcome i cannot appeal to the send tribunal as that was my intentions

well they are not clearly since this was july and now it’s november, my case worker doesn’t respond to any emails so i can’t see her hounding the school and there is no senco they have told me this themselves on the phone they put me through to the DSP but he does not attend there so they will not speak to me

Someone will be acting as senco.

Complain to Ofsted if you’re not happy.

if there is no senco then the head will be acting senco, email the class teacher and head to ask where the paperwork for the annual review will be saved on the school systems and ask for it to be sent to you with a two week deadline. If it hasn’t come give them one more week and if it’s not there you’ll need to do a subject access request. This will scare them into finding it or admitting they’ve lost it.

i’ve given sendiass a call so waiting for them to call back hopefully they can tell me the next steps, he is in secondary school so his tutor only sees him for half an hour a day

Even if the school doesn’t have a SENCO at the minute, there will be someone responsible for their duties. They should be able to access the paperwork. Have you spoken to a member of the SLT?

Following the AR meeting, did you not get the report that should have been circulated within 2 weeks of the meeting?

If the caseworker is ignoring you, have you tried emailing the Director of Children’s Services? You could also email the Monitoring Officer. The LA should have informed you if they were going to amend or not within 4 weeks of the meeting, so well before now. If you have tried chasing and that hasn’t worked, you could look at a pre-action letter.

Be careful with SENDAISS. While some are good, some are not and do more harm than good by repeating the LA’s unlawful policies.

no sadly i have not received anything, not sure what the SLT is? the senco said she would be handing in the paperwork personally it wasn’t done online it was written down as they said their computer systems were down at the time so i imagine there’s no trace of it now 🙁

The quickest way to fix this is ask the school to hold another annual review.

SLT is senior leadership team.

There should still be paperwork related to the review meeting. You school should still have those records.

i don’t think we should have to have another one because of their incompetence

thank you, will have to get back onto them

No, but if the senco only made handwritten notes, there may genuinely be no record of them. A subject access request can't find notes if they've been thrown away.

You can highlight to the school that it is a requirement to have a named SENDCo. The headteacher should know this even if office staff etc. don't.

Sadly it was handwritten notes so I imagine there is no record of them now

Even handwritten notes shouldn’t have been thrown away. There should still be a record.

Put a complaint into the la poinging out that tgey are failing in their statutory duties and leaving themselves open to jr. Ill see if i can find an ipsea template for you. One min.

https://www.ipsea.org.uk/the-annual-review-process

https://www.ipsea.org.uk/letter-to-la-when-it-has-not-completed-an-annual-review

The first link is to the process,the second link to the template letter to use with the LA. TheLA is ultimately responsible regardless of the senco leaving the school. It's a common delay tactic used by some LA's to not send out paperwork when they should- the longer they can go without giving provision the more money they save.

As pp said sendiass can be awful, ipsea and sossen are best for advice.

Ofsted don't deal with individual complaints. They won't be interested or helpful.

@HelloKittyHelloKitty someone has to be acting as SENCO. But if no joy with the school then just go for the emergency review. That might stick a rocket up their arses.

Definitely contact the LA (I would contact the DCS and the MO if you haven’t already) but be careful going down the normal complaint process if you might want to look at JR. The normal complaint process takes too long to be a suitable remedy and JR is supposed to be a remedy of last resort and making a formal complaint can sometimes be seen as acknowledging another route of redress.

I don't understand your problem with holding an urgent review. In fact you will have the upper hand in this meeting and be able to ask for the exact wording that you want. They are likely to be falling over themselves to accommodate you.

Your best bet is just a hold an annual review ASAP, so that you get the right of appeal assuming the amendments you want aren’t made. The legal Duty to review the plan rests with the local authority, this is just delegated to schools. So if the School is being difficult, you can complain to the local authority. You’re better off just making the amendments again and ensuring the documentation is sent. For the next time, just remember that you should get a written report from the school two weeks after the annual review meeting, and an outcome from the local authority four weeks after the meeting.

you were right to contact Sendiass. Fingers crossed, they get back to you quickly.

The case worker does not respond to me i contacted on the 20th of October, not sure how soon they should be responding? The trouble is i wanted to appeal the ehcp so now waiting for a new AR seems really unfair as it’s now delayed and tribunal is 18 months anyway