"DD can't be taken out of school because she is statemented"

[CaisleanDraiochta]

A quote from the extremely long text I received from DD's keyworker today after I deliberately missed her call. i have another thread with details but for background info i have deregistered both DD and DS as of today, in writing to the head at their former school.

Really don't know where she is getting her information from (I can guess) but surely she should check her facts before sending stuff like this, especially when DD (and me to a certain extent) is the person she is supposed to be supporting. Full text is as follows:

"Trying to ring you to see if you want help sorting the procedure to educate DS at home? DD can't be taken out of school because she is statemented. she must have an emergency review first. Until thats booked she must stay in school. You must contact ESBAS [education support, attendance and behaviour service at the LA] ASAP tomorrow to start this process off. Until then both kids could have unauthorised absences. If you want my help to do all this you need to answer your phone so we can talk. Its not as simple as you taking them out of school as you have."

Quite simply no I don't want here help, particularly as she appears to know even less than I do. Yes it is as simple as taking them out of school, like i have done.Its a mainstream school, so DD's statement makes no difference and I have put the deregistration in writing. they should be off the school's roll now so no their absence is not unauthorised. I'm also happy to keep everything in writing (or text) with her and everyone else due to past bad experiences when things i have said in confidence were twisted and repeated to the class teacher, leading to some very poor treatment of DD.

So what should I (if anything) send in reply? Am I correct that I have done evrything i need to? I just know if I don't do as I am being told by her, I'm going to open the flood gates to a whole load more trouble. But i'm going to stand my ground- BOTH my Dc are now being educated otherwise than in school as of todays date!

I think you should keep the text obviously, but since you have de registered then she is not your child's key worker any longer, so has no input.

Contact the council or whoever ( I'm in Scotland so not sure what LEA is etc)

Why are you home schooling? You seem to be quite cross about dcs schooling. Is there a reason for this?

I meant to say, do not reply, you have de registered

are you in Scotland? The statement can make a difference there I think - if so, you need Schoolhouse.

If it's England, the statement is irrelevant, although if you have any additional things on there (like SALT) you may not get them (or at least not without a fight).

Not sure about Wales or NI.

I don't think that you are doing yourself or your DC any favours by deliberately not talking to your SW. Ask him/her how you should go about home educating if nothing else. Also do you realise how difficult home educating can be, especially if one of them has SN?

OP, I would ignore
The school by law have to inform the LEA.
If you hear nothing in a couple of weeks I would get in touch and check this has been done, as in our case the HT had no idea she had to do this

You would be wise to respond to any request for information from the LEA, but you don't have to meet them or your children.
Our LA send a form for guidance of what info they require.
There is space of a paragraph requesting how you are meeting needs of the statement and that is it. They also ask what resources you intend to use, they are basic questions.
Please try not to worry, I know that's easily said than done.
Perhaps familiarise yourself with the law and then you can give her ten barrels if she keeps this up.

I've read all the guidelines on home education over and over. Nowhere does it state a child with a statement in a mainstream school cannot be deregistered, just like any other child. In fact it says the exact opposite, as long as I am providing her with a education suitable for her age, ability and take into account any SEN. Well I would say I'm quite capable as DD's parent to provide that, considering I already have been doing so for the whole of the past 8 years, bar the 30ish hours pw, 39 weeks per year since she has been in school.

If they want to question whether I can meet the provision outlined in DD's statement, there is no doubt I can. If ever there was a reason to be thankful for a wooly, vague part 4, then this is it. Half of it is irrelevant anyway as it is about adaptations to help DD access NC in a noisy class of 25 other kids, which she simply won't have to deal with anymore. As for the provision of "to help DD view herself as a confident and successful learner" they have pretty much summed up my main reason for choosing home ed, right there!

"to help DD view herself as a confident and successful learner"

This just says it all, she will love H.ed and come on leaps and bounds.
Once the atmosphere is right, she will thrive.
School is just so wrong for some children.

You can certainly just ignore the text if that's easiest. If you don't want any further harassment offers of assistance from the keyworker, you could fire off a quick response like this:

"Thanks for your offer of help, but I don't require any assistanc. Please do not contact me again. Feel free to contact the LA's EHE team to confirm I've followed the correct procedure in withdrawing my children from school."

Bet it feels very liberating to be in a position to wash your hands of such people!!

You are free, free, free.

Glad you and the dc had such a brilliant day yesterday. Hope they will give you a chance to put your feet up for a bit today!

Have you send a copy of the de-reg letter by recorded delivery? (Sometimes hand delivered letters can go missing and children might be classed as unauthorised absentee).

It's not wise for you to ignore the key worker but you could respond by saying that you are acting according to the law and direct her to the guidelines and quote to her the excerpt below.

''Children with Special Educational Needs (SEN)

3.17 Parents' right to educate their child at home applies equally where a child has SEN. This right is irrespective of whether the child has a statement of special educational needs or not. Where a child has a statement of SEN and is home educated, it remains the local authority's duty to ensure that the child's needs are met. ''

Also this page might be useful to you and the key worker.

''Where a child has a statement of SEN and is home educated, it remains the local authority's duty to ensure that the child's needs are met. ''

That might well mean that she will remain your DD's key worker. Have you joined HE-special, there are a lot of experienced HE'rs whose children are statemented.
It may also be useful contacting Education Otherwise, they will put you in touch with your local HE rep, who will be familiar with your LA workings.

No I just handed in the dereg letter by hand to the school, I did see it opened though and obviously the text alludes to the fact that they are aware of the contents. Maybe I should send a further copy by recorded delivery just in case?

I'm going to reply to the keyworker as I know in the past she doesn't just go away if ignored. I'm thinking something along the lines of- 'Thanks for the offer but until you are familiar with the 2007 guidelines on elective home Education, particularly para 3.17, I don't feel that there is any further help that you are able to offer us at this time'

Does that sound ok?

The thing is she doesn't work for the school/LA/SS, she is just part of a charity that the LA refer children with SN to in this area, a bit like Home Start, which most people have heard of. there is no obligation to accept their services, but as many parents of children with SN would probably agree, you grab any offer of free help with both hands!

However, I haven't actually foundher to be of much help to any of us really. she has met DD twice in 6 months and mainly has just accompanied me to meetings at school. I have found with those that despite agreeing with me beforehand to back me up when asking for certain things from school, once in the meeting she 'switches sides' and tries to get me to back down and agree to what the school want. I also mentioned previously that things I have said to her in confidence, she then told the school about without my knowledge, who then used them against us at a later date. this is the main reason why I am not happy to speak to her over then phone and prefer it all to be in writing.

Another thing I have noticed is that whenever I have spoken to anyone at school about things I wasn't happy with, they would immediately go off to phone the keyworker and I would receive a phone call from her arguing the schools point of view. I strongly suspect this is what happened yesterday after I took in the dereg letter and I think they may have put pressure on her to make me change my mind and keep DD in their school. Obviously they do not want to lose the funding that comes with a statemented child, even if they haven't been actually using it to effectively help DD at all. I'm not sure if she is willingly going along with this though or if the school is in fact just 'using her' but really that is not my concern, I am far too busy home educating my DC right now :)

As a parent of 2 ds with SN, one in an AS independent school & -the other still in mainstream on reduced hours...I totally get where your coming from!! WELL DONE YOU!!!

I had a Family Support Worker... total waste of my time & the states money.

Best of luck.

I did send a registered copy as well as hand delivering the de-reg letter. Although my child was not statemented, I had experience of school losing pediatric/specialists reports!

Before you reply to the key worker...Here are my thoughts:

1)Although you do not need permission to Home educate your DD, she does remain the responsibility of the LA, because of the statement. link also new SEN code draft
2) The LA needs to be satisfied that you are providing the support in the statement.
3) Could this key worker be the LA's choice to assess that your daughters requirements are met?

I think it's appaling that the key worker would betray your confidence (I'm not sure whether you could complain to her employers) and for the school to use such information against you.

Well I sent my reply but have heard nothing back- don't know whether that's a good thing or not

Now I've had a voicemail left for me, from the school's SENCO. She says that apparently the school cannot deregister either of my DC unless they are a)registered at another school or b) registered with the La's FLESS (flexible learning something or other service). She clearly stated that if I want to home ed, I need to contact them and gave me their phone number

I'm pretty sure these are the people who oversea home ed in the area(do the visits etc.) as well as provide services for children who can't go to school for whatever reason. i'm happy to contact them myself, BUT I was under the impression that this was what the school was meant to do. also i'm not sure that it is right that they should be REFUSING to dereg the DC until I have done this, my duty was to inform the school only, right?

also I am slightly annoyed that they made contact with me by phoned , when I have requested contact be in writing only, over and over again. I'm going to send a letter (they have never let me have an email address, which would be far more convenient) asking for what she said in writing, request again everything in writing only and also point out that they shouldn't be preventing the deregistration.

do you think this will be ok? should I just contact FLESS in the meantime anyway? I'm not terribly bothered that they will be putting the DC down as unauthorised absence as I have proof I asked for them to be deregistered, but it seems bizarre that the school would be wanting to have it recorded that way. Backs up my theory even more that they are desperate not to lose the funding that comes with DD's statement.

You don't need to ask the school anything in writing or otherwise (unless you want your children's records). You could copy and store the recorded message. The school has voluntarily left you a recording on your answering machine, which means you can copy and transcribe the message.
As you will need to be in contact with the LA for dd, why not ring the LA directly? They will have someone in charge of home education. If they do not have an HE or CHE (children educated at home), the admission office will be able to tell what your next steps are from their point of view. I would tell them that you have ''informed the proprietor of the school'' your intention to home educated both your children, one of whom as statement but not in specialist school...

I'll pm you some info.

When I de registered my dd ( February 2014) all I did was hand in a letter saying we intended to HE and thanks for their support !we gave a copy to the Health Needs School that were supplying our tutor and a copy to her base school ( which she hasn't attended since 2012) . That was all we had to do ,the man from the HE dept at the local council then contacted me about 5 days later . TBH your school seem to be trying their hardest to make life difficult for you and I would just tell them that you know what your rights are ,your children have been de registered and you would like no further contact from them .

From what I read about FLESS...They will be involved in supporting your dd, so I would ring them.

Yes, I have no problem with contacting them and I will do so this afternoon. from what I have heard FLESS seems ok and fairly supportive of Home ED. ESBAS on the other hand I have already had dealings with (to do with supporting DD in school) and they seemed quite anti and of the 'school at any cost' mindset. I had another thread a while back where I was told by them that if I chose home ed, then i would receive weekly visits from a SW and have to provide evidence of what I had done weekly. She stated this was compulsory for all home educated children, though I now know its not the case (if nothing else, how would they pay for that!)

Anyway my main issue is the fact that school have seemingly not deregistered the DC yet and will not until i contact FLESS. I will do this, but I believe that I should not HAVE to. I have asked for the DC to be deregistered, the school should do this, then contact the LA, who should then ask FLESS to contact me. I should also receive the school's confirmation the DC are deregistered in writing (not by voicemail) as requested by letter. Maybe none of this is important but it does worry me when I don't have paper copies of who has said what (I have no idea how to copy and save a voicemail) for future reference. I may be paranoid but i sense something dodgy is going on!

Oh and thank you for reminding me, I do want to ask for a copy of the DC's school records. How do I go about that?

The main thing is to do a registered copy of the deregistration letter. Then, I think, you can simply sit back. If anyone gets in touch to say "what is this month-long unauthorised absence?" you say "but I sent a second, registered, copy of the deregistration letter on 24 April, and here is the confirmation that it was delivered" and then the school gets in big trouble.

In that letter you could say "Further to my letter of 22 April, I am writing to inform you that I am removing X and Y from your school with immediate effect in order to educate them at home, according to WHATEVER THE LAW NUMBER IS. It is the legal responsibility of the school to inform the LA that these children have been removed from the school roll within 2 weeks (or however long it is), and I will be contacting the LA after DATE TWO WEEKS AFTER THE FIRST LETTER WENT IN to confirm that this has been done."

You'll have a fight to get the school records - I have no knowledge of how that is done. Freedom of information request maybe? Or maybe you just ask for them in that letter. You could say that you require a copy of the complete school records of each child and, if these are not provided, you will take the matter up directly with the LA. That might put the frighteners on them?

Have pm'd you.