Ruth kelly send her child to private school because of SN

[PeachyClair]

part story here

Now I haev no problems with private schools as such, just seems this woman is partlyr esponsible for completely effing up the chances of SN kids (such as mine) in mainstream, then she opts out.

Most parentscaring for sn kids don't have £15k a year to make that decision.

Wonder if she realised what she was planning when she was the Minister? Coz that would explain the state of Sn in aminstream schools frankly.

And on the same day I geta letter stating mys ion can't have any occupational therapy because his Teacher ahsn't had the time to fill in the forms by their deadline.

the money is there, they just waste it on stupid things as always!

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Having voted with her cheque book that she does NOT see the state sector as being able to educate her child appropriately, I agree with Rustybear below that she should "either (a)announce that she is using her position in the party to campaign for every other parent to have that right or (b) resign ".

However, cynically, I suspect that having taken her cake and eating it will highlight the iniquities of the situation far more than her spouting a load of campaigning rhetoric about improving the situation for others.

(To answer some q's fom below: She has sent her child as a weekly boarder to a school in Oxfordshire. He has dyslexia and possibly dyspraxia. She says he will return to the state sector for secondary education.)

Does anyone have experience of SEN provision in Tower Hamlets, her home borough? It apparantly has a reputation for relatively good provision.

I have also come late to this discussion, I to can completely understand why she has chosen to opt out.

I do not however, have the money to make the choice that she has, so my poor DS1 struggles on at mainstream primary school with his dyslexia, getting more and more demoralised as each year goes by.
We do all we can and do pay for a tutor, but his support at school just gets less and less as the school has been expended and the SN staff has been decreased.
Dyslexia is a problem which effects reading and writing something the school is meant to be good at, if only they were more flexiable in their teaching methods and not stuck ridgidly to the one path called the national cirriculum...
Also provision varies from one school to another, which is so pot luck, when a child starts school in reception you are very unlikely to know if they have dyslexia or not. By the time you find out if you happen to be in a school with bad provision then - hard luck- you wouldn't be able to move schools in the part of London I live in, if you wanted to, as places are like gold dust
As for trying to get a statement for dyslexia..... that really is a joke.
So lucky Ruth Kelly... as usual it all comes down to the money in your pocket.

Not that I'm bitter, twisted or angry of course

posted this on the other thread, when Frogs said her deliberately misleading (IMO) choice of words which suggested that the LA had offered to pay the fees but she'd nobly and graciously declined smacked of the worst kind of spin.

Frogs, I completely agree. I think her big sensible pants with integral barbed-wire lining are on fire today.

Sleazy choice of words. So the local authority 'agree' do they? What choice do they have? They aren't going to kidnap her kid and keep him prisoner in the local state primary, are they? and they were about as likely to pay his school fees as they are to collectively grow wings and little curly tails.

I am still mystified by a special need that is so severe it cannot possibly be catered for by any primary in Tower Hamlets even with private tuition, yet is so easily treated that after two years young Eamonn will be fully 'cured' and able to take his place in an inner city comp.

there was a really interesting interiew on the PM programme last night with a mother whose child had been recommended 24/7 care (ie boarding tailored SN education, like Kelly's child) and went through the whole stressful process of seeking funds through her LEA, which she got. It left me feeling that that's where Kelly's mistake has been, to not put herself through the process ordinary people have to endure.

She would never in a million zillion years got the LEA to fund a posh boarding school for dyslexia and/or dyspraxia. Never, ever. And I think it was profoundly dishonest of her to suggest it was ever a possibility. This is a child who is, apparently, capable enough to go back into a mainstream secondary comp in two years.
she's just chosen to go private. That's fine if she is Mrs Gadd, highly flying mother of four, but the problem is she is the former Education Secretary, the one in the 'education, education, education' party, who told us the schools were fab and great and the private sector had nothing to offer. I think she should resign.

Aloha, surely it depends what you mean by 'catered for'? As far as I have seen there seems to be a huge gulf between what the LEA and/or the school regard as 'appropriate provision' and what the parents and/or an independent ed psych would see as the very best provision that could possibly be obtained for that particular child. I'm sure there are cases where mainstream SN provision does in fact represent the very best possible option for a particular child, but there must be loads of cases where provision is at best adequate, and even more cases where the provision is actually not adequate in terms of the child's needs but ticks just enough boxes to get the LEA off the hook.

If I had a choice between my child muddling through in MS with a few hours a week of extra help from an untrained assistant and a specialist school with years of experience in providing an education exactly targeted to meet my particular child's needs and maximise his chances of future educational success, I'm sure I'd make the same decision as she did.

But to deny that this is not tantamount to hanging out a giant banner saying, 'The school system I was responsible for is not good enough' is just ludicrous.

I agree aloha

I'm just pointing out that this is clearly not a very severe special need, such as severe autism, that might, possibly, with a good wind, a steamroller attitude, a lot of luck and years of perseverance, get funding for a boarding school. if just two years at another school is enough to sort it all out so young Eamonn can slip back into a Tower Hamlets comp, no worries, then no, it would never have been funded by an LEA.

My own son was seen and diagnosed by an paediatrician who told us that he thought we had to be 'very very careful' where he went to school, and that we should consider the private sector if possible. Do you think the LEA will pay his fees
at Alleyns? I think not!

But swedishmum, if you tried hard at school and got your qualifications and made sensible career choices then you would be able to drive in 4 different directions at the same time.

I wasn't criticising your point, aloha, I think you're entirely right. I just feel nauseated at the weaselly words that have been used to imply that her ds's needs were of the kind of magnitude that would have made it even approaching possible that the LEA would pay the fees, and further imply that this option was somehow common among other children with SN. I know two children with SN who have places in private SN boarding schools, one of whom has very severe CP (non-ambulant, non-swallowing, can't hold his head) and the other has such severe epilepsy that she requires constant medical care. In the first case the parents had to take the LEA to court to get them to fund the place (which took 3 years of their lives and all of their savings); in the second the father did such extensive detective work that he'd tracked down a variety of papers which proved definitively that the LEA had lied in order to cover up the extent of the child's needs.

So yes, as aloha says, I think RK is living in the world of little winged piggies if she seriously expects people to believe that Tower Hamlets would have stumped up for her ds's place. But the phrasing is such that clearly lots of people have come away with just that impression.

I have more respect for Diane Abbot's position, who freely admitted that the local schools were not good enough, that she wasn't prepared to risk her child's future and that her choice was 'indefensible' in terms of socialist values.

Aloha - it is not uncommon for a child to go to a specialist dyslexia school for a period of time and then return to a MS school.
Specialist schools use a different multi sensory method of teaching dyslexic children, in much smaller groups which are targeted to the childs level.
This makes it possible for the child to catch up quickly and once learning stratagies are in place for that child, they are then able to use these to access MS learning situation.
For a DX of dyslexia there is a disparity between what a child is actually capable of and what they are achieving.
These children often need to be taught in a different way than the national cirriculum dictates to MS schools.

isgrassgreener - but the point is it is NOT common (ha!) for those children to have their private education paid for by the LEA, which is clearly what Ruth pants-on-fire Kelly wants us to believe.

Then we are in total agreement Frogs!

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Totaly agree with you Aloha, there is no way on Gods Earth that she would have got £15,000 of funding for dyslexia. Children where I work need to be 5 years behind their chronological age to get a statemnt for dyslexia. For many of these children they do not get a 1 to 1 in all their lessons.

I have taught children with reading ages 5 years behind their chronological age in a class with no extra support at all. If lucky they get regular support in the SEN unit doing soemthing like Toe to toe or sucessmake. But no support in the classroom at all.

I have no issue with her paying, but the comment that the Lea would pay is utter bollocks. The only children that I have seen get that level of support (and trust me these have been as scarse as hen's teeth) have been children with very marked needs who are a risk to themselves or others......so children with very severe EBD as a rule. Even children with very marked ASD get nothing like this level of support

Socci, you can go to tribunal, but the elevsl of support that we are talking about aer just not comparable in all of the cases that I have heared of

Well my son has dyspraxia which makes writing legible a horrendous battle for him, as well as other difficulties. I have been advised by the Senco that there is little chance of his getting a statement at present, let alone £15K of fees at boarding school! Not that I'd send him away anyway. But I certainly would not dream of saying that he had the same level of need as a child who couldn't move or even swallow, was severely autistic or was very violent and self-harming.
I have looked at the special schools that have LEA funded pupils and the main thing they cater for is severe emotional and behavioural difficulties - ie children who have been excluded from mainstream schools and/or who cannot be at home because their behaviour is so destructive.

Aloha yes I agree that of course if this is what Ruth Kelly or the LEA is trying to make people think then it is utter rubbish

It is the fact that MS education can't even cope with dyslexia, yet the current drive is to try and send all types of SN children to MS schools, regardless as to their ability to give an adequate provision, and to make getting a statement so hard that many people don't even try.