Urgent SEN help at school

[Justpeachy88]

Hello,

Long story but I need some advice on resubmitting a EHCP request for needs assessment for the second time please, it’s just been refused again - or at the very least getting some provisions at school. I don’t have anything additional evidence to submit.

Im honestly at a loss, my son started secondary last year, I contacted the school months before to make them aware that my son has a long history of school refusal, bowel issues and struggles with learning due to suspected ASD and to ask for some provisions. I had a meeting and was told they can meet his needs via their usual learning. This is not the case, he’s been suspended, is learning next to nothing. Constant calls and emails from school about his lack of wanting to learn. I’ve been to SENCO support services for advice and also the council and they contacted the school to ask about my son and what they’re doing to help him. They replied saying he’s not even on the SEN register??

How can I get him on there, I’m emailing most weeks and being ignored, I’ve asked for meetings where nothings addressed. He has an EHA with the pastoral team, the school said they’d check in on him at the end of each day and that hasn’t happened. They’ve suggested counselling for him, but I’m already taking him out of school.

I guess my question is, how can I be successful with an EHCP when he isn’t on the SEN register? And what can I do to make sure he’s put on there when I’m being ignored by the school SENCO.

To make matters worse, his primary school didn’t forward his Sen records and when I’ve chased they just tell me everything’s been forwarded when I know it hasn’t. They’ve refused me a subject access request too so I’m not even sure if he was on the SEN register there despite them actually submitting the ASD referral for him and having many meetings with them and his attendance being really low due to school refusal and his continence issues and arfid.

It’s as though there’s no record of anything whatsoever since starting primary school, there’s no evidence to be found of any of his struggles anywhere. And no matter how much I try I can’t get him any help at all.

Dreading him going back again next week and his anxiety is through the roof again.

Any advice on where to go from here would be much appreciated.

Thank you

Appeal the refusal to assess. The LA has shown you twice they don’t agree to assess; you need to force their hand. Submitting another EHCNA request doesn’t mean the LA will agree, especially if they see twice you won’t appeal if they refuse.

You don’t need DS to be on the SEN register. The only lawful test for an EHCNA is a) has or may have SEN, and b) may need special educational provision to be made via an EHCP.

You can gather further evidence. Make SARs to the school, GP and any other service involved. Did you complain to the primary school about their refusal? If so, did you go to the ICO? The threshold is relatively low, so depending on your other evidence, they may not be required, but you can look at independent assessments. If you need independent assessments and you can’t afford them and aren’t eligible for legal aid (which can fund assessments), there are charities, e.g. Parents in Need, who can help.

In addition to appealing the refusal to assess, request another meeting with the school’s SENCO. The school must make their best endeavours to meet DS’s SEN and they must make reasonable adjustments. If the SENCO ignores you or refuses to help, escalate it. If that still doesn’t work, formally complain. Not supporting DS leaves them at risk of a disability discrimination claim.

For things related to DC and EHCPs, you would better posting on SN Chat, SN Children or the SEN board.

Hi there, thank you so much for the reply.

This is so helpful to me. I feel overwhelmed again with it all at this point and having this all wrote down for me in black and white is so useful and I’ll start by rerequesting information from the primary school - no I didn’t complain as I’d been told that they wouldn’t hold anything anyway as he left primary over a year ago now so not sure if that’s the case or not? However the email back said it was ‘too much information’ to process or something along those lines. But all I do know is that nothing was forwarded.

I do have a subject access from his current school, it came through after I’d submitted the request for the EHCP for needs assessment thinking about it now. Could I add that as extra evidence?

Was hoping to have SALT in place as the GP referred him months ago but I’m thinking about getting him an assessment with SALT privately using his DLA money. Just don’t want to miss the cut off, it’s a month since I had the letter back now so have another month to sort the appeal out.

Thank you once again for the reply.

You have 2 months from the date of the letter or 1 month from the date of the mediation certificate, whichever is later.

If the reply was too much information, they must hold something. However, the information won’t be particularly helpful for proving DS meets the threshold for a EHCNA now.

Yes, you can use the information from the secondary SAR. It won’t all be relevant to an appeal, but some will be.

If you seek an independent report, personally, I would go with an ed psych report. Whatever you do, make sure whatever professional you get has experience of writing reports for SENDIST.