Help please! I feel i need as much as possible - apologies in advance of a long drawn out description but want to give you all as much as possible.
My son is diagnosed with a rare form of dwarfism called Silver Russell Syndrome and suffers with a number of associated problems:
- Hemihypertrophy (1/2 of his body is longer than the other by 2 1/2 cm at the moment but will grow to what they think will be 7/8 cm, he cannot walk without a shoe raise without discomfort and terrible balance lol)
- Development Delay
- Speech Delay
- Anxious Stutter - this comes and goes and at serious times of stress he can have periods of up to 14 days of barely able to communicate - but on the whole his speech is much improved)
On the advice of our paed and speech therapist at 2 we placed him in a quiet village preschool and his speech issues really improved, he flourished in that environment and made so many friends that really accept his difficulties and mother him, his confidence around them is fab.
We decided his pier group was perfect for him and that we would place him at the nursery provision and hopefully the small village school like his preschool group, they have always been under subscribed.
I applied online (didnt stupidly read any booklet about applying but followed the steps online) and placed our application, filling in the section asking more details in which i wrote:
Jack has Silver Russell Syndrome with Hemihypertrophy and slight learning difficulties, we feel that visiting this school they are well equipped to help him. We feel a quieter village school would suit him.
On Friday we received our outcome and he has been placed in our catchment school....
Since this i have had the council accept he has exceptional medical circumstances and raise him on the waiting list for this school but obviously still may have the appeal to win.
I asked why i had no contact asking for more info if it was needed to give him the medical exception, i received this reply:
If a parent ticks the 'Parent Reason - Medical' box on the online application system we email or write out to the parent/carer to chase for a medical report from the child's doctor or consultant to support the application. We then set a deadline for the parent to submit the evidence or to contact us regarding their application under the criteria 'very exceptional medical grounds'. If we have not had any response by the deadline date, we process the application under the next appropriate criteria.
On your online application you ticked the box 'Parent Reason - Other' The officer who logged your application on the system called your contact number on 23rd February 2012 and left a voicemail asking if you would be providing medical evidence to support your application.
I DID NOT receive a call but surely this is negligence as if they noticed i had stated he had medical grounds they should have attempted to contact me by other means also....
Any advice please!! I have a written statement from his speech therapist/preschool key worker and GP what else may help my cause as i feel taking him from an environment he has flourished in will really affect his confidence and speech issues.
Thanks in advance x