School not providing what is on IEP.

[FatherSpodoKomodo]

DS1 is year 1 and nearly 6. I was shown his IEP in October and was told he would be doing Narrative therapy (continued from Reception) and would also be doing a Motor Skills programme. I didn't see his IEP at the March parents evening.

I found out last week that he has only done one session of the Motor Skills programme.

What happens when a school doesn't give the child what they said they would on an IEP? What is my next step?

Yes but the chat about the vicar would lessen dd's anxiety so that when she left assembly she would be able to concentrate on what was being taught. My fifteen minute chat with her TA allows her and myself to ensure that we are both up to speed with what's happening and to plan for any support dd might need before our next chat. That ensures that staff working with dd are pro active and therefore more effective rather than being reactive and subjecting dd to unnecessary stress and anxiety.
Both totally different to a child needing a reprimand or a Mum wanting to swap her child's reading book.

Dd's statement does reflect her needs accurately it's more the school is very proficient at providing an environment that means her needs are met without her being permanently attached to a TA. Should they be denied resources because they support all children with SEN well or should they keep the resources so that they can continue to support all children with SEN well not only the statemented ones?

Stopping talking is proactive for that individual child. As would swapping a reading book, if it was totally inappropriate, just don't see the difference unless the amount of support was different. All interactions require a certain degree of professional skill and knowledge. If the amount of support is different this would become evident in the documentation.

They will not be denied resources as the increase in delegated funding will compensate for stumping up the initial 6K.

But I can't imagine anyone documenting that a child was told off for talking or a mum wanted a book change.
So are you saying that my three children without additional needs should have had individual support and I should have had the opportunity to chat to their teachers weekly not because it was needed but because it would be more fair?

Believe you and me I look back on my older one's school days like they were halcyon days. No input required from me other than attending parents' evenings and signing the reading diary. Absolute bliss in comparison to the minefield of SEN and the input I am required to give now.

But your argument is that dd shouldn't have her statement and twenty hours of support because it doesn't meet what your rigid idea of SEN support is thereby denying dd a statement and all the children her TA supports would mean the school would lose the funding they currently have so £10,000pa by your reckoning.
But if I put her in our catchment school who aren't good with SEN dd would need twenty hours at least of the TA sat beside her therefore denying her the independence school and myself have worked hard to achieve and withdrawing support from all the children her TA currently supports.
Of course dd's school would then make a case for funding for these children and so in effect it would cost more and dd wouldn't be as happy or as able to achieve as she does currently.
so somewhere the thinking is flawed surely?

daftdame school staff are salaried. Schools don't submit time sheets

If your daughter was in a special school it would cost 4 times that to support her insanity ...now that is inequality!

"mrz there must be day to day observations in order to inform teaching."

I have 30 children in my class for 300 minutes a day when do you imagine I have time to write down observations and fill in time sheets ... I cover play ground duty 5 days a week and deliver interventions during my lunchbreak and before school starts ... some days I don't even visit the loo

insanity Nowhere have I said that I think your daughter should not have her statement. I questioned whether playing the system was right, questioned a system which actively encouraged this was right.

I believe a statement could be just as harmful if inaccurate but held on to because of a school's need for the funds. This distorts a child's actual need, gives a false impression of their needs, which is never appropriate.

Yes, schools will have to be able to demonstrate they have spent 6K on a child before extra funds are applied for, but they will receive more delegated funds to cover the initial outlay. In the current economic climate are you really that surprised? It is what has had to happen everywhere.

It sounds as if your daughter is receiving an appropriate education for her needs, I have said this several times. However part of the reason for this is that you have had to go through the courts for this to happen. Why defend a system when that is what it takes to get the right education?

I probably should add that yes I do assess and observe all the time but not formally every day, most observations are in my head or I would never have time to actually teach anything.

The delegated funding has been drastically cut daftdame and I know our school budget won't cover the £600 000+ it would need to show every child who needs support has had that amount spent on them.

mrz Cutting delegated funding is not what the legislation promised. Did your school participate in the LA consultation which was to decide how to delegate funding?

mrz You don't have to demonstrate 6K spend for every child with additional needs, only for those who need more funding than this. How many children in your school are individually funded more than this currently?

With the old legislation if the OP's child has a statement, ultimately a complaint can be made to the LA if the school are not delivering what is on the statement.

With the new legislation the school would have to be delivering the first 6K's worth, and demonstrate they are, before top up funding is received. Built in incentive to deliver the initial 6K's worth.

By not delivering, they would not have the funding in the first place, so provision like Motor Skills programmes will have to be in place to ensure funding.

With the old legislation our LA delegated provision of a statement to the individual schools, entirely. The Annual Review was an annual review in name only, as the statement was not expected to change annually. The paperwork required was minimal.

Not that any extra funding was genuinely received by the schools as a whole because the LA had reduced the amount of delegated funding to compensate for the amount of statements that were applied for.

Therefore the entry requirements for a statement were lowered (in comparison to other LAs nationwide), thus distorting need. People assume a statement = high level needs. As a result the schools which had parents who are prepared to or able to 'fight' for funding receive more than schools who didn't have such parents. Funding ceased to be about need but more about who possessed the legal clout with which to threaten a LA with.

But dd's statement has been tweaked at pretty much every annual review since she was three years old to reflect the changes to her difficulties, the progress she has made and the extra demands placed upon her by the curriculum.
School and I are a team, we work together to ensure dd thrives and achieves in school. The LA are happy that her needs are being met because of the progress she has made and the fact dd gives her own input in person where they see a child who is happy and confident and clearly enjoying school. They recognise that school and myself have a firm grasp on dd's difficulties and needs and there has never been any resistance to the alterations we have requested.
A statement does indicate high level needs but it doesn't necessarily indicate that a child is poor academically though and with children with autism the academics are quite often the thing they find most easy in school.
The reason that there is now a need to resort to lawyers and barristers (because incidentally the tribunal process is supposed to be parent friendly and accessible without legal advice) is because LA's prefer to spend their SEN budgets employing solicitors to fight parents at tribunal to avoid having to fund support to children who need it.
I only engaged a lawyer and barrister quite a long way down the line when nothing I was doing was getting the LA to meet their statutory duty and comply with the law despite going through the stage one, two and three complaints procedure and having my complaints investigated by the LGO and the ICO.
The new legislation won't change anything LA's and schools don't take any notice of the law that is in place now.Unscrupulous schools will continue to short change the children with SEN by using delegated funding for other things rather than supporting the children it's there for. They will spend more time providing the paperwork to ensure that they get the funding than they will supporting the children that the funding is there for. Teachers and schools will have more hoops to jump through and parents won't have the entitlement to resort to the law to force the LA and school to give the support needed.
Meanwhile our LA will be paying £60,000 pa to an independent specialist school in a different County to maintain ds's statement and dd will continue to thrive in a school that cares for and supports all children with SEN with or without a statement. I will continue to work closely with school to ensure that dd keeps her statement and I will if I have to resort to the law to ensure that the LA continues to maintain her statement as it is whilst ever dd is in school.

mrz the child in your school who has been denied a statement despite professionals identifying a multitude of difficulties. Please advise the parents to contact SOSSEN and IPSEA and get their support to appeal the decision. I can also pm you the name of an SEN advocate who would take it to Tribunal for a nominal amount compared to a solicitor and the number of an SEN legal helpline who would provide 30 minutes free advice.

Just to clarify I have never needed to use any legal help with regards to dd and her statement. The lawyer and the barrister was needed to force the LA to fund an independent specialist education for ds when they had no maintained provision to meet his needs and felt that it was appropriate to leave him out of schoo altogetherl providing 5 hours home tuition per week when he had a statement giving 35 hours of 1 to 1 support (he needed a TA at his side constantly) They fought and delayed and ignored the law because it was saving them money because they pulled out of Tribunal and didn't challenge anything in the statement the lawyer wrote because they knew it was accurate and needed they just didn't want to pay for it

insanity I agree with you in that it is difficult to produce legislation to tackle all the unscrupulous schools or LAs. Changing the law does at least address some of the loopholes in the old law re. schools not providing what is on a statement.

There will probably be winners and losers. The winners are those children whose severity of need has genuinely decreased but their statements don't reflect this, as the funding is being used to fund other children without statements. For this, I welcome any attempt to improve transparency and accountability.

It could go so far as their achievements being 'managed', kept artificially low in order to maintain funding. Parents do not easily have access to all the assessment data, it is difficult to judge whether the assessment is rigorous enough. QCA /SATs paper results can be moderated down by teacher assessment. Teachers admit they make APP assessment data up (read confessions on TES website, I could post the link if you don't believe this).

Children with statements can be seen as 'cash cows' and this is wrong.

I do believe you have done exactly the right thing by ensuring your DD's statement is tweaked at annual review time. I appreciate (only too fully) what a fight all this can be.

But why would dd be a winner if she lost some of the hours on her statement? As far as I can see she would be a loser because if she needed those hours a month or two down the line which is a possibility she wouldn't have them. Her classmates would lose out too as her TA wouldn't be there to pick up other children. The teacher would lose out as she would need to provide the support that her TA does to dd and others and those who don't need support would lose out because the teacher's time and attention would be focused elsewhere.
Dd's levels of academic attainment have always been accurately reported to the LA. The academics aren't her SEN. Even ds with pretty severe autism and challenging behaviour and mutism has in fact passed 8 GCSE's grades A to C despite the fact he has had a TA by his side for every minute he has been in education since he was 3 years old. Their academic ability has never been seen as a reason to deny them the support they need in other areas.
I totally agree it's not a fair system when only some children get the support they need and a parents ability to fight could be a reason for this. But taking away dd's support won't benefit others who might need it it would just save the LA a few thousand to put into the pension fund.

insanity The difference is you feel your DD needs to retain a reserve of support, as she potentially could need it.

For those who know their child is not receiving the support (and is coping without it), the fact that schools will have to demonstrate what they are providing, in order for it to be retained on a statement, is a good thing.

I don't understand the process. My DS is 7 has asd, can barely write his name, can't read, can't dress himself after PE, yet we have been told he has no chance of getting a statement. I have aspergers myself and I have idea how to 'play the system' to get him some help

I think you should still be able to write to the LA for a statutory assessment. They have to make a decision of whether they will do one within 6 weeks.

www.ipsea.org.uk/How-we-can-help

This website is good.

This morning though, to me, illustrates why being forced to document support to satisfy bureaucrats won't make any difference to the quality of support a child receives.
As we entered the playground dd's TA indicated that she needed to speak with us before dd entered the classroom. Swimming had been cancelled because of illness and the TA made sure dd knew before it was announced and what would be happening to replace it.
Her teacher wouldn't announce to the class until after register when she would write on the board the changes to the morning and she'd keep on top of any noise than an announcement would bring.
Dd's anxiety and stress levels were low as a result and her TA would withdraw but still watching and probably do targeted support with a child who needed it whilst dd was independent until she went off to numeracy and literacy where she is totally independent.
So this morning dd has had 5 minutes support.BUT in a school not sensitive to her she'd have found out possibly from a classmate or be left to second guess what was happening. Her anxiety and stress levels would rise and her TA would be sat with her to support. Then rather than her being independent in numeracy and literacy she'd be sat at a table with children who needed TA support and so weren't her academic equals but she'd be there to be able to document where her support was being used.
So the school who wasn't sensitive to her or proactive could document that dd needed support for the whole of the morning but it wouldn't be the support that was needed. She'd have an adult sat at the side of her possibly a mum of a child in school who had no knowledge or experience of autism or the levels of qualification and training that dd's TA has.Dd wouldn't have been independent which raises her self esteem, she wouldn't have been working with children on her level maybe she'd be doing work that was too easy for her.
So should dd's school be penalised for giving effective support for 5 minutes and another school rewarded for giving ineffective support for three hours? Incidentally the LA know that dd has no support at all in numeracy and literacy so they aren't being deceived.