I'm a teacher and happy to answer any questions

[DellaF83]

Hi, I'm an experienced primary school teacher and happy to answer any questions anyone may have.

Which is why so many lea's are quietly phasing statements out because the money isn't there. They are replacing them with other programs which on the surface seem like a better deal because support goes in faster but they have no legal standing and can be withdrawn at any time.

Well soap I can't see how you would have any problem defending your actions if a parent decided to Judicially review the Local Authority for failure to carry out the provision indicated in the statement.

In fact, I would expect a parent who allowed a statement to say that wouldn't know that they could unless you told them or directed them to the IPSEA website

I can understand, honestly, that you can only do your very best with a statement like that and that poorly specified wording must be pretty hard work to deal with and satisfy yourself that the needs of the child had been met.

Particularly when, ime, having a child with a statement specified 1:1 means you are further down the list for the allocation of classroom TAs.

Do I qualify for an opinion as the mother of an ASD child (with many traits myself)?

There is LOADS of money.

Have you seen the FOI requests done about what has happened to pathfinder money? Mostly catering breakfast meetings iirc.

Money spent on tribunals? Shed loads, to defend the budget for a couple of years whilst a child deteriorates so far that they have undisputable Expensive needs and placements.

And then the funding of LA Advisory Service Empires who's sole job afaics is to convince schools that their SEN children are hopeless causes and their parents are too greedy whilst handing the classroom teacher generic strategies on badly photocopied paper and offering the odd 'how to manage a child with ASD' half days, rather than 'how to EDUCATE a child with ASD, meanwhile they enjoy their flexi-time and car allowance and tell their annual stories at Christmas about the poor little disabled children that they care so deeply about'.

Get rid of them. Give the money to TAs for training, and to parents for SALT and OT.

Well I wouldn't want a TA plonked anywhere near me.

I'd want someone to explain to me what was going on, and help me navigate it, reduce my fear and then help me to do better and more independently next time.

LOL Mrz.

I'm sure we all qualify for an opinion on ASD. But none of us can diagnose it, even if we think there might be red flags.

My point zzzzzz is that if I was to follow the letter of the statement since there is no further information about how the hours are to be used. Then that is what would happen.

I don't. I use my professional judgement to decide how that support should look. What it will mean for the child. However either my judgement should be used or it shouldn't. If not, give me a statement with even a hint of an idea of what the experts had in mind.

Again I'm not talking about the whole sale use of support being removed and put somewhere else. I'm talking about me as the teacher deciding that for some activities it isn't necessary. How else would I be able to see if a child still needed support or not if it was always there no matter what.

Newto tbh plenty of professionalss don't recognise ASD traits and behaviours in children with ASD diagnoses (like our autism outreach service for instance) so the chances of them recognising it in their parents is anyone's guess. Ds and dd's paed whilst being pretty convinced their autism has a genetic cause states that he can see no evidence that either dh or I display autistic traits. I daresay it's been muted by some who would like to attribute my being difficult and demanding to something other than a parent doing her level best to get her children's needs met though.

I'm not diagnosing just noticing behaviour traits in common ...

back to zzzzzz point we have a number of pupils with ASD and none have statements and I it breaks my heart some days thinking of how anxious one little boy appears

[smile[

whoops

'How else would I be able to see if a child still needed support or not if it was always there no matter what.'

You look at the data and rate of progress against targets. Don't you?

zzzzz in that situation (lets say the playground or PE) I would want my usher holding my arm. When I got through the door of my quiet home (lets say maths) I would want them to bugger off.

And once (helped by a local specialist) I'd learned about the culture and knew to go to the quiet corner of the fishmarket, learned chinese and which kind of fish I liked I wouldn't want them to come to the fishmarket with me either. I would find it patonising, degrading and damned annoying if they still did.

And that Inclusionist is why statements have annual reviews.

Has the OP returned?

Starlight the child I mentioned is doing fine according to the data and progress ... in fact that is why the EP doesn't feel they need a statement

Again Starlight you are generalizing. Some children will only make that progress with that support. Some children will always need it. Some children develop coping mechanisms or work through their difficulties and no longer need it.

Simply looking at progress levels is ignoring the overall experience of the child and specifically that child's needs. Especially for those children who need emotional or behavioural support.

'it breaks my heart some days thinking of how anxious one little boy appears'

Yes. Which is in part why some teachers would use another child's statemented TA to work with him.

Doesn't make it right or legal. Makes it understandable though, to everyone except the statemented child's parents who don't understand why if the other child needs support the school doesn't get it for them instead of nick their child's hard fought for support.

sorry to butt in - Mrz - would your opinion that the little boy seems extremely anxious and (presumably) finding it difficult to cope not count in the EP's assessment?

Considering how hard it is to get statemented support in the first place I would have to be damn sure the child didn't need it before I even hinted about getting the hours reviewed. If I'm wrong it will take a hell of a lot of work to get those hours back.

Oh, come on. A year is far too far apart and there is no way we can call an interim review every time we want to make tweeks and adjustments to support to try to get it spot on for any given moment in time!!

One maths lesson might be a very active, practical lesson in a big open space where a child might need constant support. The next may be a consolidation lesson of a previously learned skill where the child can cope entirely independently with appropriate visual support.

Are you seriously saying you want me to call an annual review to ask if it's ok for the child to fly solo in certain maths lessons (or similar)??

I'm not talking about 'progress levels' as a noun, I'm talking about progress data as specific to that child.

For example, (forget the exact wording so forgive the clumsiness of this) one of my child's targets was 'to answer correctly 2 out of 3 questions about what the teacher was talking about at carpet time, immediately after the carpet time, and using questions about what the teacher was saying in the last 2 minutes. These questions (not answers) will be given to the child at the beginning of carpet time and he will be quietly reminded to look out for them 5 minutes before the end.

This target was introduced because it was the teachers professional opinion that ds was listening well during carpet time but had something wrong with his memory as he'd use good eye contact, nod in all the right places but completely forgot what he was supposed to do as soon as they all got up. This meant that his TA was free to clear up the back of the classroom during carpet time but then had to come and 'remind' him what to do.

This target demonstrated that his imitation skills were masking the fact that he didn't have the skills to listen to the teacher at carpet time, nor did he know he was supposed to. His teacher had decided that he was fully included at carpet time because he wasn't disruptive and was sitting on the carpet along with everyone else, and his TA would therefore create dependency or get in the way simply being 'plonked' next to him.