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.

'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 am asking you to obey the law. Otherwise how can anyone have any faith in it?

I am further asking you to at the very least make the child's parents aware of your executive decision so that they can avail themselves of the right to challenge this under judicial review if they want to. Otherwise it is dishonest as well as illegal.

Life is very black or white to you StarlightMcKenzie, isn't it. Does your life ever allow for shades of grey or adapting to changing circumstances?

Still though. A child assessed against nc levels or their own targets may or may not need the support. I can't call up a meeting to change the support on a daily basis in an attempt to get a full assessment picture. The experts aren't coming back to do it for me. They'll only come if an increase is requested.

If a child has a specific need that can easily be masked or thought to be something else the teacher needs to be furnished with this information so that they can make an accurate assessment.

If they already know are are being silly buggers then this is a separate issue.

You know nothing about my life of about the extreme 'adaptive' lengths I have gone too nor quite how 'changing' my circumstances have had to have been.

Don't make personal attacks.

I have no doubt that flouting the law is common in schools to an extent that it has become your common sense. But that doesn't make it legal, morally right or in anyway justifiable.

'We've always done it like that' or 'we can't be reasonably expected to follow our legal obligations' is just not acceptable, even in the most flexible of circumstances.

If a child needs provision to be flexible and that can be demonstrated, it can easily be written into the statement either when it is first drawn up or at the next annual review.

The full assessment picture has already been painted. That is the purpose of a statutory review which ends in the finalisation of a statement, or not, which you as a teacher or school have input into.

You don't need to then paint your own picture. You already have one.

I was not making a personal attack I was commenting on your posts about there only being one way to fulfil a pupils needs if they have a statement.

What I have learnt from the support I have needed to give and seek at school for my DC is that rigidly following black or white processes has actually hindered her progress as it assumes that she is not capable of things and needs specific support. Removing that assumption has astounded both us and the school in the progress she is actually capable of.

Are you saying this is good practise or not starlight? If you are saying it is good practise I don't understand why you would be happy with the TA clearing up the classroom?

I could understand it if you were saying you wanted the TA to be making observation notes about your DS, or spending time reading up on potential strategies. But surely to goodness if you think it is ok for them to be wandering about distracting the children clearing up, you wouldn't mind if they were up at the front with the teacher modelling paired tasks or providing some adult 'proximity' to a child with tricky behaviour (to keep the carpet quieter for your DS)???

'I was not making a personal attack I was commenting on your posts about there only being one way to fulfil a pupils needs if they have a statement.'

That isn't MY comment. It is the comment of the law.

If a child has a statement and it specified provision, that provision MUST be made until the statement is changed. There IS no other legal way. It isn't up for interpretation and there is no grey area.

I obviously also see assessment differently to you. I see it as a continuous process, not a "full assessment picture" that has been finished.

LizzyDay the EP has met the child and agrees he's very anxious as do other professionals (SALT & OT) who work with him but the EP data specific to him indicates he is making progress (not NC levels)

Sorry but that assumes I was involved in the first place. Many of the children I get come from other schools. Not all schools are particularly good at dealing with all types of need. Often we find the picture painted by the last school and experts is wholey inaccurate. Often because they aren't aware of the history of the family.

Sometimes the lack of safeguarding is frightening.

I might find that strategies that I put in place for my whole class mean than child x doesn't need as much support. However, knowing that means I won't alter his hours because he could move again or the next teacher does not behave the same way I do and they will again need extra support.

For children with full time support, it probably isn't beneficial to test out how they do independently as they must have a serious need in order to be allocated that amount of time. For children with fewer hours of support this picture is less clear.

Maybe I wasn't clear.

I was saying that the teacher felt my ds was fine on the carpet all by himself and so had his TA clearing up the classroom.

In reality he needed a lot of support on the carpet to be included anything more than physically. His statement required this. His teacher knew better. After TWO terms of this happening without anyone telling me I raised hell, wrote his IEP target similar to the one I put earlier and was able (through data collection) to demonstrate that he was very much in NEED of the support specified in his statement and therefore help at carpet time.

I found out by accident that he wasn't getting the support specified. I might never have known. His lack of progress being blamed on his disability rather than the fact that the teacher had decided he didn't need support.

Now I was telling the school what to do and they didn't like it. But I was only telling them to implement what was in his statement which was his right and entitlement by law to have implemented.

Need it doesn't matter how you SEE it. It isn't about different perspectives. It is about the law and a vulnerable child's protected right.

So I and the school are forced to carry on the support detailed in the statement to the obvious detriment of my DSD until we can arrange another assessment and an early statement review? That is what I mean by black or white approaches and it is totally ridiculous.

exactly

You can request an early annual review Needto

So, I have a child with ASD with 25hrs who doesn't want a TA. He says he doesn't like feeling like somebody is always looking at him. Just the person who used to be his 1:1 being in the room makes him visibly anxious. He was crying at home because of the 1:1 in the mainstream classroom (he chooses to go to the Resource for breaks, sometimes taking mainstream friends with him, because he recognises that the playground is too noisy).

Child is making good progress with learning in all areas. His annual review is March. Would you really infict 1:1 on him until March because it is the law? Correct perhaps, but not very humane!!

I think cutting his hours would be bonkers because he may well need them again when he transfers to Secondary next year.

You don't need an assessment, just an review of the statement and that can happen immediately if it needs to, doesn't even have to be face to face..

However, please could you provide an example of where provision in a statement is detrimental to your dsd, because I'm finding it difficult to understand unless you have a very bizarrely worded statement.

Yes, but it takes time to set up as DH & I need time off work and we want all the other professionals there, so lots of coordinating diaries. We've been told we need a new Ed Psych review and booking their time also takes several months to get an appointment and the report written up.

You can reword a statement that says reduced 1:1 until start or secondary.

really. it isn't that difficult. But it is the only legal way to proceed.

You don't need time off work. You don't need to be there.

You can't flout the law just because applying it is mildly inconvenient.

In reality however, the only people who are likely to insist the law is adhered to are the parents, so whilst I don't agree with it, you might get around the situation with a mutual agreement between the school and parents.

However to change provision without telling the parents or getting their agreement is imo dirty tactics, as you are underhandedly removing their right to apply the law.

So my DH can send an email to the school SENCO with a copy to the LA saying. "I want my DD's statement changed to reduce the number of compulsory one-to-one hours, so that she can undertake some activities independently". Is that all he needs to do then the school won't be breaking the law by allowing her to work on independently directed research and writing tasks on her own in the classroom?

Honestly, starlight, if I did that the LEA would reduce his funding to reflect the reduced hours I said he needed.

Then it would take at least a few weeks for the Secondary to get it increased again- they would almost certainly have to prove that he wasn't coping there on the reduced hours. What happens to him while that process goes through? He misses out on increased support at exactly the moment he needs it.

Well they'd be breaking the law unless the statement changed, but you'd be sending a clear message to the school that as the only people who have any reason to hold them legally accountable, you are not going to.

They may well use that letter in the annual review or for any judicial review that you might later bring against them if you change your mind and I imagine it would offer them some protection.