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.

Unless I have missed something the OP has not come back since the first post!

Until very recently the Ed Psych training was only an MA!

SEN Case officers who have responsibility for picking out which bits of the specialist advice make it into the statement don't necessarily have any post-graduate training.

How do you cherry pick a specific teacher insanityscratching? Surely as your child moves through a school you have no control over which teacher they have? My son's school is four form entry and we have no say which class they go into let alone which of the 28 teachers that are in the school as staff shuffle round year groups.

Psychology is a very broad based subject - any given MA specialisation in it could be in a subject totally unrelated to ASD, children, or education. I'm fairly sure the undergraduate syllabus wouldn't cover ASD in education in any depth either.

Thing is it all becomes a complete nonsense if your LA, as ours has, ha a policy of not amending Statements, unless for exceptional circumstances, for any other years than transition years. Those circumstances are basically being discharged from services.

Once amended the final Statements have taken nearly 2 years to reach us. Yet change in support is apparently 'effective' from review.

Makes a complete nonsense out of the whole thing....

I thought a computer did it.

daftdame, that is because until recently a parent couldn't appeal a statement unless it was amended.

Now they can do it at any annual review but I expect their policy has remained. Still, I'm fairly sure they'd reduce hours if you asked them as this represents money to them.

star all the computer does is say 'No'. [Grin]

Oh yes I do I choose which class teacher she has. I speak with HT, her TA and her current class teacher and we discuss the possibles for next year. I choose by considering their strengths, personality, etc. At the AR I say which teacher I want for the following year and dd is placed with that teacher. I've never picked a bad one yet but if I was wrong I'd insist that dd was moved.

We're waiting.....

zzzzzz - exactly

Wow! You are very lucky having so much control.
So if you want Miss Bloggs, but she teaches in Y4 and your child is moving to Y1 she has to move to Y1? Or is it multiple form entry like my child's, but staff never move so you get to select between just a few? My child's class always move up en masse, remaining with their class mates, so I wonder how that would work if there were more than one statemented pupil in the class and the parents wanted different teachers?

I imagine the operators of said computers also coughing...a lot...

I've stopped complaining, positive affirmations only. My DC has been discharged for some years, only some hang on to the old cliches, no matter how irrelevant and never have been relevant.

Don't know how well this works! I have been positive for a barrage of complaints to be listed and negative for an exclamation of 'how far' my DC has 'come along'. I could play 'Devils's Advocate' but it is not my style. I tend to wait for(non) Annual Reviews and give a comprehensive, well researched report.

The IEPs are a joke and I think are in danger of becoming 'wish lists' (pay attention during 30 minutes of laborious 'reward assembly at 4) so I don't like to encourage those. Managed to get it down to 1 a year just by not reminding when they are due. I go in to every meeting, have been the 1 to 1 for trips and swimming in the past, even though there was funding.

Anyway it is a bloody good job my DC is progressing otherwise I really would be bald from tearing my hair out.

There are three teachers in each year to choose from so I get a choice of three I don't get a choice of all the teachers in the school. Dd's AR is in May and so I will know who will be taking the following year groups. It's quite easy dd needs order and routine so the spontaneous and disorganised teachers I avoid, she can't cope with loud voices and so I tick them off as well. When her y3 teacher was a star and moved to year 4 dd went with her. Classes are mixed up each year so no one else is aware that I get to choose and I say nothing in the playground obviously.

Anyway, I have another question.

DD's school has a SENCO and a Head of Inclusion. What is the difference?

And if they are so committed to SEN that they can have two Leads, why on earth was there no child with SEN in the Welcoming Open event? (I asked and was told no, these are the cream of our school ).

I hate, hate, hate, that term 'cream of the crop'.

Ooh Starlight dd is in the midst of everything no doubt because she takes the role of "the statemented child" or at least that's what I suspect when she tells me of the others chosen to speak to OFSTED, interview staff etc etc. That she's not at all representative of the children with statements in the school doesn't seem to matter.

A better answer would have been, by far, 'There are...' (SEN children at Welcome Event, since SENs are not always apparent).

Inclusion Manager is probably on SLT and concerned primarily with quality of teaching and learning (including ensuring inclusive practise in classrooms) and tracking individual groups and 'closing the gap'. May pick up child protection too. This is me in my school, and I also manage the Resource.

SENCo probably does the statutory stuff- arranges and chairs annual reviews, maybe maintains the details of the provision map, organises external professionals etc.

Ooh I dream of getting to see a 'provision map'. (Genuine articles only).

Especially one which is actually quantified. I feel quite faint at the thought.

Come on, answer some questions!

Thanks Inclusionist, at one of ds's last schools the SENCO changed her job title to Inclusion Manager and I assumed it was an update of terms.

But now my dd's school has both. But it is a big school. I imagine the SENCO alone would find it tough in that role alone for the whole school.