LittleFish are you around?Or any one else that can offer advice.

[mommy6]

Littlefish first i would like to say thanks for your help the other day,with deciding about deferring ds2 school start.(and any one else that give advice)Also changing Dc's school.
Anyway i have found a school that will take the 3 dc.(hope that doesn't mean its not a every good school).I did check the ofsted report,they had 3's on everything.They hadn't got any places in nursery but are willing to take ds2 part time,which i'm fine with.
I wondered if you could give me some advice on some other school matters?Sorry if i'm asking to much.Please don't answer if you don't want to.
After worrying about Dd3 progress with her reading for a while,i went into school back in feb.The teacher hadn't realised had dd3 was struggling because only the TA had listened to her read from the sept.In the teachers own words "she is such a good girl i had not noticed how much is was struggling".
Dd3 came out with form yesterday in fill in and take back into school.I'm not sure what its for,it has got Learning Support Service Consent Form on the top.I take it it is to get extra support for dd,but is it the first step to getting a statement?
Lastly Dd4 is in year 2 and about to do SATS.If we move schools before these how will this affect dd4.She hasn't any problems and is above adverage,so not worried about her.But would it be a bad idea to move while doing these?
Sorry about the long post.Please feel free to not answer,but would be very grateful if you do.

Hi mommy6 - that's great news about the school places. What a relief to know they'll all be going to the same school!

1. DD3 - I'm not absolutely sure what a "Learning Support Service Consent Form" is, as some things change from school to school, or authority to authority. I suspect it means that the teacher or SENCO has either arranged for your dd to be screened by the external learning support team to try and help the teacher understand better where her reading difficulties lie, or it's an internal school support service, delivered by TAs. Don't worry about statements at this stage!

I think that you need to go and ask the teacher what it's for. IMO it's pretty crap to just send the form home to be signed, without any additional explanation.

The school will have various levels of intervention for children who are experiencing either short or longer term difficulties with an area of the curriculum or social/emotional development. The TAs may be trained to deliver specific support in Literacy and Numeracy through a number of Government schemes such as ALS, Springboard etc. These are group based, light touch interventions designed to help children who are struggling a little, to make progress.

I have to say that I am at a teacher saying "she is such a good girl I had not noticed how much is was struggling".

I'll be back in a minute re. your SATs questions about DD4.

Back again.

Just a few more thoughts on DD3.

If the school are involving an external agency, then your dd3 should be on "School Action Plus" level of SEN. This just means that there are external agencies involved in advising the school.

If support is being provided internally, without involving anyone else, then she should be on "School Action".

With either of these, she should have an Individual education plan (IEP) which should detail 3 or 4 specific targets she's working on, the strategies that will be used to help her achieve these, how these strategies will be delivered and by whom, how the teacher will know when dd has reached them (the success critera), and in what timescale the IEP will be reviewed.

The targets need to be very specific - e.g. "dd will be able to recognise and use the sounds ee, oa, ar and ie when segmenting (sounding out) and blending (joining back together/reading) in reading.

IEPs should be reviewed in short meetings between you and the classteacher (and sometimes the SENCO) at least twice a year. You should have input into the targets and the way they are achieved.

Have I made it sound ridiculously complicated?

Children can move on and off School Action and School Action Plus.

Where do you think your dd's specific reading difficulties lie? Is it in blending and segmenting phonics? Is it with sight vocabulary? What school reading scheme do they use?

What year is dd3?

r.e. dd4 and Y2 SATS - a Teacher Assessment is reported at the end of Y2, made up from lots of evidence gathered throughout the year, a very small part of which will be the SAT tests. So moving house shouldn't affect the assessment process, particularly if your dd is doing well anyway.

If you move before May half term, her new school would be responsible for reporting the end of year 2 Teacher Assessment, using evidence passed on by the previous school plus their own findings.

If you move after May half term, the responsibility for reporting the end of year 2 Teacher Assessment lies with her old school.

I agree with Littlefish, who has given you very good advice, about the comments made by your dd3's teacher - truly shocking and totally incompetent on so many levels, imo.

Thank you for your replies.

Dd3 is in year 4.She has stuggled from the begining with reading and spelling.She has no problem segmenting phonics,its the blending in that she founds hard.She knows her phonics on there own but can't sound out words.From feb she was put on the Fuzzbuzz reading books.
The "Learning Support Service Consent Form" is to find out what support dd3 needs,and to apply for the extra funding.The school have asked that i fill it in like dd3 will still be at this school.So the school will still get the funding if its found dd3 needs extra help.There will be a meeting at the end of may,but we will have moved be then.I'm abit angry about it really because i have tried for 3 years to get the school to see dd3 needed extra help.But at least if another child struggles the funding should already be in place.
I just hope we have more help at the new school.

I can't remember mommy6 whether you are staying within the same LEA.

I'm a bit unclear as to what extra funding your dd might get - perhaps there is some additional funding at school action plus level?????

As you are moving in the next month, I would be incredibly surprised if there was any chance that the funding would be in place or even that the assessments would have taken place before you leave! I think you need to talk to the school about whether the funding will go with dd to her new school. I would suggest that you speak to her new school to let them know that she is going through the assessment process at the moment, and ask them to speak to her current school asap so that any additional support can be in place when she starts at the new school.

Any developments Mommy6?

Can I just say that in my LEA Learning Support Service would not trigger any additional funding for a child (it may not be the same everywhere I can only speak from personal experience) but is used to identify ways in which the school can support a child more appropriately if the support already provided by the school isn't successful.
School Action Plus doesn't provide any extra funding only a full statement.

That's sort of what I thought mrz. Schools have a devolved SEN budget round here and it's then up to them to use it as they see fit. I haven't heard of any SA+ additional funding, but Mommy6 in the next door LEA, so perhaps there's something diffeent going on there.