What would a EHCP mean at secondary?

[LooLaaToo]

I know at primary the kids who have EHCPs seem to have one to one TAs. I don't believe this happens at secondary. I understand this gives the school extra funding but does anyone know what happens at secondary school?

[newdaylight]

@MercyGentry
Being paid by the local authority doesn't mean you don't want them to spend money on providing things children need. Your experience may not have been good but I don't believe that would have been the reason. Educational Psychologists will spend a lot of their time trying to persuade the L.A. they work for to make proper provisions and fighting for children's needs to be met.

[cakesandtea]

Educational Psychologists will spend a lot of their time trying to persuade the L.A. they work for to make proper provisions and fighting for children's needs to be met.

That's probably fair of many (but not all, not the one I came across lately), but seeing my experience with DS1 and DD2, there is a huge change of 'weather'. This fight got harder .

I think not all DC need an EHCP and the less intrusive and heavy handed the support is, the better for DC to develop their independence and coping in life. However, only if DC are indeed coping well. Otherwise there could be a rapid stumble in hell, new problems exploding and the provisions becoming much more costly as a result. Rather than trying to 'not notice anxiety' for as long as possible for example, it would be much better imho to prevent it developing in first place and deal with it as soon as possible. It would probably be much less costly at the end and avoid the trauma to DC. For conditions like ASD the provisions should be front loaded in early years/infant school imo. But this is not how it works now.

[FrayedHem]

DS1's EHCP was the difference between him going to an ASD resource base or not (it's within a mainstream, but not our nearest by a considerable distance). TBH primary pretty much disregarded the content of it and in Yr6 I would go so far as to say it was a real negative, but he wouldn't be in the school placement he is without it.

Our local mainstream is quite good with a lot of SEN but meeting with the SENCo made it patently obvious it wouldn't be a good fit for DS1. So I would arrange to speak to the SENCo at the school/s you are considering and see what they say.

My experience of educational psychologists is not a good one. I had to battle to get them involved with the statement to EHCP transfer at Yr6, even though it's a statutory requirement and DS1 hadn't been seen by EP since he was 3. They eventually came to a meeting, but refused to go and so much observe DS and instead rewrote the school paperwork. The EP "report" is 3 lines.

[Nettleskeins]

The problem is that an EHCP doesn't even guarantee the school will get extra money. The only thing that allows them to justify asking for asking for extra money is that they can otherwise say that the specified and quantified input on the EHCP costs x an z to implement and thus refuse to take the child without additional funding. Our school which has does done brilliantly for ds2 said this was a serious problem. The LA then not giving them any funds to implement EHCPs. We used the EHCP almost as a bargaining counter with the LA to say if you don't fund this school properly we will press for a more expensive private placements. But we were backed up by a solicitor and the threat of Tribunal. It is terribly difficult to be the piggy in the middle between School and LA.

In our school's case ds's funds were added to the pot to enable them to employ specialist teacher for smaller groups, ie English bottom set for SpLd, scribes for exams, keep a SEN lunchtime club running to optimum effect. The number of children with EHCPs made it more effective to put in interventions, it is a bit chicken and egg in that respect - because the school had experience of what worked, they were able to use the limited funds wisely, and then attracted more children with SNs, often academic. Ds has done extremely well at GSCE with an EHCP.

[Nettleskeins]

I definitely agree that the EHCP is the best way of ensuring your child goes to the secondary school that will best suit them, and without one, there is no guarantee that they will get in even with a diagnosis or medical reasons. Ds started at one secondary with a diagnosis but no EHCP. They worked very hard to help him, and I could not fault their dedication to trying to make him feel at home reduce anxiety etc. But that was not enough. We then home educated, got an EHCP after two years of home education and lots of paperwork and money spent on assessments (which otherwise might have been provided by school for free) And found a more suitable school for ds2. Now he seems to be thriving. Mainstream comp. The EHCP is continuing into his A level year.

[Gersemi]

Educational Psychologists will spend a lot of their time trying to persuade the L.A. they work for to make proper provisions and fighting for children's needs to be met.

If that is the case, they need some serious training on how to write reports that achieve that. Reports that say that the child "may benefit from" or should have "access to" or "opportunities for" support are near-meaningless; likewise the use of terms like "regular", "up to", "as appropriate", "adult", "contacts" etc etc. Yet those are terms that are used with extraordinary frequency in EP reports, and local authorities are delighted to adopt them because it makes the support near-impossible to enforce. To be honest, it's difficult to believe that it's coincidental.

There have also been a number of cases where parents have asked EPs to specify properly and they either say that isn't their job, it's up to the LA, or that they're not allowed to. I really think their professional body should get involved and should advise that if they are being prevented by their employers from presenting their professional opinions they should refuse to advise at all.

[MercyGentry]

Garsemi totally agree. It’s a disgrace.