SEND and Cambridge schools

[GoldQuoter]

Hi, I'm relocating to Cambridge from abroad in June and DD has ADHD and a SEND provision at her current school, which restricts her class size + provides specialist support in Maths and English + reduced study outcomes.

What do I need to do to be able to have an EHCP in place by September the very latest? And mainly - which Cambridge schools have the best SEND support available without having to go to a special school (she can manage in a 'normie' school with adjustments). Considering Parkside as it's small and Chesterton as it seems to have great facilities.

Thanks!

When I rang before they only had boarding places available.

SEND provision in the UK is abysmal at the moment. Your DD sounds like she will end up in whichever school nearest to you has space and you will have to start the long and arduous process of EHCP application. Even if successful, it's highly unlikely your DD will get even a fraction of the provision she gets in her current setting. Don't know what your reasons for moving are but I'd consider staying put if it's an option.

So would I. The UK is really not functioning in any useful way at the moment. We're counting the minutes until the general election.

Be careful with the educational advisor. Not all understand the SEN system.

Being educated outside of DD’s chronological year group is possible, but in the state sector, you will find it harder to secure if DD is already 12 because she is not summer born. If DD does get an EHCP, it can be included in there, but again you may have to appeal.

Might be good to have a read at this thread and some of the other similar ones.

I think things are really very very hard in schools right now.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5035211-england-is-running-out-of-teachers

EHCP overcomer here!

The provision she currently has is unlikely to be replicated here in the U.K. It’s possible but would require a considerable fight and a lot of time and money in legal costs. In the best case scenario you’re talking 2 years and £££££s.

I think your best bet at least in the short term is to fund privately an online school like inter high and a 1:1 who can take her to home education meet ups. It also means you can live in a location that suits your life and work rather than being tied to a school. Private SEN schools are also possible but will likely be around £100k.

Be careful with the educational advisor. Not all understand the SEN system.

I second this. I have had the misfortune to have to deal with someone recently calling themselves an ‘SEND Education advisor’. Their knowledge of SEN was woeful, and their understanding of our LA systems was patchy at best and frankly just incorrect in many areas. She was being paid a significant sum of money as well!

The country we live in regularly restricts class sizes for SEND kids, schools have to make allowances for various group sizes and usually there's a SEND class alongside larger classes. Some SEND kids only attend specific lessons they need help with in a smaller class and rest with a larger group. Legally, Middle School is not allowed to have more than 24 kids per class anyway.

If you don’t have to move your child whose needs are currently being well-met and managed in what sounds like a great environment, I wouldn’t. I certainly wouldn’t bring them to England. Wait till she’s left school before moving. I don’t think you will get provision like this here, sadly.

The country we're in does not have great high school provision for her in English (age 16+) and no real prospects after that for university / colleges / vocational degrees. She'd likely end up graduating with GCSE equivalents and no other real outlook beyond that. So the move is for her long term benefit in terms of opportunities beyond GCSE's.

It also ties in with my work requirements and where I need to be. I know there is a lot of doom and gloom about the state of things in the UK atm (I'm there every month for a week), but independent schools will likely be the way to go for us I think.

Also o.p I'm not saying things are easy but there is lots of doom and gloom on this thread and that isn't always the case. My dd is 10 and sounds similar to your dd. EHCP was applied for in November 2022 and finalised March 2023 so within timescales, she has good support st her primary and we are currently looking at secondary and looks positive ATM and thats state sector. Not the smaller class sizes but the extra tuition and support in class etc. We are miles from Cambridge though up north but I often think that's better as there isn't as many people so there isn't the same over subscription issue as much I don't think. Might be an absolute nightmare but also might not be sp try not to stress too much!

I’ve known parents who have sent their children to Holme Court and Landmark.

It’s my understanding that Holme Court is settling back down after a change of owner - back to the original owners. Generally this is thought of as a good thing. It used to be a high needs school about 10 years ago but now might suit your needs more.

Landmark was set up by those currently running Holme Court and CIS (I don’t think CIS goes up to age 12) in the period when they lost control of CIS and Holme Court. We know former pupils currently in mainstream sixth form that are doing well.

Flexibility on year of entry - I have some experience of this, but it dates back to 2015. We spent our DCs nursery years working abroad in a system where he would have gone to school a year later. When returning to the UK we had missed the timing for primary school applications. Our DC would have been very young in year, from a different start year system and we’d missed the correct application window. He was also very prem and really tiny. He went to a private school initially and deferred by a year. He was still the smallest by far even when oldest in year. Towards the end of his primary age years we transferred him to the village school. We used an in year application process but timed so he was ready to start at the beginning of the next academic year. We had to provide documentation to support him staying in a deferred year (2015 was before those young in year were given any regular consideration to defer). Bear in mind he’d always been in a deferred year and was just days off the regular cut off date. He had a lot of physio and some ops for prem related problems but not SEN. The private school was ultimately too sporty and not academic enough for him.

I do think small classes work for some kids but be careful where in the private sector. I think Sancton Wood might be an option. We looked at it for secondary but ultimately went for state sector St Bede’s. I can’t say a bad thing about St Bede’s in our DCs time there. He recently went back to talk at a sixth form fair and often says how much he misses it.

I wonder if the people commenting on the ‘doom and gloom’ on this thread have tried requesting an EHCP in this current academic year in the South East. Things are a hundred times worse that I have ever known them to be. Perhaps things are better in Cambridge, I hope so for the OP’s sake.

Thanks for this really long and in-depth answer :)

Yes, I also looked at St Bede's, but I really don't understand how they are state if one must be member of a church? As in - how does one get in there? We're a non-religious atheist family, the kids have absolutely no concept of God / church etc (so it actually might be a good thing and interesting environment for them, I know most church schools are highly recommended in general, but I'd need to then make sure they have a rounded education about other faiths also).

Sancton Wood and Holme Court seem both really great options and we'd not have to move outside of the city, which would be great.

Deferred entry - I have been told the LA needs to approve this, so would go to them for getting this sorted.

Re St Bede’s - if you get an EHCP or had an adopted/fostered child they are one of the schools you could consider. Otherwise, it is a church school.

For private you could look at St Christophers in Letchworth and live in a village near Royston so you are near the school and Cambridge esp the new areas near the M11. Plenty of horse riding the in villages such as Ashwell.

I asked at Sancton Wood and they were full. Also it's worth reading the mumsnet local threads about them as I understand they are quite overwhelmed there and things are a bit chaotic.

re: doom and gloom, I think the difference between the north and Cambridge is house prices. Cambridge has london house prices but not London weighting on teacher's salaries which makes living here extremely challenging for teachers.

I gather that you really have to be solidly religious to get into St Bede's but I understand that a child with an EHCP could get a place there if it was named on the EHCP.

The other thing to be careful of in this country is that children are "entitled" to certain things, but the government doesn't provide adquate funding for the schools to provide those things. So teachers have to say that x, y, and z will be provided and could get in trouble for saying otherwise. But in reality the staffing is just not there. So if you are looking for a very specific situation for a child, it might be hard to get straight answers about what is actually feasible.

There are lots of articles in the press at the moment about a massive uptick in the number of EHCP applications and how the councils are actually declaring bankruptcy because of it, so it is a serious problem.

Sorry, I think I'm providing a lot of the doom and gloom on the thread, but I'm right in the middle of it at the moment and finding literally no good options and only very few people who will actually level with me and say what is actually feasible.

I think realistically the way forward for the OP is to be willing to pay £££, and talk to alternative providers or some of the new providers who are setting up to plug the gaps in provision.

If you have the funds then you could engage a SEN solicitor.

Polly Kerr at Tees is brilliant and knows Cambs well.

@SpringingAlong is talking reality. I am
in the southeast and EHCPs are taking years to achieve and even then getting one that prescribes what is actually needed and getting the school to deliver on that is another challenge in itself.

@Skipgingalong I talked to two firms of lawyers. One was totally unhelpful. The other were extremely kind but ultimately they were so overwhlemed with work that they couldn't finish redrafting my EHCP form. In the end I had to submit my own draft of the form two weeks after the EHCP deadline, and I never heard back from the lawyer.

The advice to contact lawyers is everywhere online, but realistically, at the moment, it doesn't seem to be possible to find one who has time to draw breath, let alone do any work.

Thanks @SuperSue77. Things are so weird at the moment. I'm really grateful to know that I'm not the only one who sees it.

The good news is that it does seem to be genuinly possible to home ed kids in England. All the exam stuff is online and the CGP books are great.

I really think the OP could do well if she could hire a governess to look after her DD and take her to events. I'm basically home edding at the moment, and it is okay.

Perhaps things are better in Cambridge

Cambridgeshire isn’t any better. They are one of the Safety Valve LAs.

But it is still possible to get a good EHCP even if you have to appeal and then enforce it. Sadly, this means DC whose parents know the system and can advocate for their DC get better support. It shouldn’t be that way but is only going to get worse.

Unless you can afford both legal advice and independent assessments, you would be better off saving money for independent assessments in case you have to appeal (potentially more than once).

@SpringingAlong we got the solicitor involved straight after annual review. The LA were dragging their feet with regards to issuing a draft - this meant our solicitor had plenty of time to work on our case. It also meant we had time to visit schools and do trial days. The LAs incompetence worked in our favour!

If I came from abroad and read how an EHCP worked in England I would probably think ‘sounds great’.

In reality it’s so hard to get an EHCP, most are valueless as they don’t specify provision, even if you have a good one their aren’t always places available at a school that could meet need, schools don’t always follow plans. Anyone I know with a genuinely strong EHCP has usually spent ££££s to get there.

You did @GoldQuoter but then you spoke about mounting a legal challenge to have your current one essentially 'imported' and if that were possible you wouldn't need an assessment for an English EHCP (although I don't think that's possible anyway).

No one meets statutory deadlines around send over here it seems, but if money isn't an issue you can get a solicitors letter (pre action letter for judicial review) to ensure they stick to statutory deadlines.

The tricky issue would be if you end up at Tribunal if they refuse to assess/issue or over the contents of the plan or placement. That will take a while and you can't do anything to speed it up. I'd say you'd be looking a year minimum to get a decent quality EHCP in place as even if they agree to assess and issue, most plans are shit and require tribunal to get them specific and quantified (so they are actually legally enforceable). Not to mention they will frequently name an unsuitable setting because they know how long it takes to get to tribunal and save themselves a years funding.

There's an independent send setting called Gretton you might want to look at if you're specifically looking for a send setting.

SOSSEN’s PAP Project includes breaches of the EHCNA statutory deadlines, so lack of money doesn’t preclude sending a pre-action letter in response to LAs failing to comply with the deadlines.

I gather that you really have to be solidly religious to get into St Bede's but I understand that a child with an EHCP could get a place there if it was named on the EHCP.

Fair analysis, it’s a joint C of E and Catholic foundation and quite over subscribed. The usual sibling priorities and then based on if you are a member of a local congregation and the vicar/priest signs to say you regularly attend. The big local catholic city centre church has a Catholic primary behind it and their pupils form a large proportion of the cohort.

In the 2017 cohort our DC was in there were kids from as far away as Norfolk. A friend’s son who lived just streets from the school didn’t get in because their attendance at the city Catholic Church was erratic.

This isn't the same in Cambridgeshire. They are turning them around in 20 weeks in my experience.