Choosing an SEN school?

[EmilySanders]

Hey all

New here.

My six year old son has been recently diagnosed with ASD. I'm thinking about sending him to a specialist SEN school.

I'm looking for recommendations as to how you found the best school for your child?

All advice is appreciated.

Thank you!!

Through the mumsnet special needs boards! you would need to specify the county you are in for helpful replies (but you can also search over previous threads of course). The children (as opposed to education) special needs board might have more info.

Does he have an EHC Plan in place?
Certainly where I live, you can't apply to specialist provision without one.
As part of the process of that application, the authority will let you have a list of all specialist provision. Whoever is leading on the process (would be the Ed Psych here, but I know not the same in all LAs) will advise and guide. You then look at their websites, and go and visit. Then you will be able to start making comparisons, and also hear about if they have any spaces, or if they are likely to have any spaces in the near, or not so near future.

But the authority won't tell you about private special schools - they don't want you to know about those. And I found their list of state ones pretty unhelpful; it included wildly unsuitable schools, including ones which had closed down!

You can request a list of section 41 schools from the authority, which are independent ones they will place in. In reality the most important thing is to find the school first. My ds is at an independent, it's not on the council list, but they do pay! (It's named on EHCP) you can obviously fund yourself at an independent bit it's pretty pricey.

You need to have clear reasons why you feel a specialist provision is the most appropriate eg why can't mainstream meet your son's needs? As you probably know the Autistic Spectrum is really wide and so it depends where your son falls on the spectrum as to whether he would need specialist provision. You should look up the Local Authority "Local Offer" because there should be loads of advice on there about choosing a school. The section 41 list of Independent Specialist Provision mentioned by Tainbri can be found here www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-special-schools-and-colleges