Hi wise ones. This board has been such a valuable source of resources for me - and I have a question so thought I'd get your views.
We are shortly (next week I believe) due to receive the amended EHCP for my daughter following the annual review in Dec and agreement to seek an alternative setting for her. She is in mainstream, year 1 with 22 hours support via existing EHCP, primarily for S&L but she also has developmental delays (she has a rare chromosome disorder).
I realise we then have 15 days to respond... and that the process also asks us for our parental choice of schools. We (and DD's S&L therapist and her SENco) had been expecting low coin to be the panel recommendation but I heard late last week that they are recommending a LAN specialist school. The nearest is 17 miles away and we haven't been to visit yet (they have specific open days - next one is 1st March). We have started visiting schools but we are a bit behind where we wanted to be due to ALLLLL the illness being in our house this last month. We had planned to see a variety of settings... but mostly low coin. I realise we can state a preference for something other than LAN but I need to see the schools and be sure of the right setting for DD. I'm (theoretically) concerned about some of the variety of behaviour challenges some children may have in any setting - DD doesn't struggle here at the moment and has done well in mainstream by copying the behaviour of the group around her.... I realise I can't really know what the settings are really like without a good visit/question session.
When I asked the council case manager (we are in Surrey) what happened if we aren't ready to state our parental preference within the 15 days she said we could email her separately (and that parental choice is very important - we just need to put it in writing). But she also said when I asked about the 15 day deadline to respond to EHCP that yes, 'theoretically and legally' we did need to state a preference in that time. I'm super confused (and very cross about how baffling the whole process is.. it shouldn't be this hard! But I'll put that aside for now).
Is anyone able to un-confuse me on the specific 'do we have longer than the 15 days to state a parental choice' or now question?