Online schooling

[vinoandbrie]

DD (year 4) is autistic and has an EHCP, specifying 1:1 support all day. She is academically able.

She struggles hugely with school. She was at a private school and we changed her to a state school this academic year. The large classes and lack of skills frankly to deal with her needs are impacting her.

For seniors, I dread to think. I genuinely fear she won’t be able to cope and will sink.

I am starting to think about online school for year seven onwards. It seems much less expensive than what we were paying at private school, and she would not have the noise, hustle and bustle of an environment that she strongly dislikes.

I’d be grateful for any thoughts on online schools (I’m looking at Kings InterHigh).

Would the council support this, would she still get any additional funding (when she was at the private school, we paid fees and the council paid for the 1:1).

Unless online schooling is detailed, specified and quantified in F the LA may saying you are making suitable alternative arrangements thereby relieving them of their duties.

Some LAs will sometimes come to an agreement, similar to how your LA did with you about you paying independent school fees and them paying for the SEP, but they don’t have to and there is no guarantee even if they have previously agreed to similar.

Thank you very much, that’s all really useful.

As she is only in year four at present, and is really struggling in a classroom setting of 30 (I am not with her obviously, this is what school is feeding back to me), I wonder if I can start sowing the seeds now that I am very concerned how she will cope with secondary, given her documented issues with transitions, noise, etc, with a view to ultimately asking for the EHCP to be altered to name an online school for her for year seven onwards. Her current EHCP (which they didn’t update properly when she moved school) still includes references to her benefitting from the ‘small class sizes’ in her old private school.

I also wonder to what extent an online school would have experience of this and would be able to guide us. I guess they will be used to children with EHCPs, and I should get in touch with them.

I wouldn’t rely on online schools giving you correct information about EHCPs.

If DD isn’t coping in state mainstream now I would request an early review with a view to amending the content and potentially the placement.

If you want DD to remain at the current school for the remaining time in primary you could start to collecting evidence to support including online schooling in the EHCP for Y7, but you won’t be able to have the phase transfer EHCP finalised now.

“Small class sizes” is far too vague and woolly to be of any use, it isn’t enforceable. If the EHCP wasn’t amended to include all the necessary changes when DD moved schools you could have appealed.

I wasn’t looking to have small class sizes enforced.

I’m well aware we ‘could have appealed’.

You, personally, might know you could have appealed, but many parents in fact don’t know, so how was I supposed to know you did but chose not to when you are clearly unhappy the EHCP wasn’t updated properly.

I mentioned the small class sizes being unenforceable because you specifically mentioned small class sizes, and, again, many parents don’t realise such wording is too vague. A vague and woolly EHCP isn’t worth the paper it is written on and a watertight EHCP is especially important if you want online schooling at secondary.

Itslateandimtired for online schooling it would have to specify that. Class sizes under 10 and no transitions could be provided by some SS, so that wouldn’t be detailed, specified and quantified enough to guarantee online schooling.

Unless the school is wholly independent being full on its own isn’t enough of a reason for the LA to refuse to name parental preference. The LA has to prove the school is so full admitting DC is incompatible. The bar is higher than many LAs admit. It is more than an “adverse effect”, “impact on” or “prejudicial to”. Although the LA may force parents to appeal.

Hi, thanks for reaching out. DD sounds similar to your boy, we have to drop her at the office in the mornings as she won’t go in with the rest, she doesn’t participate in assembly, she doesn’t have her lunch in the dining hall.

We’re in the North West. There is a resourced provision locally but it’s at a not great secondary. They do not seem to have an emphasis on academics, which worries me. I would feel it would be like throwing her to the wolves, she comes across younger than she is and is vulnerable.

Re the EHCP, yes it should be measurable and specific, so anything saying a child ‘would benefit from’ or ‘should have access to’ small class sizes would be no good. For example, I had to rewrite DD’s draft EHCP to add in specifically that there will be a 1:1 for her throughout the entire school day, including unstructured periods, providing a differentiated curriculum for her. Which the council just accepted, thank goodness. But if I hadn’t put it in myself there’s no way she’d be getting it. So a similar type wording around small class sizes would be needed to be in there, such that it’s legally enforceable and they actually have to provide it.

Itslateandimtired if you want an independent school appeal for that. For a wholly independent school you have to prove the LA’s proposed school(s) can’t meet needs &/or it isn’t unreasonable public expenditure, so if you think you can do that you are likely to be successful.

For online schooling it isn’t about proving the cost is less than the EHCP banding. The legal threshold for EOTAS is when it would be “inappropriate for the provision to be made in a school” (s.61 CAFA 2014).

The ARP being ‘full’ (which isn’t actually legally defined) on its own isn’t enough of reason not to name it. If the placement is so full the LA can prove placing DC there is incompatible then it is inappropriate (in the legal sense of the word) for the provision to be provided in that placement. So, if it is also inappropriate for the provision to be made in any other school you can meet the legal threshold for EOTAS.