EHCP support thread

[Phineyj]

My DD (10) is being assessed for EHCP. The council refused to assess (despite her already being diagnosed with ADHD, ASD, hypermobility and vision problems following eye surgery).

School have been supportive throughout and they are going above and beyond to keep her engaged in education.

She's about to go into year 6 though.

I took the LA to the tribunal and won.

They must produce the plan by 4th August. I think they probably will (they've stuck to deadlines so far...ish...). But I've got all the IPSEA complaint letter templates primed!

The hardest thing about the whole process is that no-one else in my life understands it or what it's like to spend all your free time essentially begging people to document the deficits your child has.

It is also a hard realisation that no-one cares much about your child's education except you.

I am also a teacher so I feel sad on behalf of the SEN DC I teach as I am told little about their needs (I spent a whole day doing DofE with one recently...I don't even know what her EHCP says...)

Join me if you are also grimly trekking through the EHCP jungle!!

Good luck @Penelope1703!

Meeting potential new advocate this week. Appeal submission date coming up quite fast.

good luck with potential new advocate :)

@MrsLamb I did mine in my last two free days before the deadline.

To quote the late great Douglas Adams:

"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."

Update: we won our appeal! The judge was brilliant. Gave the council a low key but definite bollocking for using the wrong case law - sent them away to consider - they came back in to the tribunal to concede. So the judge has issued a consent order and the EHCP is go. Thank you all so much for your support and schools suggestions yesterday when I was in such a state. We can start looking in earnest now!

Yay!!!!! Well done @Penelope1703 .👏

That's great - I'm so pleased for you.

@Penelope1703 Fantastic news, I am absolutely delighted for you, so glad you got a nice/fair judge as well, this kind of news gives us all hope, so thank you for updating, ... congratulations on a wonderful result.... a day for celebrating what must have been a tough journey! 🙂yay! you did it!!! 💪

Think I am going to get a hand bell, keep it in the kitchen, and ring it every time someone wins an appeal. Or maybe a horn?📯

@MrsLamb Great idea 😀

@Penelope1703 congratulations.

I'd quite like a map on the wall where we could pin our locations and light up our wins. And am trading up to a klaxon.

Riddle me this, how come so many relatively well paid public servants think following the legislation written to structure their jobs is optional?

Well the Observer has found that for at least the last year, serious active disincentives to awarding new EHCPs have been put in place by the government:

Revealed: covert deal to cut help for pupils in England with special needs

Government contract aims to reduce the number of specialist care plans by a fifth

The government has quietly signed a contract targeting 20% cuts to the number of new education plans for children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) to bring down costs, the Observer can reveal.

Then junior education minister Claire Coutinho – recently promoted to the cabinet as energy secretary – subsequently told MPs that no targets were in place.

https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/sep/10/revealed-covert-deal-to-cut-help-for-pupils-in-england-with-special-needs

Sure, but at least rhetorically, even this is a measure to reduce use of independent and specialist settings, by improving application of the SEND CoP, so more provision is made available in mainstream settings? In reality, without funding, and in the context of aggressive mainstream performance targetry which does nothing to reward 'good behaviour' towards SEND students, and creates perverse incentives to drive them out to specialist provision, there seems to be the growth of significant local cultures on LA SEND teams and Schools that it is OK to ignore the SEND CoP, or 'game' its application to deliberately postpone the point of payment of provision, or to use EP services to reduce liability by recasting children's needs so they are less costly.

Open non-compliance with the law or the corruption of process set out in law, including the assessment of individuals, for institutional advantage, baffles me, as it requires relatively senior people like SENCOs, EPs and leaders of report writing teams, who must be familiar with SoP 2015, the Equality Act and their own professional good practice guidelines, to deviate significantly from legislation in their day to day practice. What makes this feel safe?

I’d LOVE an American trucker with a massive horn to blow when everyone wins at tribunal 🤩

Randomly and prob naughty to say but the amount of Instagram posts of school teachers celebrating mental health day today - it’s annoying me 😂

What about the sen children and their mental health every day. Suppose it’s awareness but still 🤪

Any advice on trading working docs with the LA? Just trade track changes or send supporting rationale?

Reference the evidence to support the proposed amendments.

"Open non-compliance with the law or the corruption of process set out in law, including the assessment of individuals, for institutional advantage, baffles me, as it requires relatively senior people like SENCOs, EPs and leaders of report writing teams, who must be familiar with SoP 2015, the Equality Act and their own professional good practice guidelines, to deviate significantly from legislation in their day to day practice. What makes this feel safe?"

I've been thinking about this off and on since you posted it.

I guess it's because a) they look around them and see no consequences for doing this and b) they are scared of the personal and professional consequences if they do stick their neck out. So it's safer to do what everyone else does.

From my own experience with the "teacher assessed grades" of 2021, there were some really unpleasant ethical issues, which I would think only a minority of institutions managed to rise above. Game theory is quite useful in understanding what will happen when people have got to make decisions not knowing how their "opponents" will react. The outcomes tend to be suboptimal when compared to collaboration.

I suppose the other relevant concept is cognitive dissonance. If professionals in education (and that includes me) really had to think hard on a daily basis about the conflict between what they can/are prepared to do and what the law/best practice requires them to do, the cognitive dissonance would be too much to function.

It's a dirty world!

Oh also, I meant to add (as I loved "aggressive mainstream performance targetry" as an expression), there's no reason is there that the government couldn't bring in tracking measures that compare e.g. Progress 8 (or whatever metric's being used) against the number of students with EHCP/diagnosed SEN needs or whatever in the school to produce an adjusted figure. So if you had e.g. twice the average number of EHCP then your Progress 8 would be adjusted upwards.

I mean, it wouldn't happen because of the inevitable argument that would break out about the massive variance in difficulty of getting EHCP in different areas and/or because schools would then either massage the SEN figures up or down (depending what improved their Progress 8 score) but it could be done, in the same way that league table results can be contexualised for previous academic performance of cohort, poverty of area, etc. Another issue would be that doing this would imply that SEN brings down academic scores? To which of course many would say SEN can mean extremely academically able, IF needs are met appropriately.

I don't know if I'm making sense but the result would be "School W has a SEN-adjusted Progress 8 of X, while School Y has a SEN-adjusted Progress 8 of Z." This type of data is regularly reported for disadvantaged students (as in poverty).

Thanks @Phineyj , you are educating me. I don't know much about game theory but you have me now pondering whether or not this is a zero-sum game?

I also don't understand the mechanics of school performance reporting, or know much about inspection criteria, but there would seems to be a lack of incentives for schools to do mainstream inclusion well?

The question of culture and compliance brought to mind the LGA's 2022 report and press release and SNJ characterisiation of this as the sharp-elbowed middle class families narrative.

It's a Nash equilibrium I'd say (there's a very good film about John Nash, the way, who invented game theory - "A Beautiful Mind" - bit gory but has a happy ending).

I think people do treat it as zero-sum, but really, in a properly run education system, one student's gain isn't another's loss.

I have a meeting with one of the SLT next week ("feedback" about a small promotion I didn't get, urgh) so I'll ask him about my theory about SEN-adjusted results.

I'm also going to write to my MP and describe the EHCP "process' in the Borough. It may help him help other constituents.

Funny you mention MPs, I've just been pondering FoI requests...wondering what data requests might be most illuminating. Not so much the timeline breaches which are well understood, but assessment practices which are resulting in ineffective/inadequate provision, which then has to be appealed to become anything that actual helps a child? Eg. patterns of refusal of reasonable requests for expert advice (OT and SALT), or in how many of assessments in the last x x months did the LA commission OT and SALT reports? Data that might illuminate whether requests for NHS health information are actually being made routinely as part of assessments, internal policies on use of independent evidence, internal policies in EP teams on triangulation with other evidence sources, consultation with other Psychologists engaged with the family, etc etc...

Back to game theory, and not being a zero sum game, so yes, a) the collective net benefit received could expand in response to more parents asserting their children's rights (as budgetary priorities and allocations move in response to need), and b) meeting these more efficiently, could in itself produce economies of scale, and reduce adminstrative on-cost, meaning more benefit is availble for allocation? Sorry, hideously out of my depth here, but it is interesting!

Now you're talking my language Mrs Lamb (imagine in voice of Cookie Monster).

I'm an Economics teacher 😀