Just had our request for an EHCP assessment for our daughter refused. They waited right until the 6 week deadline to inform us. The y told us that any needs could be met with the schools provision. Our daughter is currently waiting for an autism assessment (2 years to wait). She is in year 6 and has not been able to attend school since term started due to anxiety and sensory issues. She struggled with attendance as well during year 5. She finds everything too noisy, too busy, too bright. She hates changes to routine and other kids disrupting and not following rules.
She is not on the Sen register. School have not suggested anything particularly useful (mentioned quality first teaching, now/next boards, visual displays/timetables and an art therapy intervention. She also had a SCiP worker who worked with us and gave us ideas to help at home with regulation and emotions). At the moment I go and sit with her for an hour in a quiet room - if we get there just before 9am she gets an attendance mark. She is not able to engage with any school work and can not concentrate for any length of time. School have said she is 'fine' when she has been in, but she tells me she isn't and now will go mute, refuse to get dressed or washed, withdraws into herself. She won't leave the house apart from the hour we go into school together, doesn't want to see anyone from school and gets very angry and defensive to any requests or questions. She will sit huddled in a darkened room wrapped in blankets with a dummy in - and school say she has no SEN needs.
I want to appeal the ehcp decision but don't have any evidence apart from what we see at home and what our daughter tells us. She has been refused a cahms request (not depressed enough or self harming), doesn't qualify for an OT referral and I can't get any response from the school about an educational psychologist assessment to look at her needs. Apparently school can meet need but she us unable to go in. Apparently she is meeting expectations academically (although her previous work books are sporadic and disjointed with increasingly bad handwriting). I don't know what to do now. How to appeal, how to gather more evidence. She starts secondary next year and I know she will not be able to cope.
Her elder brother is autistic so I see the similarities in her behaviour and reactions, but while we wait 2 years for an assessment it seems we are in limbo. I have lots of emails to the school where I have been asking for help but they have not given a firm plan on how they are going to help her. They obviously think she is fine and that I just need to force her in. I think she is masking at school and is now in burn out.
Any advice on how to proceed please?
Very worried in Cornwall