EHCP support thread no. 5

[Needlenardlenoo]

Another thread is nearly filled so here is a new one for when we need it. I am the original OP but have name-changed due to admin (let's call it spring cleaning). We got our EHCP finally in June last year and are in a state of cautious optimism two terms into the year 7 transition. There has been no contact from the LA at all to us, but perhaps no news is good news, sometimes. The next challenge is going to be the annual review. I am feeling a bit paranoid the LA might try a cease to maintain. Anyway, onwards and upwards and best wishes to all!

Here are links to previous threads:
EHCP support thread - www.mumsnet.com/talk/special_educational_needs/4834986-ehcp-support-thread
EHCP support thread no. 2 - www.mumsnet.com/talk/special_educational_needs/4989146-ehcp-support-thread-no-2
EHCP support thread no. 3 - www.mumsnet.com/talk/special_educational_needs/5077140-ehcp-support-thread-no-3
EHCP support thread no. 4 -
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/special_educational_needs/5197351-ehcp-support-thread-no-4

Thanks @Needlenardlenoo - my school doesn’t do the sats tests at end of ks1

@Bearlionfalcon hello, I posted on your other thread under another name. You don’t need attainment levels before requesting an EHCNA, so don’t get hung up on it. You can speak to the school again. Let them know you are requesting an EHCNA. Even if the school hasn’t done SATs, they will have undertaken some form of assessment. Working towards ARE is generally how primary schools describe working below the level of their current year group. Usually if the child is working below the level of their current key-stage, they would say they are at pre-key stage level (and sometimes provide a further breakdown as to the level). Although, a SAR doesn’t have to be seen as a hostile move.

I'm sure most schools don't if it's not compulsory! But I reckon that they would have access to them if they wanted a child to take them, and there will be some kind of national reference score they could compare to. I don't think it's unreasonable that they would do that, but of course they may say they can't. I would hope and expect that the SENCO can at least give her opinion at to where your daughter is at compared to a typical child in her year group, backed up with some actual figures.

Anyway, I checked the ed psych reports.

We have two: one was done by the LA ed psych as part of the ECHNA. I realise now it wasn't a very good quality one, however, he said "Child Name is currently achieving at the level of a typically developing year 4 child...moving into year 6 this represents a gap of around 2 years in terms of attainment." Now that was very useful for the tribunal I had to do to get them to issue the EHCP (if a bit of a shocker as no-one had ever said she was behind before), but looking back, I don't think it was accurate. Certainly, DD is now in year 8 of a full ability range comprehensive school and her achievement is absolutely average there (the primary school was quite a hothouse private one so I'm not totally certain they really were comparing her to a 'typical' child but perhaps to the 'typical' child at that school...) The LA ed psych also referred to the SLT assessment that had been done on her for the ECHNA, particularly the CELF-5 subtests Formulated Sentences, Recalling Sentences and Word Classes subtests (DD is very articulate verbally though - her issues are more around inference than understanding actual language).

The private ed psych assessment I had done in April of her year 6 was much more thorough. He did a battery of tests from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (5th UK edition) (WISC-V) and the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test (WIAT III). These showed she was at average or high average level on everything apart from auditory processing (a genuine issue) and spelling (this was at the end and she had totally lost interest!)

Hope this is some help. I wonder if the school has any access to an ed psych?

Thanks @thatsnotmygarden - she is definitely ‘working towards’ on everything but my issue is I don’t know whether that means just below where she should be or three years behind! I will ask if she is working at kS2 level or not - thanks for the guidance. I think she is definitely not working at kS2 level in writing.

@Needlenardlenoo thanks so much for all that. It would be amazing to get edpsych assessment I agree, I’ll sound out the SENCO when I get back. It seems from reading these threads that one of the issues is that by their very nature our kids are a bit of a bundle of contradictions so the evidence on their school reports etc feels a bit confused - my DD can perform ok in a verbal comprehension task but she falls apart when she has to write it down… she can do column addition on paper if given time but is not able to add single numbers in her head - so you could either categorise her as at (or nearly at) ARE or far below ARE depending on the specific thing you’ve asked her to do… and I feel like school reports always overplay the extent to which she can do things - maybe to take the heat off or make themselves sound better?! Hopefully it won’t matter too much, I’ll take whatever I can get from SENDCO but also heed the advice on the other thread to phrase things as ‘school say this but at home I have observed’ etc. where needed

Also - I can totally see already how this process takes over your life. Barely got anything done this week wading through all this stuff. I can see it becoming even more of a full time job. Can 100 per cent see how people get completely burned out, horrendous

The thing is about SARs is they place a large administrative burden on the school (more so in a primary than in a secondary, due to primaries having fewer admin staff) and so even the nicest staff, with the best relationship with parents, may not react too well. I personally wouldn't do that at a school my child was currently at, unless I believed they were withholding important information from me and I couldn't get it any other way. I think if you push on with the ECHNA request then you will find the school can give more detail on your DC's attainment.

@Bearlionfalcon if DD is working at pre-key stage levels, that can be broken down further. You can see an explanation for pre-key stage 2 here. The school should be able to tell you where DD is achieving.

It's no joke, is it? I used to work 3 days a week and assume that I needed to keep the other 2 days free at least most weeks to do all the f*cking EHP stuff. It actually reduced what I could earn (now the EHCP's in place I've gone back up to 0.8) and I had to step down from an educational trustee role I'd very much wanted to do, as I didn't have time to do it properly.

It is an absolute travesty the way the system turns you into an unpaid clerk. And I have only got one child. I am in awe of people who go through this with several.

That looks really useful @thatsnotmygarden . I'm going to keep that for future reference.

Wow that’s a hugely helpful document - thank you so much. Will use this to try and get some clear answers. I think she is probably about level 5 on this which is not great for year four 😭

Thank you, I have a call booked with them in a few weeks 🙂

My DD (year 5) definitely seems to have a spiky profile - really bright and verbally articulate but struggles to get things down on paper.

But as you say, the school seem to sweep things under the carpet - as long as she's doing 'okay'. She really struggles with written sentence structure and spelling (eg misses words out, uses grammatically incorrect endings).

What really confuses me though is that despite the fact that her year 3 brother is a better speller than her, his teacher raised that his spelling might be an issue.... Whereas because DD is quite spiky, she can spell some quite complicated words correctly (she has a very visual memory), but just an example, the other day, spelt 'night' 'ningt' and 'shiny' 'shing' - so her teacher just dismisses her (frequent) spelling mistakes as her 'just rushing'. Her brother can spell night and shiny

This is so similar to us. It's also different teachers isn't it? In y3 we had one teacher three days a week and another teacher two days a week and it became clear at parents evening that they didn't agree - one thought DD was 'absolutely fiiiiine' but the other one just sat there with her face very clearly telling me 'I think we have a problem'... guess which one was right 😑

Hi everyone, we have been sent our ehcp draft! I've done a lot of research and feel confident to check it myself, rather than pay an advocate.

I've checked all my child's needs are included and referenced, run all our targets through chat gpt to check they are smart, etc. There are a couple of small changes I'd like to make, but in general I feel like it includes everything and captures our child really, really well.

My question is, more out of curiosity, what is the consequence of an ehcp being written poorly in real terms? Is it just that the school won't support the child with their true needs, because the wishy-washy content can be open to interpretation?

@Ehcphelpbeep a poor EHCP is not enforceable. It is not worth the paper it is written on. DC may not get any support in it.

Do you mean Outcomes rather than Targets? They aren’t the same thing. A target is an aim. An outcome is the result of provision. A subtle but important difference. I have given the dictionary definitions to more than one LA.

Personally, I wouldn't rely on ChatGPT. It often makes up legislation, misrepresents/misunderstands the law, invents case law, imagines barrister names.

It is very, very unusual for initial drafts to be good, so I would relook at the EHCP. I am not saying you hold pay someone, but I am saying you should go through it again.

Go through all the evidence, which should be listed in K, with highlighters. Highlight all DC’s special educational needs in one colour and then all the provision to meet the needs in another colour. Each need should have corresponding provision.

Then go through the draft and make sure all the highlighted needs are in B and the highlighted provision is in F.

Make a note of anything the LA has omitted from the draft, any needs without corresponding provision, any woolly and vague wording, anything the reports have failed to include, and any reports the LA has failed to include.

When you go through F, look out for vague and woolly wording. For example, “access to”, “would benefit from”, “regular”, “up to”, “or equivalent”, “opportunities for”, “as appropriate”, “would be useful/helpful”, “such as”, “e.g.”, “etc.”, “as required”, “as advised”, “key adult(s)”, “staff”, “small group”… Provision must be detailed, specified and quantified.

When (it is a matter of when, not if) you find vague and woolly wording, check the reports to see if they are woolly and vague or whether the LA has watered down provision. If the reports are vague and woolly, ask the LA to go back to the report writers to make the reports detailed, specified and quantified. If the LA has watered down provision, request the LA stick to the wording in the reports.

Also make sure any health or social care provision that educates or trains is in F. For example, LAs like to put things like SALT, OT, physio, etc. in G (health care provision) when it belongs in F.

Yes, @Ehcphelpbeep your last paragraph.

My DC's is poorly written and I will have to go to tribunal (3rd time!) if anything goes seriously wrong.

Thanks. That's really helpful. So when you say it's not enforceable, what would a SENCO at a provision do if they have a child with an EHCP that was weak?
If a child with an EHCP is in a provision, that has said they can meet need, why would the provision choose to not follow the EHCP on good judgement?

I am just trying to understand what it actually looks like on the ground if a child goes to a placement with a 'weak' EHCP? When would it come to a head with the provision? At an annual review? Would a school say 'we didn't need do xyz because it wasn't a tight outcome, it was only an example of something we could do'? I hope that makes sense!

Is it mainly for the purpose that tight EHCP = if you try a mainstream placement, then it breaks down because they haven't followed the EHCP, you have the evidence to ask for the LA to fund an independent provision at their cost and win easily? Whereas if your EHCP was weak to start with, you wouldn't have that option? I'm just trying to work out what a weak EHCP = in real terms.

By not enforceable I mean you can’t force the LA to provide the special educational provision (SEP) if the wording is poor. If the wording is detailed, specified and quantified, the provision must be provided. The LA is ultimately responsible. And you can force the LA to provide the provision, including via judicial review (JR) if necessary. But this isn’t an option if the wording is vague and woolly. If the wording is vague and woolly, the child may not get any additional support beyond ordinarily available provision (OAP) and even then may not be the full scope of OAP.

If the EHCP is vague and woolly, the SEP in F of the EHCP doesn’t have to be provided. It wouldn’t be that the school is not following the EHCP. They would be. It is that the EHCP is so poor the wording in it is meaningless. SEP can be expensive. The LA will not fund SEP that is not detailed, specified and quantified in F.

For example, the EHCP might say ‘X will benefit from access to 1:1 or equivalent’. Some parents would see that and think “great, that means X will have 1:1”. It doesn’t. X may not get any 1:1 at all. Even if they do, who will provide it, the receptionist? Where? How long for? What support will they provide? Where? And so on.

A less radical example, ‘X will be part of a small group literacy intervention’. What is small? Who will the other participants be? Who will deliver it? In or out of the classroom? How frequently? How long for? What intervention? You get the idea.

Outcomes and special educational provision are different things. Outcomes are the result of provision. Whereas the SEP is the provision (not the placement) itself.

For some, it may not come to a head. For others, it will immediately. For some, it will on change of staffing or when they move school or as they move through the school and the demands increase or when puberty hits…

It isn’t just about the placement breaking down and trying to secure another placement. It is about DC getting the provision they require. The only way to ensure DC receive the SEP they require is via a watertight EHCP.

We are far far from having any sort of EHCP, but my understanding is that if, for example, it states something like "Child has access to a small group to help with emotional regulation." Then if it doesn't say it's mandated, how often, how many children, who runs it, then it can just be run by the school ad-hoc depending on resources.

And not necessarily in a malicious way by the school, but it can then be taken away or modified if resource is needed elsewhere. For example, my DD is meant to take part in a weekly emotional literacy group. It was originally twice a week with four other children from years 4 and 5.

It then got watered down to once a week and combined with the year three group. So it now has 10 children. It's not run every week depending on if the TA is needed elsewhere.

@thatsnotmygarden Cross-posted 🙂

If the EHCP says ‘regular access to….’ that’s not specific. Regular could be once a day, a week or a year. Similarly ‘opportunities for…..’
Imagine the EHCP is your contract of employment. Would you accept ‘will have opportunities for holidays..’ or ‘would benefit from regular access to a salary.’ No, because that tells you nothing concrete about amount, frequency, etc. I found it helpful to think of it in those terms.

So here is an example of one of our sections:
(E) By the end of KSX, child will be better able to structure communication with adults so that child is able to express their views and the information that they want to convey fluently and succinctly.
(F) Key adults with knowledge and experience of narrative work (e.g. teacher, LSA or SENCO) will support child with their expressive language and also link to how child structures their written work. Given child's age, focussing on KSX level resources will be helpful, including XXXX and XXXX. Staff student ratio: small group of up to 6 children. How much and how often: Up to 30 minutes weekly, with half termly opportunities to review progress.

I feel like that is a really well written outcome and provision? My child is meeting AREs in all areas academically, except writing, for context.

All our outcomes and provision are written that well imo... Or is that wishy-washy and I'm just not seeing it?

@Ehcphelpbeep I'm in no way an expert (I defer to @thatsnotmygarden), but the provision doesn't really specify what the 'support' actually looks like?

'Up to' 30 minutes is also very woolly - could be five minutes?

Given child's age, focussing on KSX level resources will be helpful, including XXXX and XXXX.
The X's specify the resources they should use to support my child, I just blanked it out for privacy.

I feel like if a SENCO were to read that target, it's pretty obvious that theyre saying the child must be provided with a narrative-work small group intervention, done once a week with 6 other children, because they have a need that they can't communicate their knowledge clearly.

If I ask myself 'will the school offer my child a small group support off the back of that outcome/provision, based on it's current wording'... I feel like they will. Am I wrong and just being naive?