Help SEND school offer

[towardsexperience]

Hello everyone,
We have twin girls each with an EHCP, tribunal approaching soon, this is to take them from mainstream to a very local specialist school, we have a very strong case. The LA has offered us a second preference which is far from home, we are worried about this as our other children go to a local primary.
They have done all they can to steer us away from our preferred choice and we are not sure why, they say capacity but we are pretty sure they are taking in pupil every year.
Should we take the offered school and count ourselves as lucky?
Or put the family first stay local and in the community.

Any thought or experiences welcome, especially any experience using special school buses/ new behaviour from kids.

Children currently have 1:1 in mainstream.

It isn’t unusual for LAs to put another school on the table late in the day.

If you want to continue with the appeal, being at capacity isn’t enough of a reason to refuse your preference. The LA need to prove the school is so full placing DC there is incompatible with the efficient education of others or efficient use of resources. Obviously there is a point LAs can do this, but it is a higher bar than many admit. It has to be something specific that has a material effect and is more than an “adverse effect”, “impact on” or “prejudicial to”. You need to dig into specifics.

Alongside this, look at the differences between the schools. What is it about your preferred school that means it can meet DT’s needs, and what is it about the LA’s proposed school that means they can’t meet DT’s needs. How far is ‘far from home’? Unless the LA’s school is more than 45mins, which is the maximum recommended travel time for primary aged pupils, it is unlikely the distance will be seen as unsuitable unless you have evidence DTs cannot travel that far.

Transport (whether by large bus, mini bus, shared taxi or individual taxi) is common for DC attending SS.

Thank you so much for your response. They have written the reasons for refusal along with capacity, we realize now. Thank you for taking the time to write that.