Advice please: Can a school take your child off IEP/School Action Plus without telling you?

[Inkpen]

Hi - I'm new to these boards and with a query for all of you more experienced in SEN.
My ds is in year 8 and has borderline ASD, poss. borderline ADD - he was on School Action Plus and an IEP at primary school. Am I right in thinking that those should automatically carry over to secondary school? They can't just do their standard assessments for all new year 7s and take him off without consulting parents? I have just found the school's SEN policy and it states quite clearly what provision should be made for children on School Action Plus so I want to challenge them on this.
Does anyone know about this so I can be sure of myself when I make the point?! I find these conversations with the school so hard.
Thanks a lot ...

If they feel he doesn't meet the criteria for SA+ then they are not obliged to have him at SA+

ring your local parent partnership group - they give free advice on SEN issues, like this one.

They can take them down a level, but they have to give their reasons to the parent, and they have to be able to show that the child no longer meets the criteria for SA+. If the child still meets the criteria, then it is a funding/budget issue. I've had a lot of problems in the past for this, my advice would be to book an appointment with the SenCo and ask them to show you the school's criteria for SA and SA+, and what their thresholds are. Also, just occurred to me, SA is for some extra help, SA+ is when outside agencies are involved. If there were outside agencies involved before, that would be why DC was on SA+ before. If these agancies are no longer involved, school will put DC on SA instead. If the outside agencies that were involved previously are still involved, school cannot take DC off SA+. Hope that helps.

Thanks so much for all that. We had no contact with the Senco last year in spite of asking; and ds had no help, so they must have taken him off without consulting us. The outside agencies are still involved - they weren't for a while but are again now because ds had such a bad time last year that the GP referred us back there. So from what you say, that means I can insist on some support for ds! Fab! Thanks again.

Agree with loudlass

The other thing they can do ispull funding without taking them down off SA /SA+ as they are not legally binding;ds2 is suffering under this at the mo. as the school is short on cash.

Inkpen - It sounds like the outside agencies are involved through the GP, this is not necessarily relevant to SA or SA+. It is only relevant if the outside agencies are being used by school. Also it is not hard and fast re SA/SA+ and outside agencies.

Also it is not about school criteria for SA and SA+ it is usually LA criteria snd the funding comes from the LA, Moving someone from SA+ to DSa will change the funding but it is not correct to say they can pull the funding but leave them on the register, the fun ding will not have been pulled but it may have been redeployed as it is not ringfenced.

Wellt he fuinding ahs been pulled as 3 TA's got their notice today after the school pulled their SN budget supplements.

Not the ds budget, but the whole allocated by the Head top up budget, yes.

Sadl;y. So off we got to SA+ for yet another child (22 with statements) fabbo, I was gewtting short of apperwork

Sorry I don't quite understand your post peachy.

Well you were saying about the funding being ringfenced- you're right it's not, at LEAlevel, but at some point it becomes so when the Head draws up budgets.

So when less children are showing in the system, a Head such as purs can use the excuse to cut TA posts saying theya re no longer required becuase of less children with SN showing at X levels (not ure that'swhat ours is up to, how would I know, never met the women- she must have done SAS training she hides that well!)

Issues? Moi?

No it's not ringfenced in the school budget. The number of children on SA+ decides the level of funding, not the other way round. So if you have less children on the register there will be cuts, but there won't be cuts that lead to children then being taken off the register.

No I relaise that- but dropping kids from sa+ to sa willlead to cuts (that may as well see them being off the register- DS2 now gets nop help as the TA is gone). Only those sucha s ds1 with a statement can have help now.

Serves me right forsending my lessthan perfect (in their eyes) kids to a faith school I guess, won't make the same mistake again- sending ds4 to the one up the hill, even if its a 45minutes steep trek.

Work this one out - last year my DD and my DS2 were both SEN at the same primary. DD11yo on SA+, 30 mins per week. DS2 5yo on SA, 3 hrs per week ??!! BTW my DD is now at secondary school and they're talking about getting a statement....