Going for statement-do I mention this or not?

[ciforjif]

We are applying for a statement for my son. He is very dyslexic and is four years behind at school. I have just started to fill out the form and one of the questions is: what do we do to support our son? So I will put that we give him as much help as we can and when he will allow but for nearly a year now he has attended Kip McGrath once a week.
We have not mentioned this to school as we were worried that it may affect the extra help he gets (and that is not a lot). It's daft I know but should I mention this on the form?

I would put it in. We sent our son to BDA workshops and recorded that he actually enjoyed learning when it was presented in a way that he could learn. Even with the additional home support he is still significantly behind his peers. I retyped LEA the form to make sure I had enough space to put in everything. It is worth discussing / emailing it all to IPSEA prior to sending anything off for advice. The first proposed statement we received was very bland and really offered little more than he was already getting - I could have cried. So wrote back and told them it did not reflect his needs or the provision he needed adequately. To cut a long story short the whole process took about 12 months from start to finish before we got a statement that adequately reflected his needs and the provision that he needed. It is a difficult process, but worth the effort.

Thanks Dolfin. Very worried about the whole thing and I did not want to jepordise any chance he may have with the statement if the school etc know that he is getting outside help. Thanks very much for your reply!

Hi, i know it is all very stressful I stressed about what happens if we did not getting a statement, then I stressed about how poor the statement was. I cried +++. We took advice from IPSEA, they were brillant. They advised us to have an independant Ed Psy report, we went to dyslexia action. The scores were very similiar as the LEA ed psy (severe dyslexia), but the advice was very different, the private Ed Psy recommended one to one support in all lesson. So we went on from there. We instructed an educational solicitor - Emma Turner (has a web site)she was very good. It was a very stressful but since we have secured a good statement all has improved. So keep going.