Has anyone's child successfully been statemented despite achieving well academically? (long)

[moosemama]

Well, having just typed out a massive post - twice, then tried unsuccessfully to cut it down, I ended up cutting and pasting it into a Word document and filing it as notes for what is currently going on with ds1 and school. It was effectively was a furious brain dump that none of you really need to know all the detailed ins and outs of in order to advise me on what I need to know.

It is still ridiculously long, so I apologise in advance and thank anyone who manages to get to the end.

Basically, I have been up since 3 am and dh joined me at 5 am, unable to sleep because of an incident at ds1's school yesterday where he was told off for getting upset at a change in timetable which cancelled his beloved ICT lesson (for the third week in a row and the second time this week). They didn't break it to him gently or in advance, when it came to ICT time they just sort of said 'right, no ICT today, we are going in the hall to do singing instead'.

Ds got very upset, his teacher was off sick - again (she's not done a full week for the last half a term) and the lady taking the class told him off for being silly - he got more upset and she shouted at him, then another teacher who has nothing to do with him got involved, shouted at him and threatened to make him do extra work in her class unless he stopped crying - he was hyperventilating fgs!

The school know he has a verbal dx of ASD and that he needs advance notice of timetable changes. Not only that, they are supposed to be carrying out a programme to improve his negative associations with school and boost his low self-esteem at the moment.

We have been assured by both the head and other parents who know her, that his teacher next year is very experienced and also has experience of children with ASD in her class. She is also quite strict and will not stand for the awful behaviour of the bullies in his class who his current teacher has been unable to control (even during lessons). BUT we are no longer willing to leave it chance and feel we have to apply for Statutory Assessment at this point as his daily life at school is being seriously compromised, as is mental and even physical health.

The thing is, ds's achievement is high. He is just going into year 4 and is at level 3a for Reading and 3b for Literacy and Numeracy. I'm concerned that they won't see his problems as serious enough to warrant additional support. That said, he has for the first time ever not progressed at least two subsets this year, as he was at level 3c when he came out of year 2 and has only progressed to 3b. He has always progressed well in previous years and I can't help thinking this is the start of a downward slide, as he struggles to cope with the type of work they do in class in the Juniors, despite doing really well in tests and assessments. Apparently he tested at 3a across the board but his teacher's assessments lowered his grade due to the poor quality of his classwork.

He does have problems with self-management/organisation and we did think he might have poor fine-motor skills resulting in terrible handwriting and presentation, but having looked at his books from year 2 last night, we realised that his handwriting was lovely in year 2 and has seriously deteriorated this year, so we are thinking that the issue is not fine motor skills but more to do with a completely disrupted year.

He struggles to organise himself and this causes him a lot of problems at school. He cannot remember to bring things home or hand them in, despite taking a daily checklist and my writing lists in his home/school diary on a daily basis and despite having a lot of knowledge, he doesn't seem able to organise it properly to inform his classwork.

Obviously social and communication issues are also at the fore, both with his peer group and interaction with teachers.

Other than that, we have been told that he struggles to concentrate in class and invariably fails to complete tasks, as he spends a lot of time staring into space rather than starting the work and then rushes to get it all done in the last 5 minutes.

So, what are our chances of him actually getting a statement for these problems? I know they probably seem minor to a lot of people, but they are seriously affecting him and I feel that he is on a downward slide academically now as well and this slide is likely to gather pace as the workload increases and gets harder.

I have heard people say that unless the child is X number of years behind academically they won't get a statement. I know this is not 'allowed', as its a blanket policy, but am aware that it does happen. Are we likely to come up against this sort of attitude and if so, how do we deal with it?

Also, if we apply, get turned down, appeal then get turned down, can we re-apply or is that it? I ask because he currently has a verbal dx of ASD, but will not be getting his Multi Dip assessment until around April 2011, so other than the verbal dx given by the Paed we saw initially (who has now discharged him to the Multi-Dip team) and the GP who saw him for anxiety, we have no support from any health or educational professionals and no paperwork or reports to back up our claim.

Again, thanks to anyone who made it this far.

Its so hard for them isn't it, having to do things differently just at the age when all they want to be is the same as everyone else.

You are right, Its funny though because Dd3 doesnt usually bother or notice what other think about her, in fact she goes out of her way to be different sometimes like wearing bright pink or stripey sox to school when every other little girl has white frilly ones. But for some reason the kind of pencil that you use is massivly important. I am beginning to think that something must have been said to her but she is unable to tell me. She is supposed to be able to join her writing too but is no where near ready physically but she is so sharp she has begun to write all her letters really close together so that they look like they are joined. We have some serious work to do over the hols, I spoke to her yesterday about doing some handwriting each day and she went ballistic but have continued to mention it today and I think she is getting used to the idea.

Ds is was only just starting to care what other people think by the end of year 2 really. It has really developed over the last year though and I think that is in part due to the bullying, as I am sure they must use some er, choice taunts.

Ds is very verbal, but struggles to recount things as they actually happened. He gets confused about what happened when, who said what and sometimes even what really happened and what he'd made up in his own mind since the incident occurred. This obviously didn't help us to get the bullying taken seriously at first, but his bullies aren't that bright and there were plenty of witnesses on enough occasions for it finally to be taken seriously and dealt with, thank goodness. The main perpetrator is still in his class though.

We have a deal that he will do half an hour of writing a day every day of the holidays (starting on Monday) plus, writing a postcard to Grandma every other day while we are away for a fortnight. I had to go through how many hours there are in a day and how many minutes in an hour and therefore how little of his time this would take up before he agreed though.

Oh they can and will delay it in school holidays .we had a delay over Easter holidays ,which because more than 10 days perfectly legit

This sounds awful, your poor son. To me though, it sounds less like a problem that can be solved through statementing. The problem seems to be a fundamental lack of understanding/ training amongst the school staff about ASDs and how to handle them. Have you spoken to the SENCO/ Head about this as it is a serious issue. These people sound like they don't have a clue. My DD had similarly rough treatment in her first school and I moved her (with a fight!) to a much nicer more inclusive school, where they treat her with the respect and care she deserves. Good luck

Goodness! You ladies were up early for a Sunday morning!

Talked about it all with dh, again, last night and we figure we will split the difference and apply when we come back off our holiday in the middle of August. That way there's only a couple of weeks left of the holiday and they have less of an excuse to delay it.

Feels a bit like we are dithering about too much, but I think that's it - decision made now. If we get turned down, we get turned down, we will deal with that at the time and if it all comes to nothing, at least we tried. In the meantime we will keep banging away at the school.

Hi londongirl, we aren't able to move him unfortunately. The other schools locally are extremely over-subscribed and no better with SEN, in fact the closest one is known for being awful with them. I don't drive so anywhere further afield would be a real problem for us. I also have another ds at the same school and he is really happy there.

We have had some very good meetings with the Head recently and he is very good at making things happen if he promises they will and its something he can take care of personally. The old SENCO was a bit demob happy and only worked part-time, so wasn't a massive lot of help really. She basically just attended the reviews and drew up the IEPs, if we asked to see her about anything, the line we got was "its not my job to implement IEPs, that's for the teacher to do and she assures me it is all in hand".

I'm hopeful that with the Head as acting SENCO we will be able to get more support for ds. At the last meeting we had a couple of weeks ago, the Head was genuinely concerned about what's been going on and keen to ensure there was a plan in place to make sure ds doesn't go through similar next year. He says he has a lot of faith in ds's new teacher, she has been there for 13 years and has lots of experience with SEN and ASD in particular. She is also quite strict and he feels will be much more effective at handling the bullies and trouble makers than this years teacher (who basically just let them run riot and get away with murder). The problems this year were that his teacher was hopeless and the SENCO not all that pro-active and getting ready to retire.

Ds is desperate not to move schools though, as despite all that's happened, he has a little group of friends and a best friend there. They have all been together since nursery and are really good at sticking together. Unfortunately its when he is on his own for whatever reason that he seems to get picked on.

There are some teachers that handle him badly, but in their defence, they haven't been informed about his SEN and that was down to the SENCO and his teacher. That said, there are also some fantastic teachers who are very sensitive to his needs and really supportive. One or two of his old infant teachers have taken his class as cover this year. They are unaware of his dx, but still handle him beautifully, treat him as an individual and really support him.

So its not all bad, but where its bad, its really bad.

I read on here that someone wrote a guide to their child for the school and it was really appreciated and used. I was thinking I might do something similar for his new teacher and work hard to get her on side asap at the start of term.

Cerebra have a 'Personal Portfolio' service where they help you put together a guide about your child. I sent off for information but I haven't got around to creating one just yet.

Good for you for making the decision to request a SA. Once you start things going, I found they kept moving by themselves. I started the SA process back in Feb last year and I haven't really stopped since!

Ooo thank you sugarcandymonster, I will look at that later.

Am pretty sure he wont get a statement, but at least we will have tried.

Moosemama

Ok if this is what you've agreed then okay but do note they have six weeks to reply to your initial request when you submit it (mark that date on the calendar). Also write to the Chief Education Officer at your LEA.

Would also say that if they turn you down (which is likely in the first instance) you MUST appeal their crass decision. My DS was refused twice but we got a Statement for him. DO not give up on this - your DS needs a Statement.

Will be happy to advise you further as and when necessary.

Attila (patience is my middle name!)Meerkat

Thanks for all your help, and offer of further advice Attila.

I will definitely mark the six week date in my diary.

We are expecting them to turn us down and at this point, have every intention of appealing if/when they do.

Moose (needs to toughen up and get with the programme) Mama

Thanks so much all of you who have replied to me...
I am so fed up with being fobbed off by schools ..
Ok so it looks like I need to push a lot harder ..thanks for the back up here.. I have been on the IPSEA website and downloaded some stuff...hink I will get on and apply myself for a SA and then just casualy let school know that I have done it...

I have used Parent Partnership beofre - for my daughters medical needs - fabulous people .. I had been fighting with my dd's school for four months to get medical support for her - PP spoke to them once and got it sorted - I would dearly lOVE to know what they said to the school to get them to change their minds in the space of a day !!

Thanks so much everyone..I expect I'll be back ..x