statement stuff again

[kittyfu]

i have recieved my ds proposed statement, and i have read it though, not sure if it is me being silly as ds is ill and i am very tired.
but i would have thought it should explictly say if he is getting 1-1 and how much he will get. oh why can they not write things in a straight forward manner. it's all an adult wil do this a member of staff will do that. they are saying he will be given speech thearpy by an adult twice a week, how will they do that in a class of 30 children with 2 adults.

is this how normal statements are writern.

It's not how they should be written but the LA will try it on until you request that they quantify the Statement.

You need to write back sttaing it's not acceptable within 15 days. You can either request a meeting or give them your suggestions in writing.

You need to know how much will be delivered by whom at what intervals.

Best wishes

Agree with the points made here. Remember that the statement is a legal document, so if the provision is not made, the LA can be held responsible. But if the provision is worded vaguely, a parent won't be able to enforce it because the wording allows them the flexibility to provide much less than it appears.

This is quite a good document from ACE which helps you look through the statement carefully. But it's best to seek specific advice on your own statement - IPSEA have a helpline.

thanks all, i have tried IPSEA but no answer so far will keep trying.

Keeo trying IPSEA. SOS:SEN are also good.

What you want is a properly quantified and a specified statement. e.g. you don't want 'an adult will provide SALT twice a week' - you want ' a speech and language therapist will provide SALT twice a week for 30 mins in a school setting' (or that sort of thing).

In terms of 1:1 - LEAs almost always try to make that bit as vague as possible. They initially offered us '34 hours 1:1 support'. Eventually we asked for a specialist ASD unit to be named on his statement, but if we had stuck with mainstream, i would ave asked the wording to be changed to '34 hours per week 1:1 support to be provided by a teaching assistant qualified to at least NVQ level 3 and with at least two years experience of working with children with ASD'. They would have told me to piss off, but I would have gone to tribunal to get it.
What sugar said is right. A statement is legally binding, so the trick is to get them to commit to the highest level of support you can manage.

thanks reasonabledoubt, still no luck with IPSEA but spoke to parent partnership, one of the things they said was that ds would not get full time one to one,if he needed that they would sent him to a special school. i did not think that was the case, does anyone know if it's true.

It shouldn't be true. In 99% of situations, you have a right for a mainstream education, and if a full time 1:1 achieves that, this should be given.

However, our LA wanted DD1 to go to SS, and said that if she needed full-time 1:1 she needed special school. They weren't prepared to offer a mainstream statement without retracting the Special School place offer, which meant that we couldn't compare offers, IYSWIM.

For us, we couldn't take the risk of being offered less than 1:1, and were pleased that SS was offered anyway, so didn't challenge it.

I think a Tribunal could and would order full 1:1 if necessary.

Do NOT listen to PP. They work for the LEA. They are usually very nice people, but also usually trained up in LEA talk : 'we can't do that', 'we would never offer that' etc

There are children all over the UK getting full time 1:1 support in mainstream school. Of course it is possible. There are far, far more children getting this level of support than are in special schools.

Trouble is, 1:1 support costs money. Which is why the LEA don't want you to have it.

Keep your distance from PP. Keep trying IPSEA and try SOS:SEN.

i will keep trying. she seemed very helpfull, told me i could asked for things to be changed if i didnt like them but that the provision sounded good etc, i was saying to dp that you have to take what they say with a pinch of salt as they work for the LEA. good to know that full time 1:1 is possible in mainstream school, and that it should be specified in the statement.
it just seems everything comes down to money.