Statement-advice please eveyone

[chatee]

had a meeting today with a local education officer regarding dd's statement and would like to know the views of the expert mumsnetters....
basically it is dd's pre-school year and she will be attending five mornings between 9-11.30 am and i will pay extra on 2 days for her to attend the lunchtime club until 12.45pm.
my dd has cerebral palsy and can not stand unaided and walks around with the use of a kaye walker.dd can not go to the toilet unaided as she can't balance to remove clothing or get herself on the toilet etc.
The last term dd attended for 7 hours and received support from a support worker for the 5 hours she attended the pre-school but nothing for the lunch time club(that was not a problem as there were only 10 children at the lunch time club and 2 members of staff)
well the offer this term is:
1.7 hours from a support worker for the 12.5 hours she is at pre-school
2. supervision from a mid day assistant for the lunch time club

have discussed my concerns this morning but the education officer is adamant this is enough cover and has suggested an interim review in December to see how things are going
do i agree with this? well no i am still worried she will just be left to do things she can do or she will become frustrated when help isn't around quick enough to enable her to keep up with her playmates.On 3 mornings there will be 2 members of staff and 10 children, on the other 2 mornings(when the playschool children also attend)there will be 3 staff and 20 children.the staff ratios do not include the support worker for dd
please if you have any opinions/knowledge help me decide(being pregnant as well i just don't need the stress either)
lots of love to everyone for reading and for your replies
chatee

anyone??
you don't need to have a child with special needs to reply

Appalling - you should get far more than this but I am sure at the end of the day you won't - keep pressing on and I do hope that they come up with a more sensible offer.

Sorry that is all I can say as have never been in this position but good luck.

Not enough!

how do the pre-school feel? it can be easier to appeal with thier backing. I had a strop about ds1's hours when they threatened to withdraw his one-to-on funding. As did the nursery- and together we managed to retain it (he gets full time one- to one term time only- 15 hours a week).

How will the 1.7 be provided? how will they know when that help is needed. Do the pre-school have to employ someone for 15 mins a day or something. The whole thing seems unworkable to me. talk to the pre-school as well and see how they would envisage using that extra funding.

No you don;t need this stress. When will these idiots understand that the crap they put us through is far worse than dealing with a SN child. (Yep I've just got the amended proposed statement- or should I say more toilet paper)

sorry chattee but I agree with jimjams and think you should appeal. Surely 1.7 hours is not enough. Maybe you would be happier if it was 1.7hours a day. I agree that if you speak to the preschool they may be able to influence extra hours etc. I really dont have much practical advice as my dd goes to an SN nursery. She was in mainstream but the support she received off the LEA was NONE and in the end I just thought it would be better for her to go to the SN nursery where all the care would be provided. I just think the inclusion policy for SN children is unworkable if the necessary extra support is not provided

Chatee is this 1.7 hours or point number 1.) 7 hours ?

sorry, lou 33 and jimjams it does seem a little un clear, it should read
1.) 7 hours support during the 12.5 hour period each week

chatee, I think this is really cr*p - your dd should get support for all the time she is there, particularly considering the staff/child ratio and also the fact that your dd is only there for 12.5 hours a week. I really don't think you're asking too much - hopefully with a letter from the preschool to back up your concerns you might actually get somewhere.

I wondered that too, Lou33. If it's 7 hours then you've probably got a realistic chance of getting a couple more hours at the December review, chattee, especially if, as jimjams says, the nursery agree that she needs the extra time. So I'd personally recommend finalising the statement and seeing how she goes. If it's a blatent disaster and she clearly needs more hours you and the nursery can call the review early. In my experience the nursery will be the first to request the extra if they think she needs it and the LEA may well back down if you present a united front.

If, on the other hand, it is 1.7 hours I just despair...

I suppose you really need for your dd to have help 100% of the time but maybe 75% support would make you feel happier. How do they expect the preschool to attend to toileting etc. if there is no support worker?

Ah 7 hours is better! Still not great though. LEA's don;t seem to understand how nursery's work. My LEA is trying to introduce a new funding formula. !2.5 hours will be the maximum help as child can be given in a nursery- although your dd would qualify. The crap thing is that is set at a maximum of two children per nursery, so god knows what happens if the nursery takes more (ds1's mainstream nursery specialises in including children with communication difficulties- so they do have more). LEA's just aren't prepared to support inclusion properly.

So judging by my LEA I would say that 12.5 hours is a reasonable request. I would ask the pre-school how they think they would cope with 7 hours but also register your disaproval with the LEA.

thanks for your replies so far everyone-sometimes it's difficult to talk to so called friends about the differences between s/n children.
I feel even 10 hours would be better than 7, as i am concerned about the 2 days that the pre-school and playgroup are together with 20 children.That is 5 hours and then split the 3 hours over another 2 days and let dd only attend for 4 mornings(but she absolutely loves it and why should she miss out-it's the only real contact she has with children her own age and she never seems to get an invite to play at the other childrens houses
the nursery leader hasn't had any special needs ch/n before and even whilst dd has been there hasn't really had to do much for her as she has had the support worker there full time,so i don't think she realises the full extent of dds needs sorry to ramble on

Considering that, as I understand it, SN support workers get less ph than if they worked on a supermarket checkout, you'd think LEAs might be a bit more generous with their hours.

Having said that, there was a child in DS2's class last year (it was a Y4/Y5 class) who needs support, not sure why but possibly CP, and he had one of 3 support workers in the class every day - he didn't always need one-to-one help and they had time to help out in class generally. Have just checked with DS2 and he could go to the toilet on his own so certainly didn't need the physical assistance your DD does. Maybe it depends on the LEA? Seems a bit unfair.

Good luck, chatee, hope you can get more hours for DD.

chatee- write a letter setting out your concerns with a copy for the nursery. I did get more hours in this way (although I am now met by a stony silence every time I ring the LEA and say "hello this is x".

In fact the nursery didn't officially ask the LEA for extra hours, they sent me a letter setting out their concerns about the reduction in hours. I sent a copy of this to the LEA with a strongly worded letter. Point out the safety aspects- if your dd can't stand unaided she will need a helper to ensure she doesn't fall over and hurt herself etc.

janh- another bugbear. The LEA refund the nursery at the minimum wage one term in areas. a) the nursery pay their staff more than the minimum wage and b) they don't pay them a term in areas.

arreas I mean

Have I still spelt that incorrectly? I blame it on attending primary school in the 70's

It stinks on hot ice Chatee! A Statement is supposed to reflect ONLY the child's needs, funding concerns etc are addressed elsewhere usually. Therefore your child's needs dicate, or at least suggest, that she needs support for the whole time that she is at this school - how can they predict what part of the day and under what circumstances her needs will change during the time she is there? I think you need IPSEA or a solicitor. This may sound drastic, but in my experience a solicitor early on often makes all the difference, there are quite a few who specialise in SEN. However, it may be solveable in the short term if you can get the support of the school and write a clear letter. Your borough must have an SEN advocacy service as they are all legally bound to fund independent advocacy and most are genuinely impartial though not always with the best experience or much time. Good luck, let us know what happens.

statementing is so crap. Our statementing officer sat in a meeting a couple of weeks ago and told us that children "never" get 1.0 of support written into a statement- they only get a max of 0.8. She must suffer from amnesia because the week after that she wrote out a statement for my friend's little boy giving him 1.0 and a mealtime assistant. DS1 has been given 0.8 and no mealtime assistant. And the thing that really stinks? The other little boys needs are nowhere near as great as ds1's! He's completley verbal (has AS)- needs help I agree - but nowhere near the level of a child with the language skills of a 12 - 18 month old (ie ds1).

We haven't accepted this statement. It will be going back. I'm going to re-write it for her.

jimjams sorry if I am being nosey but doesnt your ds1 require a mealtime assistant due to his dyspraxia?

fio2 he requires an MTA for all sorts of reasons (can't open packaging, can't feed himself, is on a gluten free diet, doesn't understand he can't eat off others plates, goes ballistic if he drops something, can't ask for help because he can't speak etc etc, needs her in the playground as well). He won't be staying to lunch until they provide one- he'll just have to finish school at 12. The school agree so no problem there.

What sort of training to statementing officers get on the different conditions? Kyliebump??? Anything hands on?? Just curious. I know they have huge caseloads, but the statement given to my son compared to the other little boy makes no sense at all.

Know why you are so p*ssed off about it. Had to laugh though because my dd starts eating off her brothers plate too. It also said in her report that when she is doing puzzles she tends to take the puzzle off the child next to her. Sorry I dont know much about statementing officers but when we were going through the statementing process I was told by our portage worker that they have no experience of child development. So say if it is wrote in the statutory assessment that at 4 years child A can say 50 clear words they wouldnt actually know that it was 18month level unless wrote down. Thats why the statutory assesment/reports have make your child sound worse to get the help and funding.

This is all filling me with complete dread in advance of our statementing! Going to stop reading it now .

we're about to start the ball rolling too- and thinking of stopping our son's ADHD medicine just so to show how 'difficult' he can be- as on meds he's quite sweet in his aspergers way and i'm convinced that if he were to bite the odd teacher or destroy the odd computer that the LEA might take more notice- its very hard when your cild doesn't fit their 'listed' criteria.(i apologise if this offends anyone who's child has these kind of difficulties- i'm just so frustrated by teachers who tell me that they 'enjoy' teaching him- yet they aren't there in the lunch hall/playground when he needs the support)

I don't want to become the target of everybody's LEA stress, but as Jimjams mentioned me by name I thought I would reply!

I have worked for several different LEAs and with lots of different Statementing Officers. Personally, I have always been interested in child development. I have a psychology degree and a teaching qualification (all a bit rusty now though!). Some Statementing Officers have teaching qualifications and some don't. In my experience it is the person's interest in children and education, their commitment to getting the best for the child within the system and their ability to listen and communicate effectively with parents, schools, other professionals etc that is the key thing to making them a good statementing officer, not their qualifications.

I understand that people can feel that the LEA Officer should have 'hands on' experience, but I think there can be confusion about what the LEA Officer's role is. The LEA Statementing Officer does not usually make the decision about the amount of support required. These decisions are usually made by a panel of professionals which commonly include an Educational Psychologist and can also include a school representative, on the basis of the reports submitted for the assessment. In my experience, the Statementing Officer writes the statement by pulling together and summerising the contributory reports, and then the panel (who also reads the contributory reports) makes the recommendation regarding provision according to LEA policy.

I've said elsewhere that there is a huge variation between LEAs, different resourcing levels, different availabliity of provision etc etc etc - I'm not defending it!!

By the way - my experience of working with parents may also be a bit of an eye-opener as not all parents are as reasonable as us mumsnetters! I have been verbally abused on many occasions (by parents and schools!), threatened on more than one occasion and (when pregnant) someone told me that she hoped my child had SEN - wondered why I bothered sometimes!

Chattee - sorry to go off on a tangent! Are the LEA only putting 7 hours support into the statement as they are expecting the pre-school to put in the rest? LEAs usually put in the statement only what they are going to fund - there is an expectation that schools will fund some support themselves from their SEN budget (not sure about pre-schools!).

What does the pre-school think about the LEA's proposal? It may be that they will make up the hours from their own staffing, so that your dd will have the support that she needs. If the pre-school do not feel that they will be able to meet your dd's needs with this level of support then a letter from you to the LEA disagreeing with the draft, with a supporting letter from the pre-school is probably the next step. Hope things move forward positively for you - you absolutely don't need this stress whilst pregnant.