Writing in support of request for statutory assessment - help

[Twowillbefine]

Good morning, I know that there is loads of experience here and I'm hoping you might be willing to share some of it.

Last month we wrote to request assessment for DS1 and have got the letter saying they are considering it and can we retuurn the form to show our agreement and to provide the names etc of other people who can also comment about him. This is all fine.

Have spoken to nursery teacher and SENCO, they are supportive and will respond saying he needs 25 hours (the max I think?) but also said that the Learning Trust will pay more attention to external people and us as parents.

So the question is - should we write as well as return the form? Will it really make a difference and is so, what kind of things should we, asparents, focus on? Will also point them to paed, SALT, Portage and Psychology.

DS1 is nearly 4 btw, non-verbal ASD.

Thanks very much.

We are in the same LA twowillbefine

The LA is asking for information from you at this stage to help them make the decision whether to assess. If/when they decide to assess, they will ask you for Parental Advice which should be more detailed than the information you give now.

So the goal of the information you provide now is to convince them that your child needs a full assessment. I would take key quotes from any existing reports you have, and also take this opportunity to send in any additional information you have, however minor (eg incident reports, home/school diary).

It's very common for LAs to refuse parental requests for SA, but if you can be as comprehensive as you can with information now, it may convince the LA to assess which would save you a lot of time and stress in the long run. It's good that you've got a lot of support from professionals - make sure you chase them all up to ensure they are submitting reports on time and ask them to copy you into any information that they send the LA.

26 hours would be Level 4 funding (which is what my DS had) but it doesn't cover breaks/lunchtimes - that would be Level 5 (32.5 hours). If you think your DS would need help during unstructured times you should push for it.

I would also look through IPSEA's refusal to assess pack to look at the arguments that are used for convincing SEND that a SA needs to be carried out.

Hi
We have just put in our parental advice too. I searched on "parental advice" in this board and pulled out a lot of useful information from previous threads, which really helped me to focus. I think it is important to record all your concerns as soon as possible, so that you can refer back to them at a later point, should you have to go to appeal or dispute a statement.

Good luck.