Any one here from Nottingham(shire)?

[Homsa]

The local authority where I live is planning to introduce changes to the way support for pupils with SEN is funded and provided in mainstream schools. Apparently this is modelled on Nottingham/shire and I'd love to hear what parents there think about the system.
The way it was explained to me is that top-up funding for exceptional needs is delegated to "families of schools" which then decide jointly which pupils to prioritise for this funding. I'd be interested to hear what kind of impact (if any) this has had on access to statements, assessments, and fair and consistent criteria?? Many thanks!

Hi I live in nottm and don't fully understand the system myself.

Basically there are hardly any statements given in nottm, and i don't know the criteria for needing one.Have always been told that a statement is not needed to get the provsion.

y ds is in ms, now on school action plus and has very little support. the school have to provide some support and then if more is needed they go to the 'family' to request more, although this only seems to be done yearly??

the family of schools is headed by a secondery school and includes all the primarys that feed into it.

And that's about all i know. I think the system is crap and is definatly not meeting my ds's needs.

Oh and provision and 1-1 support is variable as to how many kids with sen are in the school, seems to be the less pupils with sen in a school the more support those few get. Our school has lots of pupils with additional needs so resourses are really stretched.

Oh dear. Not looking good for us then, if they want to introduce the same system over here.
Just noticed the thread about funding cuts in Notts. Obviously a lot easier to take provision away from children if you've done away with statements, so are not legally bound to provide very much at all!
Really worries me how this system seems to delegate so much of the responsibility to schools.

hello im in mansfield and created the petition on the other thread, loads of people i know on facebook know more about it all that me but i did petition and a page on fb lol

yeah the system here unless your child goes to sn school is pretty difficult i think as all kind of depends on really proving to the family of schools that each child needs a certain amount of funding, i dont like the system as it was though all could change a lot again now it seems!! my ds goes to sn school now so less of an issue but still rubbish!!! notts are useless at statements too!

I've found it to be a rubbish system. We are considering moving out of Notts as its really hard to get help for SEN here.

Statements are hard to get.

I understand it to work like this

In Nottinghamshire, funding is given to groups of schools (our 'group' has 6 schools) as a group rather than individually. They have to divvy it up between themselves.

Now if the schools spend the money on other things, and dont have the funding to support a child with SEN then the school have the problem. However if that child has a statement, it becomes the LA's problem - I think that is why they dont like giving them out.

yes i agree that was my understanding of it too, though now my ds goes to a sn school its different so that bit of my brain is fried!