Calling the Essex girls - statement advice please

[fightingthezombies]

Hi all. Have received sm for ds who has BESD. I understand that the part 3 funding & resources part is standard to all Essex s/m's i.e the deployment of support will take into account ds's needs and the school's existing support arrangements,timetable and organisation. Now ds needs are very unpredictable and it is hard to specify when he needs additional help in the day. Has anyone accepted a sm with this wording or requested that it should be more specific? Any advice would be really appreciated.

It isn't about ESSEX. The law applies there as it does anywhere else.

What's the point of a statement if it says whatever ds' needs are the school will decide what to do and when to do it.

Bloody pointless having it then.

(except for the golden ticket to any secondary school you want of course)

I will try not to go into conspiracy theory mode about our LA, but suffice to say I could not get them to budge on the wording at all. "Essex writes flexible statements". I was actually a bit alarmed that they could not grasp my issue with it. Both the draft and the final statements arrived just in time for school holidays which made getting help from SOS!SEN, IPSEA etc v difficult.

I did get through to SOS!SEN and they helped me with going through the statement. I wrote out a detailed rejection at draft stage, but tbh they mostly ignored it all and issued a final. Once I got that, I rang IPSEA but because DS1 had not started school I was told I would lose at tribunal as the school and LA had to have a chance of making it work and I just had to accept the statement as it was. Families in Focus said similar.

I really regret not pushing it further as the school are not acting in DS1's bests interests and I have no way of forcing their hand on it. In fact on some stuff I would say they were breaching the DDA(!).

I did speak to an education lawyer (they were based in N. Essex) but as I was feeling the love for his school I decided not to bother with that. From memory they offered a statement checking service and would take on tribunals too. TBH I am not sure how much value for money you would get compared to getting help from SOS!SEN, IPSEA and MN; I suppose it depends whether a solicitor's letter would make them take things more seriously IYKWIM.

Sorry it isn't a positive story - more of a cautionary tale.