Meeting at school tomorrow????HELP

[sahs1969]

Hi,

We are in the process of requesting a statement for my dd age 10yrs-we go to Tribunal in Jan.
Tomorrow we have a big meeting at school with the SENCO the LEA Offier, the Paed from GOSH that recently assessed her and her teacher and us.
Basically dd is very "young for her age, way behind in Maths, has ADD-from the reports it states many times that she requires a lot of 1-1 adult support to get things done in class etc.
DD also has great difficulties socialising and making/keeping friends-and the reports from GOSH state she has very very low self esteem-and is a very anxious child with the behaviour she displays at home-at school she is as quiet as anything.

What I am after is some questions we can go prepared with tomorrow-as to why we want her statemented????
I feel like they are all going to be ganging up on DH and I tomorrow-and it's not even the tribunal.
I want to go prepared-any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks so much
x

No good advice, as I'm fairly new to all this as well, but just wanted to wish you good luck for your meeting. Hope it all goes well for you.

what are her attainment levels in maths? There are draft letters on IPSEA you can use to set out your ideas. You need to tell them the effect it will have on dd if they fail to do stat assessment as well as why you want them to do it. If they won't do it, you can.

www.ipsea.org.uk/What-you-need-to-know/Common-problems.aspx#RequestingAssessmentipsea

Have you got a copy of the SEN code of practice.. If not you can down load it.

Go through the questions that the lea are likey to ask.. And ask those but to prove your point.

So what provision has the school put in place already from their budget, what results that had, were those adiquate, did it lessen the gap between your dd and peers, stop the gap growing, or resolve the issue?

How was progress measured, how often. Were ieps and plans of action targeted in the right manner, what else could the school put in place out of their own funding?

What your asking for is for your dds needs to be assessed so that there is a true picture...how have school assessed your dds needs? And is this a true reflection?

I'd go with some bullet points along those lines... Asking the school to prove themselves, rather than you proving your daughters needs as such.

agree with arsenic, the sencop is what you need to understand what the rules are they have to follow.

From memory the main one for agreeing to assess is that your dc's needs are complex and cannot be met within the schools own resources at sa and sa+.

You can point to attentional difficulties, emotional difficulties, social communication difficulties and academic difficulties - any one of those could qualify your child for astatemtn if severe enough but in combination it shows her needs are complex enough to need assessing

What outside agencies have been involved with helping your dd cope at school? How successful has their intervention been/

good luck

I am in a similar position, have just been refused a SA for dd and am about to appeal. I also have a meeting with ehad teacher tomorrow, and then with LEA bloke on Thurs.
The letter I got from LEA stated that they refused the SA as they felt that the school should be able to provide what DD needed without a statement.

I am going to ask:

For HT to clarify , and put in writing, EXACTLY what interventions DD has had so far (she has been on SA+ for 18 months)

What supprot EXACTLY she is now getting

Then I have a report from LSA that makes recomnedations for what DD needs, so I am going to go through that and ask them to clarify EXACTLY which recomendations they can meet, and which they cant.

I am also going to ask them to clarify there Special Needs budget, and how that is allocated.

I am going to ask why they did such a cr*p job of completing the form that LEA sent, and go through certain bits of that with them

Also I want to go through DD's previous cr*p IEPs and ask why they are so rubbish!

Also, why havent they yet referred dd to Ed Pysch, and make them do it.

additionally I am going to take notes and produce minutes of the meeting, copies of which will be sent to HT and LEA etc...

Good luck tomorrow - I hope it goes well for you.

Good luck for tomorrow to both of you!

Sencop sencop sencop!

yeah...off top download sencop now then begin memorising it...
wont be in need of any bedtime reading for a while LOL

Wow Overflowing those questions are great - I am going to steal those as I also have a meeting tomorrow at school with the new senco.

Fingers crossed for us all.

Thanks all so much for the suggestions.
DD is on SA+ and has been seen and assessed by so many professionals during this past year-Ed Psyc, Clin Psyc, SALT, O T, Maths Spld base-had a good read through the very long COP last night.
Fingers xx-will let u know how it goes
x