reasonable adjustment for SEN - learning disability

[tell]

Are there any other parents out there that are having problems trying to get their local mainstream school to make reasonable adjustments to the teaching methods and delivery of the curriculum to SEN children with learning difficulties? (Especially Autistic Spectrum, Dyslexia etc). I am East Midlands based and want to know if the problems I am having with the LEA in accepting the difficulties my son experiences accessing information is a local problem or a national one!

It's a national problem but there are good pockets of good practice.

It sounds like you might need a statement to enforce it where you are.

If you are in one of the LEA's up that way who are notorious for pretending they don't do statements then you need to know now that it is bollox. They aren't exempt from the law, however much they like to pretend to parents that they are.

A school must make reasonable adjustments to allow a kid with SEN to access mainstream education, if that is their parent's wish. And, interestingly, in law "unreasonableness" can no longer simply be defined by a school aa "too expensive" or "too much like hard work". And even if the kid has to be taught practically the whole time in the corridor, that is still deemed to be a mainstream education (a recent appeal case involving Bury council clarified that point). Sounds to me like you want to start bandying around some of these legal "buzz" phrases in meetings, or even take on an advocate for key meetings. The problem is that they assume no parents know their rights, and therefore ride roughshod over them. But they tend to perk up once a lawyer enters the room! Schools are almost more terrified of getting sued, or bad publicity, than they are of SEN kids!