SM provision - am I being short-changed?

[Dameednabeverage]

Sm agreed giving 20+ hours of support. Nothing been provided yet as school waiting to take on LSA. New LSA has been hired at 5 hours less than the sm says my ds needs. Is this usual and has anyone experienced similar? I know that LA provides x amount of funding and school has to provide the first 5 hours for all SN dc's. Am I being cynical in thinking that school are not wanting to fund their 5 hours?

I think it's the first 10 hours they have to pay for? I would probably be asking the school how they will be covering the remaining hours? see what they say...

No I don't think you're being at all cynical.

I think go and talk to them now about how they are going to provide 20 hours support if the lsa will only cover 15 hours - before they've hired anyone. Just in case they decide they need to change the job description....

Have meeting very shortly hence sounding you out now about this. School definitely have to pay 5 hours so not sure what they're playing at. Ds having a really bad time first thing and HT said the other day that new lsa would help ( but job advertised as starting at 10am ). Job advert was not in local paper so maybe they thought I wouldn't realise. Am looking forward to asking them some tricky questions.

Had meeting and asked about discrepancy in hours. As expected was told that they cannot fund another 5 hours from budget but had shown on IEP how they would fill the gap. This includes 2 x 10 mins weekly to go through targets,teacher/lsa as required to support curiculum x 5 hours weekly . The various programmes recommended in statement cannot be implemented without his removal from class,but with Sats coming up it would be best not to remove him,but what did we want! Said that after Sats in May they could do a lot more.
Also have issue with a member of staff refusing to teach him for 2 lessons per week. Ds is willing to talk to her to try and build bridges but she is having none of it (who's the child here?).This week he was given work sheets for 3 weeks work and put in another class who were doing Sats test papers so ds just had to sit and get on with it. Meeting was time-limited ,which is not usually the case,and we were told to keep to the purpose of the meeting - IEP review. Wtf

Ouch. That's bad.

Some of the legal eagles might come on soon - but I don't think legally they can do this. I thought that was the whole point of a statement.

So I think you better find out your legal rights and threaten them with it.....

Dame - what does the statemented hours say - 20 hours of 1-1? I seem to remember someone a few months back that had x number of hours 1-1 and an additional x hours of admin/training on their statement. If these are dedicated hours of 1-1 support, admin /training should be from an additional source.
This would be like a teacher not being covered for their PPA time - and no teaching to the class being provided.
Totally agree with the comment about the childish behaviour of the teacher. What does the SENco/HT have to say about this?

Sm says he requires 20 hours of learning support assistance, no mention of any admin.This is to be provided in whole class,small group or individual basis. Not 1-1 as he doesn't need learning support in class - sm is for BESD. He is to have programmes of support from lsa.
Senco didn't want to really hear our views about the teacher - maybe she's a friend of hers. am waiting to see what happens in the lesson time next week before going to HT. Ds says he was told 'don't know where you'll be next week'. Seeing as he struggles with change this isn't going to help him.

So statement doesn't say 20 hours 1:1?????

If it doesn't say 1:1, you can't enforce 1:1.

DS's statement, which I'm appealing against, says,"will require access to 20 hours per week of additional support ....this will allow an appropriate balance between individual, paired and small group work"

Unless it says 1:1, they can say a child gets 'in class' support from TA/teacher - i.e. no support probably.

E.g he needs to learn social skills in group situations so 1:1 is not necessary. Nor does he have any academic difficulties that require extra tuition etc.
Lsa will cover lunch/break times as these are main areas of difficulty. He should have programmes in place delivered in small group, individually or whole class. My point is that they say he has to be out of class to do this which is contradicting what sm says.

Your question was:

Sm agreed giving 20+ hours of support. Nothing been provided yet as school waiting to take on LSA. New LSA has been hired at 5 hours less than the sm says my ds needs. Is this usual and has anyone experienced similar? I know that LA provides x amount of funding and school has to provide the first 5 hours for all SN dc's. Am I being cynical in thinking that school are not wanting to fund their 5 hours?

If the statement doesn't say HOW this support is to be delivered (and 1:1 is not just for 'learning dificulties' in class btw )i.e. if it does not specify if it is to be by an LSA in 1:1, small groups, paired, whole class situations or whatever, you unfortunately cannot insist on one particular person delivering it.

You cannot, therefore, insist that one person is held accountable for all the hours. That is, you cannot say the LSA must be employed for 20 rather than 15 hours.

The school can say the child gets 15 hours from a LSA, 5 hours 'in class' help from the teacher.

If the statement says '20 hours LS assistance' and does not mention delivery than that would be acceptable and actually quite generous as some schools would skimp even further on what they were having to commit to.

Thanks - perhaps I should be pleased with what I have.

Every Authority funds slightly differently. Some expect the schools to put in a certain number of hours themselves and this can range from 5 right up to 20 hours before they will begin to help financially.

If the school is expected to fund the first 5/10/15 hours then they must do so, the LA will not be happy with them if they don't, and if you have trouble with the school not doing this I would put it in writing to the SEN officer responsible for the statement.

That's right Katy but I think the problem is that this funding need not be applied in a way which is obviously accountable unless this is specified in the statement.

For example, in my county, schools are delegated 5 hours and any extra money comes from a statement.

However, if the statement just generally specifies 'X' hours and does not set out by whom and how it is to be delivered, it will be largely up to the school to decide. This means schools can, and do, lump these hours in with general class teaching or take out time for monitoring, meetings, recording and planning from them. This makes pinning down provision very difficult.

This is why getting the statement specified is so important as it is the only way to ensure your child gets what he needs.

Your first stop would be to ask the school for a provision schedule setting out how they intend to apply the 20 hours.