Why so against EYA+ / SA+?

[DiscoBabe]

My ds' SENCo says he does not need to be on EYA+ because his needs aren't severe enough.

Granted he is only receiving SaLT(although paed is still keeping an eye on him and reviewing again in Sep) but i thought involvement of any outside agency meant they should be placed on action plus.

We have another meeting on 1st April where I will be standing my ground however i don't understand why they are so against placing him on A+, is it to do with budgets?

Our speech therapist told they can get additional funding for him due to him being Early years but the SENCo is telling me this is unlikely, why?

AFAIK if the school/nursery requests the funding and it is granted, it is provided by the LEA, not the school/nursery, so it wouldn't affect their budget.

Perhaps the SENCO thinks funding wouldn't be granted, as his needs are being met already with the current support? However, do you think they are? If not you can either push them to apply, or consider applying for a statement.

Does he have a dx?

DB

You are correct in your assumption re outside agencies and SA plus.

Don't think this SENCO has a clue actually. Who is she to say that his needs are "not severe enough". TBH if she's talking such crap already I'd be wondering if they are wanting to help him anyway in this school.

Any outside agency involvement e.g dev paed, SALT etc would necessitate the child being on Early Years/School action plus.

If I had £1 for every time such crap had been uttered to parents I'd be quite wealthy by now.

BTW child does not have to be on either SA or SA plus anyway in order to apply for a statement.
If ongoing SALT is needed I would be applying for a Statement now. it should be in both Parts 2 and 3 of this document.

Do stand your ground April 1st and take someone else with you to this meeting.

You can download your own copy of the SEN code of practice [[http://search.orange.co.uk/all?q=sen+code+of+practice&brand=ouk&tab=web&p=searchbox&pt=todayweb_hp2&x=0&y=0&home=false here]. You can then quote it at your SENCo if you so wish

Ooops - did that link wrong then

Try this one

I don't feel they are meeting his needs no. I have been passing on all the work speech therapy have been giving me but found out recently they weren't doing it. His teacher keeps telling me how she's doing phonics with him every day (i think they are differentiating but i'm not convinced its enough and SaLT agreed). Although some of his work is fine to be done in groups syllables, rhyme, listening skills his sound production i feel really needs just a small amount of specific one on one time. This is where his main issues lie.

They have only recently put an IEP in place for him which is interim one until his speech sessions finish in a couple of wks, and we are reviewing the IEP once his final report from these sessions has been done (he will be getting passed from the pre-school to school service) and we can see where he's at and set his targets for when starts in reception.

SaLT have never contacted the school directly (apart from to send a copy of his initial assessment with them last yr) and this seems to be causing a lot of problems as nursery seem to think its not up to them as they weren't mentioned on the report and keep telling me SaLT normally contact them if they want them to help with the work. The reason i assume SaLT haven't is because i've told them all along i am passing the work on to nursery and i think they assumed nursery would contact them if there were any issues. I'm starting to feel that we are stuck in the middle of people passing the buck to each other!

His teacher wants to focus on building his confidence (he's a bit selective about which adults he will talk to in school) but also says she feels his confidence is related to his speech which is viable as people often don't understand him. So working on his speech is imo the quickest way to work on his confidence too.

The SENCo said she didn't think he would get funded, but speech therapy disagree. I know SENCO is speaking to the Early Years support Teacher this wk. Speech therapy have already spoken to her so we will see what this brings.

He doesn't have any specific dx no. His speech is sound production difficulties and he misses his final consonants.

Attila you've mentioned getting a statement a few times to me. I get the impression off others to do so would be totally OTT which makes me feel like i shouldn't.

It they are not meeting his needs, you need to be extremely firm at your meeting. I would be inclined to see if the SALT can attend with you. Or arrange a meeting with you, SALT and nursery. It sounds like they are indeed trying to pass the buck and avoid extra work - and relying on the SALT doing the work for them.

The point is that they have put an IEP in place for him. They need to tell you exactly how they will achieve the targets on this with the existing resources they have.

I would also discuss the IEP with SALT to make sure the targets are relevant, realistic, attainable but also push ds sufficiently.

Thanks Alison for the link.

His teacher told me today she will be doing 2 one/one sessions with him a wk for 10 mins each. This will be doing the work i have passed along which changes on a weekly basis at the moment.

I know she did it today as Ds told me, but he said he wouldn't do it, so i bet she's secretly cursing me making her do something he won't participate with!

Hmm think i will ask SaLT if she can attend with me when i see her this week.

DB

Ignore the naysayers (who is implying to you that to apply for such a doc is OTT?!) and apply for the Statement. You also have to think longer term as well.

Buckpassing as you are seeing is par for the course; its a bunfight between SALT and nursery. No-one is taking responsibility here and in the meantime your child and you are in the middle.

If your DS requires ongoing SALT the only way you're going to receive this so that school will take some blooming notice is to have a Statement.

BTW another name for IEP on here is Individual Empty Promise!.

I think there are two truths to the matter, tbh.

In general, nursery staff are poorly paid on few hours. To break even, they have to max out ratios. If a child needs extra intervention, then they can do it in-house, or they can be involved in ratified processes. But to be involved in ratified processes means paperwork, meetings, expectations and benchmarking. So, they want to keep everything informal. No expectations=no failure/success=no demands=no extra work. Not because they aren't good, or caring, or helpful, but because they are overworked, underpaid, stressed and can't actually see a tangible benefit of all this 'work' for the result, which is likely to only be seen in years, not months.

Secondly, many many EY workers have done this job for years. They started working in EY settings when they were 'playschools', a nice quaint 'creche' run by parents to help out other mums. The job has changed immeasurably, and despite the alleged training, they really don't get much. Each setting only has to have 1 senco. So 1 person goes on a day course and 'feeds back' what they have gleamed to the other people. Hardly quality.

Additionally, you have to consider the stats. 2% of children nationally require and get statements. 2 in 100. Those children are not neatly distributed across the country, and many children have pervasive development disorders such as ASC/Aspergers/PDD-NOS. Lots of the children who are higher functioning actually do pretty well in MS preschools without support. They even do quite well with Year R. In Yr 1 the cracks start to really show. I know a girl who was dx with Aspergers at 8 years old - only flagged at 7, and yet, looking back, the signs were there, just subtle. I know another girl who was clearly ASD, with hearing loss and another medical condition, but is still being 'assessed' in Yr 1.

Now, if you imagine a setting like DD1's preschool, max. intake 24 per annum. In 4 years they might see 2 children with needs that warrant SA at some point in their education. DD1's preschool had never had a child with needs as significant as hers. But then, when you drill down into the statistics, only 0.4% of girls her age get a Special school placement. So, given the intake of DD1's preschool, assuming around 50% will be boys, and knowing that only around 12 will go to school each year, whilst the others won't go til the following year, it would take 8 years to see 100 girls through the end of preschool. On those stats, in 20 years there would be one child who goes to Special school.

We have in this forum, a skewed population. I only know of 6 children with SEN in RL. And that is a set of children ranging from 4-10. I only know 2 other children with SEN of DD1's age.