Proposed Statement received

[Frustrated2003]

I have received the proposed statement and it is dire to say the least. it does not read as if it is about my son, and has no reflection on his needs.

There is no one to one support even mentioned, no SALT, No OT and they are naming the EBD school. Nothing is quantified or specified, I am furious he is asd and does not cope where he is.

Looks like this will be going to appeal oh joys. Anyone else dealth with Plymouth before advice would be appreciated

Sorry to hear it's so awful, remember this is the starting point for negotiation though and LAs will provide as little as they can get away with.

How do you know they are naming the EBD school? The proposed statement should be blank in part 4 and they should be asking you what your preferred school is. Do you have a school in mind?

You have 15 days to submit your views and to request a meeting if you want one. You can ask the LA for a Word version of the proposed statement so you can edit it to include the things you want changed.

thats strange as my son is asd and he wasnt allowed (not that i wanted him to) to go to the local EBD school because the LA said "not suitable for his special needs" as hes not naughty his behaviour is due to his being autistic , so bad that in plymouth they do this "illegal" blanketing approach and then top it off with the wrong type of SS, do you want or feel he needs a SS but for ASD/ASP obviously or would you prefer MS?

oops so sorry you didnt mention what his sen is ?

Hi

He is autistic, has a severe speech and language dis-order, auditory processing dis-order, sensory processing dis-order and he has a moderate/severe hearing impairment which is conitnually deterioating. They havent put the school in part 4 but have named it as there preferred choice and want me to say yes or no.

I am looking at a specialist independent school as LA do not have the resources or the skills to meet his needs, he has been excluded from every provision since he was 2/2.5 years of age. I have had an independent assessment but Plymouth are unbeliveable in my view, they wont even talk to me without going through their legal department.

they are trying to get away with murder arnt they im for you this type of school just isnt suitable but they are afraid you will find an out of county school or private and if you go to trib they may end up if no other suitable schools in your area having to PAY good for you i say go and visit any schools that may be good for yr DS and visit the one they have suggested ive had to do this make lists ask questions and you will have ammo then as to why your choice is best and theirs is inappropriate good luck oh and i took PP with me as thought good idea to have a witness youve been and what youve seen ect

Our LA wanted DS to go to an EBD provision as well - we also went to tribunal for an independent specialist ASD school. Does the EBD school agree that it can meet your DS's needs?

If you're aiming for an independent placement, you prob will have to prepare to appeal. I know of some situations where the LA has backed down before the hearing, but the LA only took them seriously when they filed an appeal.

We had our independent EP visit our chosen school and the LA's choice to comment on the suitability for DS. Is that something you'd be able to consider doing? It's expensive, but you need as much evidence as you can to show that their placement is unsuitable and that yours can meet your son's needs.

ACE website has useful guide for checking a statement. Just get an email version and rewrite it with your wording. This will be the precursor of a working document for tribunal. Strikethrough their wording and put your amended version in bold or different colour font. Then you can list points where evidence does not fit etc. We got a statement like this naming mainstream but nothing specified and ignoring EP recommendation for daily specialist teaching. It was a long and stressful road to tribunal but we won autism specific teaching 35 hours week 48 weeks a year so well worth the effort. When we sent back our version they did make some changes but nothing substantial and issued a 2nd draft. FOI them for their whole file eg the correspondence with the ebd school and visit it so you can come up with a list of reasons why not suitable. Good luck and keep going. Clearly their legal team are not exactly doing their job if they issued an unspecified statement.

I have had an independent EP/CLinical Psychologist visit him at school and she is quite clear that this ridiculous EBD school is not meeting his needs in anyway at all, not even educationally. She is of the view that he needs a very specialist provision, they dont have this report just yet as need it for tribunal and need them I suppose to continue digging their own hole.

This school have also told my independent experts that its not the right school for him so why on earth are the LA suggesting it, beggers belief really.

On top of that my ex husband who has nothing to do with our son really, claims that he was the perfect child before he left and his behaviour is because of my parenting,not because he is autistic.

Sugar Candy which ASD school did you decide on if you dont mind me asking?

The way parents are treated is a disgrace I have been to tribunal for two of my children and even though we now have what our youngest child needs in his statement the LA are failing to provide it. We are back with the LGO again only this time I feel a judicial review will be required.

I have found the book "Disabled Children 0 A Legal handbook" helpful. The authors are Broach, Clements ans Read and it is published by the legal action group.

Wishing you well with your appeal.

Will PM you, Frustrated.

It sounds like you're getting all the right evidence and will have a strong case at tribunal. I felt that our LA didn't really listen to our arguments and put forward a really weak defence for their decisions, which the appeals panel didn't accept at all.

Have you got anything in writing from the school saying they can't meet your son's needs? Is it a school run by your LA? I believe the LA can still name a LA school even if they say that they can't meet the child's needs, but it will reflect negatively on them at tribunal.

I dont have anything in writing, just she has told my independent experts that its not the right school and that they were directed to take my DS

Local authorities need to give due regard to parental wishes in relation to schools to be named. It might be useful to ask the LA for costings for the school they are suggesting as you could then compare this with the school you would like your child to go to.

You could call the school to the tribunal and could have them ordered to attend if you felt that was more likely to result in their attendance. The tribunal service will ask you for what witnesses you wish to call. The risk would be that they aren't honest about wether they can meet your child's needs but if they really don't think they can it would be in their best interests to be honest at tribunal, I would have thought.

If your independent experts were told, they will probably be able to put it into their reports, so that will be useful. You could write/email the school directly yourself and ask straight out whether they think they can meet your DS's needs? However, they may be on their guard now and if it's an LA school, they could have instructions on what they're able to say.

We made a DPA request for our file as Agnes mentions above, there was some useful correspondence between the LA and schools, so I would make a request if you haven't already done so.