Who/How to get assessment if no statement is needed?

[BlueberryPancake]

DS2 is 4 and starting school in sept. He had dyspraxia, and developmental verbal dyspraxia. The borough doesn't offer statements for children who need less than 18 hours one-to-one care, but how do I get his needs properly assessed and how the school will meet his needs? I'm lost... Thanks for your help

Are you sure he won't need a statement? It is the easiest way to get all the professionals involved. If you request Statutory Assessment they will have to prove he doesn't need it, which will involve them having to assess. Otherwise, is your DS on Early Years Action or Action +? You could ask the nursery or playgroup to get the area SENCo involved and ask for an EP to assess your DS for his needs.

Do not let them tell you they will not give a statement for less than 18hrs. Take a look at IPSEA and SOS:SEN and get asking for a statement if you think your child is going to need a lot of support in school. Too many people get told this sort of thing to try and put them off even trying. Personal experience suggests once they start school the chances of speech therapists delivering any therapy is pretty small (ie none in 2 years of school now in our case despite a huge fight from me about it....now in the process of trying to get a statement).

Beyond that you need to talk to the school, ideally now before he starts and go through the issues with them and ask for the SENCO to be involved. They will need to get an IEP in place and arrange extra help in those areas needed. Whether they can meet his needs without a statement remains to be seen however.

"The borough doesn't offer statements for children who need less than 18 hours one-to-one care"

Well they would say that to put people off from applying!. What you have been told however is a lie, who told you that anyway?. They have no shame honestly.

If speech therapy is needed in the longer term as well then a Statement is required.

No statement canequate to no long term support of any real value.

You can request the statement yourself, you do not need anyone's permisson to do so. Also such things can take six months plus to set up anyway so it is best to get such a process moving sooner rather than later.

I would go all out to obtain a Statement and do not take no for an answer. It will longer term perhaps make your life as well as his school life a bit easier.

Also what they have quoted you BP in unlawful as this is blanket policy. Blanket policies such as these are not allowed!.

Our LA it's 20 hours and due to increase
However provision does not have to be LA hours, it can be anything which is outside the usual resources of a school
I am assuming you want a high level of input of speech therapy
It is probably going to be hard to get a nhs salt to quantify speech therapy and commit themselves to a set number of visits without statutory assessment.
If you can afford a private salt report you could use that to justify statutory assessment
Are you eligible for legal aid if so you can get reports done for SA on legal aid for now although the govt are about to axe it.
ICAN and Afasic may be able to offer advice
I know it's hard to argue against these blanket policies my LA has convinced itself mainstream schools can now teach everyone except pmld even though their results show otherwise
I would apply for SA and appeal the inevitable rejection. By the time you get to tribunal you will either have got the salt you need or sufficient evidence to show the salt has been inadequate and needs to be specified in a statement
Even just the act of appealing will force the LA to put pressure on salt to deliver a proper programme.
You can self refer to ed psych for an assessment of educational needs as well although again they are unlikely to specify salt. You don't need SA to see EP
If you have a 6 month wait for direct salt, or won't get direct salt then cerebra have a voucher scheme of £500 you can apply for to get private salt
Also consider DLA etc and use that for private salt? If you could fund private salt would the school let them come in and work with the LSA?
If you can get the school onside to support salt programme in a statement that will help.

Most kids don't need and don't get statements.

At this stage the SENCO is the right person to talk to.

Go and make an appt with her now, before the end of term....

What kind of thing do you think he needs?

There's a number of interventions that I've read about on here for dyspraxia (fizzy, writedance, and a diff one MRZ does)..... MRZ (on the primary ed board) is an excellent SENCO. Ask her what interventions she normally recommends....

So go armed to the SENCO meeting with a list of interventions you'd like put in place.

Also ask about SALT. The SALT does come into school and assess children.....

Now, what other help will he need? Getting changed for PE? Help with his school dinners?..... And discuss with her all of that as well.

Well we've had a good meeting with current Salt, current nursery teacher, and SENCo for his new school.

It is not in writing yet but he will be on school action + and will have an IEP.
It was offered (I didn't have to ask):

• a home school book
• a classroom strategy for dealing with his slow speech
• small group sessions to encourage his speech and social development probably by an external provider
• a visit from current speech therapist every two weeks, to put in place a speech therapy course
• longer once-a-term meetings with his teacher, senco and everyone else involved
• daily (!!!) speech exercises with special needs assistant (I know her personally so that's nice!)
• help with his physical dyspraxia such as changing his clothes, going to the loo, help with sitting in the classroom (he finds sitting on the floor with his legs crossed a bit of an effort)...
• an assessment with a physio and occupational therapist
• a very specific speech development plan led by the Nuffield (YEA!!!) specialists.

and

he is on a waiting list for therapy at the Nuffield (I don't know how we will have to wait for that).

I have to say I was really impressed with what was proposed and I thought I'd have to fight for all this, but they proposed it. We'll have to see if they will deliver!

Brilliant - that sounds great.

Well done.

That does sound very positive. Hopefully you have a good team around your DS. Obviously keep an eye that all these actions actually happen, but looks good!

Do you think an occupational therapist assessment would also be a good idea?

yes he will have assessment with both the physio and the occupational therapist. I am really pleased.

That's great!

Blimey, that sounds amazing.

One way of getting it in writing would be to write detailing it, thanking them profusely, and saying how impressed and delighted you are to find so little difficulty in getting everyone together and making a comprehensive plan to meet his needs.

The main difficulty with fantastic schools is that if the child moves school later (parents relocating or transfer to junior or high school), the fact they did well at infants can be used to delay appopriate provision. It can help if you can prove a new school couldn't replicate the outstanding support at the old one.