To apply for a statement or not?

[Toffeefudgecake]

How do you know?

My son (11) has been off primary school since February, suffering from extreme anxiety. I am home educating him for the moment, although he is still on the school register. He is dyslexic, has OCD, tics and Asperger-type characteristics. However, his only diagnosis is dyslexia. Today, we saw a psychiatrist, after waiting four months for a referral, and she referred to him as having a 'mixed developmental disorder', which means he has a bit of everything, without being diagnosable. She has suggested he start taking Prozac and have CBT in order to help him to cope with his anxieties and start at secondary school in September.

How do you decide whether to apply for a statement or not?

The head said it would probably be very difficult without a diagnosis. Maybe DS will cope well enough on School Action or School Action Plus, but I just don't know.

So the school are not allowing your son to use support mechanisms that would allow him to access the education he is entitled to. He will suffer, and end up refusing to go to school because of it. Yet they still think he does not need extra support from a statement

Ignore the HT - apply for a statement yourself.

Yep, that's about it, Bialy.

Hi Toffee. Just marking my place on your thread, I hadn't spotted it before.

Yes sadly sencos will someties only know what the lea tell them. Some sencos have got the job almost by default and don't necessarily know more about sen than a standard teacher (which often isn't a lot). Some senco's aren't even teachers, I could go on. Thats said there are fabulous sencos out there but sadly I think thats the exception rather than the rule. I was once told by ours that 'only children with an iq in the bottom 2% will get a statement'! This is what she had been told. I pointed out our 2 aspergers children with v high iq's who are both statemented and she looked at me like I was a bit daft and said they must have been exceptions as that is what the lea had told her!
I could cry sometimes I really could.

Hi, Ellen .

Feynman - it just sounds worse and worse. I have a feeling the SENCO at my son's primary school only applied for the job because it was part time, which fitted in with her need to be available for her own children. I don't think she knew the first thing about special needs when she took over, although she did at least improve her knowledge a bit over the years. She is always more concerned with her own children, though - always rushing off to take one to the dentist or another to the doctor after a conversation about how my DS is floundering at school again. I could have done with a tiny bit of sympathy for what we were going through, but I don't think it ever crossed her mind that we were going through hell.

So our special needs' children are served by SENCOs who may not even have had professional training and, if they are lucky enough to get a statement, they get a TA who may have no prior experience of dealing with special needs, let alone the child's particular special need. The TA may not even have ever had any experience of looking after children before. And they are paid approximately £6 per hour, which is probably not much of an incentive to read up on anything out of work time.

How many children are just getting lost in the system? I don't understand. It makes no sense. These are children who can - hopefully, will - grow up into valuable members of society; they are not just rubbish to be thrown away.