I am a parent of a child with special needs, who has been inspired to study for a law degree (which starts in September) - planning to specialise in education law.
I'm doing a bit of research about the way SENDIST tribunals are run - in terms of the fairness, efficiency etc. of the whole proceedings. I have recently been to tribunal myself - and although the result was positive, the hearing was conducted in a very haphazard & biased way. I wondered if others might have similar experiences?? I would be very interested to hear stories from parents who have been to tribunal over the last couple of years. I intend to collect these stories together, and possibly publicise them (in anonymised form), in the hope of improving matters for the future. If I receive enough stories, I will write some sort of report of the findings and publicise it on the internet so that other people can read it and use the information to improve the process for parents who need to go to tribunal in the future. Obviously I will be really careful that nobody can be idenfied in the final report - and that includes tribunal staff (I don't want to start a witch hunt).
My understanding is that the main organisations who help parents navigate the system do not have the resources or the time to do this sort of research themselves - but of course I will be happy to share my findings with them.
Many thanks!