'working document' - i need opinions on it

[nicevideoshameaboutthesong]

Please, can anyone take a look at our 'working document' and see if they can help me dissect it / fix it?

Tribunal looms large on 30 September. We would love to come to some arrangement before then, DD1 needs this in place when she starts Juniors, not a month later...

Not sure if I can help with the document, as haven't been through tribunal yet (though will be soon!). But just wanted to bump, and say hi, I was wondering where you were just the other day - didn't realise you had name-changed!

Hi Leonie, ive just lost at Tribunal so not the best person to give advice!

You were banned, really?! thats the first time i have heard of someone being banned, what on earth did you say? you are bad arse

Oh well, welcome back!

Welcome back, sinner

Ahem...we knew that, you didn't have to get banned to prove it.

Welcome back Leonie, banned but not beaten.

As for the conventions of re-writing the working document - so long as you supply a key, you can do what you like. I used strikethrough for "suggest this should be deleted" and bold for any addition I thought should be made. In each case I gave a reference to the evidence I felt supported my suggested change in a numbered footnote.

eg ? To discuss his anxieties and work with an adult a professional in the field of child psychiatry trained in delivering cognitive behavioural therapy
and pointed out in the footnote "an adult " was too vague and referred to the camhs letter recommending professional support.

You could also use footnotes to refer to relevant parts of sen code of practice or dda that their suggested wording would appear to be contravening. So for all the "access to" or "up to x hours" woolly recommendations, you point out that sencop says support should be quantified.

Also anything useful in reports submitted which has been left out "in the interests of making the statement not be too unwieldy" , just copy and paste those recommendations directly into the relevant section of the statement.

I'd also recommend getting another person to read through it - pwp spotted some omissions that I had failed to see when they checked the statemtn for me.

With the amendments remember that you need evidence to back up your changes. So generally you would be using your experts reports (if you have some) or reports from your NHS SALT, OT, Physio, school, EP, Paed etc.. anything you can refer to. Otherwise it is just your view as a parent and if the LA has evidence of different provision ie report from school, SALT then the tribunal is much more likely to go in their favour. Also don't let the LA realise you are keen to settle before September otherwise they will use that to negotiate you down. Although I can understand it would be better if it was sorted before then, the most important thing is that you DC gets what they need. If it's a disaster through September this will actually help you at tribunal. Its all very stressful and you might often want to let go of it but LAs often settle at the last minute.

Have just seen this, would be glad to take a look at it. PM me if you wish.