SEN Law information....

[StarlightMcKenzie]

Hiya all.

I've been out of touch a bit for the last year after we lost our tribunal so I was wondering if anyone could give me a leg up with links to docs or sites that can help me fight my own tribunal case.

It's an ABA one so latest stuff on that too would be handy.

Many thanks.
I'll make sure I keep it all on one place to share with anyone else that might need it.

Have you contacted IPSEA to try to get a tribunal representative? I did most of the stuff myself but it was good to have someone to do the negotiations for me at the end.

Yes, I have spoken to them. But I don't think I'll get representation. Also, this sounds a bit wierd, but I need someone to do the leg work required to challenge a particulaly tricky LA refute and I don't believe IPSEA would do it, nor believe that it has to be done.

Also, the solicitor I am up against is evil itself and one of our strongest tactics is to go up against him unrepresented iyswim. FWIW, a very reputable (not to mention expensive) socilitor advised this.

SOS SEN run workshops on the appeal process which are very useful if you are doing it yourself. I would also read in detail the rules of the tribunal so you are fully aware of the procedures and deadlines. Are you asking for home ABA or ABA school? If it's an ABA school one way of going for it is to provide evidence that your DC needs an ASD specific school with other things that only that school can provide for example outreach at home for consistency etc... if they have no spaces in maintained schools in the county and the ABA school is the closest that can provide what your DC needs then they would have to got with it. There is a book on SEN law from Simon Oliver (I think) which is out of date (2007 I think) but could still be quite useful for previous case law and arguments as COP hasn't changed since then. You can also read on the tribunal site previous cases's outcome although they are quite old, I think 5 years or so but again useful to see how they think. Good luck and well done for carrying on.

Hi izzie, I did attend a SOSSEN workshop the first time around and found it useful. I may sign up again. They are my preferred charity on this topic but they have limited experience of ABA cases and like to keep it that way iyswim.

We want neither an home ABA programme nor an ABA school. What we want is ABA delivered in a mainstream classroom. At least we want the curriculum differentiated to be delivered in an ABA way iyswim and that the IEP targets will be social skills targets (the only targets we want really) again delivered in an ABA way during lunch and break times.

Thank you for the book suggestion. That might provide a good base starting point although ABA and more specifically ABA in a state mainstream classroom will probably need much more recent law.

The only way I ever achieved ABA in the mainstream environment was to get my home tutor in as LSA, then pretty much provide DS's whole curriculum (incl. worksheets) myself. Will your case therefore rest on how their (untrained probably) LSA can't hack it?

The other site to seek advice is ABA-UK, the Yahoo group. There are a lot of people on there and maybe one has experience of this particular battle?

No. I can't put on here what my case rests on, although happy to PM you about it if you're interested.

But basically, our LSA is better qualified as well as CHEAPER than theirs.

The school have refused to have our LSA in (Even paid for by us), on the basis that if they allowed us to send her in then all parents would want to do it .

Yes, would be interested to PM. This point about LSAs is an interesting one - they insisted on interviewing mine but really couldn't argue that they weren't suitable (one was a qualified KS1 teacher as well as ABA-trained!)

They weren't interested in our at all. The HT told me categorically that they are not an ABA school.

Bloody ridiculous statement. I take it that they are also not a TEACHH school, a Hearing aid school, a white stick school or a wheelchair school then.

It's only a tool to enable ds to access the curriculum.