Help now please:School Action Plus post 16?What support is my ASD DS entitled to?

[pannetone]

About to put in a complaint to DS's sixth form, as they are refusing to teach him second year of A level Maths, after he got a poor result in his AS exam at the end of the first year. DS was predicted throughout school year to get a B grade and was on target for this. He got an E grade. He has ASD and we think the discrepancy between his predicted and actual grades was due to poor support. Support seems to have amounted to notifying the teachers of his difficulties, but no specific intervention.

Have tried to Google, but can't find anything that says School Action Plus (which he was on) applies post 16. Do the school still have to have regard to the SEN code of practice?

Can't find info on IPSEA website - will ring them tomorrow. But need to e-mail school tonight as they are proposing to stop teaching him A2 maths tomorrow.

Does your DS have a Connexions advisor (or whatever they are called now)? I know when the child is statemented they get involved in the Transition into post 16 education but not sure about school action plus. They produce something called a S139a to replace the statement but from what I have read briefly this only applies if child is going to FE elsewhere, so afaik provision should have continued if your DS is still at same school. Sorry if I am giving you incorrect info but hopefully it will give you some avenues to explore.
Good luck

I think as bluebus said, the sencop still applies post 16 if he's still in his secondary school, nothing in the sencop suggests it stops applying before he leaves. I believe it's different if he's moved to a sixth form college. Hope you manage to sort it out.

Thanks - not managed to get through to IPSEA yet - but I think you are right that the same arrangements apply as he has stayed on into his school 6th form rather than going on to different FE education.

School not budging on their position of withdrawing A2 tuition, although we have said that we think they have not made reasonable sdjustments for his special needs and we consider this discrimatory.

You could google and contact your local Connexions office for advice, they're pretty good usually.x

are parent partnership any good where you are?

Thanks for the heads up on parent partnership- not had any dealings with my local one yet but will give them a try. Still can't get through to IPSEA. Fairly sure we no longer have our local Connexions - unsure what it has become.

Despite our mail saying we don't consider school has made reasonable adjustments for DS, got e mail back this morning saying the position is the same and they will only teach him AS Maths again. Head of sixth form actually checked up on what DS doing in Maths lesson today. Crazy thing is that DS is meant to be studying AS Maths in an A2 class. We 'chose' this option, hoping that class teachers would still teach him A2 Maths whilst we made our complaint. But Head of sixth form seems determined to ensure that DS can't take part in the A2 lesson and has to sit and do AS work instead. It's very unsatisfactory and confusing for DS with ASD. Also seems very unfair as even if our complaint is upheld DS will have missed out on teaching and that will be hard to put right.

Got to put together formal complaint to the headteacher tomorrow.

Just for info - Connexions officers are now known as 'Information, Advice and Guidance' officers in our area - but they still works out of an office with a Connexions sign outside - cos I passed it the other day!

If you cannot get through to IPSEA I would try one of the other organisations out there like ACE or SOSSEN (they're based in Surrey).