Experienced tribunalists - Starlight needs help!

[StarlightMcKenzie]

This is my situation.

DS did well on ABA.
We lost ABA at tribunal. After 6 months independent EP ruled DS had stood still.
We are 6 months on. DS has been doing some unofficial ABA since July when I pulled him out of nursery 2 weeks early. He has made good progress but the programme is a bit messy.
We started formal programme beginning of Sept. DS is making excellent progress, especially in social skills which is the key reason we lost last time (he hadn't).
Our tribunal is mid Jan. EP booked for early Dec after almost a term of good ABA to hopefully be able to vouch for programme.

Now this is the problem.
DS was supposed to start the school that is named on his statement in Sept. We wrote to the school and LA telling them we are deferring until Jan due to his autumn birthday. This wasn't imposible for them to fight but the didn't as the law is complex re statement vs legal attendance.

So he is due to start in Jan. But the tribunal is in mid Jan, add 2 weeks for decision, add 6 weeks for statement implementation and you're closer to Easter. In the meantime they will 'probably' insist that he starts in Jan (the school will as they have made it clear they don't want him, so anything to put us off will appeal). But, assuming we win, he'll have inappropriate support for a whole term, whilst in the meantime I'll still have to pay the tutors to retain them, and I really DO need the ones I have employed, as it is their CV's and costs that will convince the tribunal.

Now I have the option of bringing the tribunal forward. However, due to a holiday that would mean the EP could see ds at the latest 4th October instead of December, and I believe that 2 months is quite a substantial amount of time in my ds' ability to progress. If he spots progress in Oct, it will be hard to seperate it from the input he had from hs last placement. The EP would be unable to do a update visit closer to the tribunal due to his 6 week holiday.

What would you do? And thanks for reading all this if you have.

Am I right in summarising your ds's education so far as :progress with aba, stalling in nursery without it, progressing again now with more aba?

And now looking at a peri-tribunal therapy pause cos of school start date wing a bit earlier than ideal.

If your long term plan is to convince the school, the fastest way to do this is let them see how rubbish his progress is initially and how it then picks up on winning the aba at tribunal. This might also come in handy for the subsequent tribunal. A really sneaky option would be to offer your retained-on-full-pay aba tutors as general volunteers, under the direction of the teachers, to subliminally advertise their lack of fangs and/or two heads but without the school having to 'agree to aba' or assist DS till after tribunal.

Yes, I've had and continue to receive appalling treatment, but I don't think I've had the worst experience on here.

It's a blimmin headache trying to sort out all this tribunal stuff though. The thing that frustrates me the most is that whilst I have no trust now in the tribunal process in terms of being fair, it is the incompetence that I can't deal with. I phoned Darlington (SENDIST) and they didn't know the answer to this question.

Perhaps then it was a bit unfair to put it to you lot, but you are all SO much more intelligent and knowledgable.

And if school won't let your tutors in as volunteers they'll still be into the playground as carers for pickups and drop-offs. And given that the schoolyard will prob. be the biggest challenge in big school, that's not a waste of your resources.

Maria,

Thank you. That is an idea.

The school won't allow in the tutors even for free though. They have already made that quite clear. But perhaps if we win the school will allow them in as volunteers whilst the LA take their luxurious 6 weeks to put it in place (am expecting longer actually because there are no penalties for this).

However, schools don't generally see my ds' difficulties. He is so complient and passive and their expectations are so low that they see him sitting on the carpet with the other children and are happy with that. It doesn't matter that he isn't attending to the teacher or know even that he is supposed to.

But I guess if we win the school-based data will show where he was and where he has got to. And I truly do want to try to work with the school, so I'd like them to agree to the targets, and if they don't then there is a discussion to be had which should educate.

Actually, Maria, you've made me feel a lot calmer about it.

Retained-on-full pay tutors ought to be flexible where they can be I would have thought (and they are lovely but with bills). They might even quite like a couple of weeks off, or to rearrange their times to fit weekends as a temporary arrangement, and ds will be alright in the school with shoddy support. He can cope, he just doesn't learn, which will mean in future years he won't be able to cope iyswim.

Hmm, perhaps it's not the disaster I thought.

And the later they get the statement sorted, the longer before the Annual review, which should hopefully be mid-way through year 1 and across 2 teachers which again, is a good thing.

Thanks.

I haven't been to tribunal (yet) but it looks like the ed psych report is the ace in your hand in protecting the statement and hopefully getting what he needs, and my personal view is you'd be nuts to potentially jeopardise it for the sake of one term.

And I meant as volunteers sorting out the lost property, helping in the library, conerong for poorly lunch ladies, assisting the year six kids with their sats practice.... Not doing anything that might require their skills or expertise

Oh I see. Yes. That might sound unthreatening.

That way they get to settle into the culture too, and get their CRB forms in etc etc.

Blimey Maria You're good at this imagination malarky aren't you.

btw, had a brilliant sentence from ds today. I was telling him off for putting his hands in his dinner (am not good at this. Should have a proper strategy for addressing it but so far I ingore it largely until now and then I get pissed off and tell him off) and he got all teary and cross and said 'I want to PINCH you because I am annoyed because you tell me off'.

Okay, not the nicest thing to hear but it really WAS. He was ANNOYED and he TOLD me this AND he linked in a reason. I wanted to hug him, but understandably, it wasn't the right moment.

The tutors have only been working on emotions for 3 days.

Okay. All my panic calls to the charities have been responded to.

I CAN delay ds' start date until the outcome of the tribunal, given that the school is named in the statement and part 4 is not part of the appeal. The school, therefore, are required to take ds when it is sorted.

There is a small risk that the tribunal will rule against the school, but they have to come up with a better idea. This is extremely unlikely but as back up I need to have an independent in mind to squash any attempts.

there's an ABA school (treehouse) in North London which would probably just about be commutable but likely to be expensive in transport costs... or specialist prep school

Maria,

Thank you. I'd never heard of that school. It looks interesting and just 'might' come into the reasonable public expenditure bracket for tribunal as it isn't an awful lot more than their provision.

Wherever did you find it?

Far too much time with mr google trying to come up with a plan B. Found treehouse cos they advertise parent courses. Plus contacts in lots of different areas of the country and most of my longterm friends seem to have quirky kids

Treehouse isn't appropriate for ds. At least it might be but we'd never be able to win that one as he really can manage in M/S WITH the right support and whilst 'some' Special schools are cheaper than MS with support, Treehouse isn't.

But that other one might be possible. I'm going to try and go to one of their open days.

The trouble is though, that I have to be careful. I can't say the only thing that will meet ds' needs is ABA, and then say that I'd be happy with this private school that doesn't iyswim.

Now I know that what I mean is an evidence-based outcome-led autism specific curriculum, and both ABA and possibly this school offer that, and the LA definately do not, but then the whole argument become wishy-washy with the LA saying they do, and that their evidence is professional opinion, and the autism bit is that someone somewhere once went on an autism half day trining course.

Starlight, do you know about Treetops?

it's a state special school (don't know what range of ability, sorry) in Essex, which uses ABA.

Yes thank you Silver. I have looked at it but it is quite far from us now that we have moved . Also, I am still hoping that with ABA used to teach ds how to learn from the mainstream environment, he might make a full transition one day.

I was told, a year ago, that this was possible. I have been told now that it still is, but less so because of the year he has missed of intervention, - but I am determined.

Being devil's advocate here: surely good, intensive targeted intervention in a special school now would be one way to bring his skills on enough for him to manage well in mainstream later. Most special schools have children who are developing well socially but are delayed in other areas, and the whole-school individualisation and integration mindset means they don't just let the asd kids fail socially.

I'm not against special schools. DH and I went to look around a few state ones in the early dx days, mainly to address our fears and ignorance, and thankfully it worked. But we have not found a special school that we have been convinced suits ds.

We looked around a zillion MS schools too, and came up with this one mainly due to the appropriateness of the peers.

For example, we were shown around by two Yr 5 children the first time and two Yr 6 children the second, who on the understanding that they were exempt from lessons whilst they were performing this task went rather overboard with the chatting.

This is what the first two told us:

'Okay, so this is the Yr3 library, and that there is the trampoline. It is for X because he has autism and can find things hard so he gets frustrated and comes out here for a little while to jump and then he is alright again and can go back in the classroom. He's nice, but he doesn't usually want to play with other children'

and this is what the second two told us:

'This is the art space for Yr1 and this is the quiet place for Y. He finds it a bit overwhelming in the playground sometimes so he can come in here for some quiet time. He usually comes in here for a bit straight after dinner and no children are allowed to go near it so that he can have some peace'

They also said lots of other funny things like: This is the IT display. It's been there for about 3 years.

But we got to go into all the classrooms, and were experienced at looking around MS schools by the time we got to this one and it just felt like home.

And also ds is already over a year ahead in numeracy and literacy, and I understand that most state special schools work on P levels.

Oh, and the last reason is that there is no way on earth that the LA would fund ds at a special school. He is too complient and too academic.

We don't want much. We just want them to employ our 800 times more qualified tutors instead of theirs. Direct exchange. No extra cost.

Additionally, we would like our consultant to replace the autism advisory teacher, again - direct exchange at no extra cost.

No experience of tribunal from parent side but do from lea side. You have a baseline from ed psych but do you have from anyone else. Tribunal will want proof that the school could not have met your DS needs. The advisory teacher will be employed by LEA so even if your LEA makes schools pay hours out of own budget this is just passing funding from budget to budget but the cost is already accounted for so no real extra money from public funds. I would not worry too much regarding part 4 bit your main concern is an excellent report regarding baseline from ed psych.

"I am still hoping that with ABA used to teach ds how to learn from the mainstream environment, he might make a full transition one day"

Star I am still hoping this myself - and your DS is so much further on than mine at the same age I really can't see why this is not very very possible for your DS. I would think he can do mainstream and either home ABA or ABA in 1:1 pullouts at school.

Even DS3 who has language around age 2-3 and very disordered, very limited social interest, huge stim, nowhere near to being able to hold a conversation or ask questions like your DS can access m/s with the right support. This year he has been taught to sit on the carpet, pay attention to the teacher / story; put his hand up when the teacher answers a question (flashcards are his speciality); he is learning to take instructions in small groups; he is doing structured work with peers and now spontaneously requesting from peers; he is able to do some activities eg large group (bizarrely!) singing with the tutor outside the room because he loves singing so much, line up and tidy up from a large group instruction - 10 months ago I would collect him from nursery and he would be on one side of the room and the other children all be on the carpet singing songs he knew off by heart but they couldn't figure out how to get him to join in and just let him go and line stuff up in the corner. The ABA tutor knocked that on the head on day 1.

And after 1 week of proper ABA support in nursery the nursery just said its nothing like what we were told and had no problem with it at all

DS is also ahead on the phonics and reading even though his language is miles behind. ABA + mainstream is very possible its just few LAs or schools have any experience of it. I don't know why it makes absolute sense to me for DS to go and practice in the environment they want him to eventually be in.

I am going to answer your email too - just been a super busy week.

you say your relative is v ill in X country and you have to take ds with you and miss X weeks of school the week he is to start then turn off all phones and make sure you are not seen...even go away for break...you'll need a break!

The decision will not affect if ds coping/not coping in school but you don't want that to happen and undo all the progess ds has made on ABA.

That's right Serious. In actual fact, he'll be in school for 2 weeks before the tribunal and I can say for a fact that the school will think he has few problems. He flies under the radar and is very careful in new situations and settings, taking it all out on me when he leaves, but after around 2 weeks his behaviour will start to deteriorate and be disruptive as he becomes more comfortable in the setting. So it is a bit dangerous for the tribunal case to have him there with everyone suddenly descending on him to gather evidence. They'll probably get it. He can even control his stimming in new situations.