Statmenting for preschool

[MangoMonster]

Hoping DS will go to preschool next september, not sure yet if it will be special school or ms with shadow.

When do I have to find out about statmenting? We are doing ABA and it's going well so far, have no idea how much progress we'll make this year. I've been recording one session a week to record progress as evidence.

Just wondered when should I get organised (he's 2 this weekend).

Typo... Statementing

Well if it's a ss he'll need a statement, so you at least won't have to argue that he's too young for one. However you need to weigh this against getting no support at all while he's there and the repurcussions of that. (Speaking from bitter experience.) Took us 20 months to get ds the right support / satisfactory statement. 8 months on we're still dealing with the fall-out. Expected it to be bad, just not as bad as it was. Ms were actually quite good (did a split provision), but blew a whole years funding in 6 months giving him the help he needed so couldn't last any longer than 2 terms (was costing them £ by the end).

I'm completely clueless about all this. Is there any good sites or books? I want him to spend time with other kids in a more formal setting next year if possible.

it depends on how they fund their early provision where you are. Here it's possible to get funding for support through the area preschool senco, for now anyway, without a statement, dd3 had 1:1 funded from 2.6 this way, I paid for the preschool place as you would usually until she was 3 but the 1:1 funding was provided for her. If you're thinking ss then you'll probably need a statement, again depending on how your area works, most ss take from 2.6 so may be worth starting to look into it now. Parent partnership in your area should be able to tell you how it works where you are, I think it can vary quite a lot from area to area as to how they work things for children under compulsory school age.

We applied for Statutory Assessment when my DD was just over 2 and got her Statment finalised about 8 months later. She was already attending a MS nursery part-time because I had to go back to work when she was 1 and the Statement enabled her to get 1:1 support at the MS setting and also for her to access a SN setting twice a week. Think I got the Statutory Assessment proforma from IPSEA's website. At that time I'd never heard of ABA and so cannot advise on that aspect sorry. Good luck.

DS regressed at 2.3. We applied at 2.6. Refused assessment as too young / no evidence / not exhausted action plus. Appealed. LA backed down. Got EP report for SS at 2.11. LA ignored it and issued mainstream statement at 3.2. Appealed it and won ABA at Tribunal at 3.11 (had to do private ABA when SS refused). DS went to mainstream from 3.2-3.11 to prove it would fail and did PT ABA at home to prove it worked.

So took us 17 months to get right statement

Start now. You will have the evidence from ABA by the time you need it. You need the final statement by July to know what you are doing in Sept.

DS does some half days in mainstream with ABA support for peer interaction. You can look at dual placements or ABA+mainstream (difficult to get if you have not proved everything else will fail)

Thanks Agnes but where do I start?

Where I worked the LEA would do all they could to delay statements till the year of school entry, even for children who where known too the child development team. For SN placement the only ones that required a statement where those in the severe school, entry to other resources was through the ed pysch so apply for placement as soon as possible. The parents who knew the system would apply for a statement approx 14 months before reception to allow bargaining time between final and starting school. Try to find out as much as you can about your lea, phone placements you are interested in and ask about admission criteria. It may be worthwhile also viewing some nursery that would be willing to work with your tutors to gain setting evidence.

Thanks squidworth very helpful, will look into it.

Here they could (maybe still can) go to the special school from age 2 for "preschool" without a statement too.

We had an interesting time with DS - they didn't want to do a statement as they only did them for preschoolers where there was a great need and his wasn't (Physical disability, nedical needs, couldn't sit up.........). Then they refused him a place at the nursery of our choice because his needs were too great!

(we won that battle!)