Another question! SEN Assessment submission form - WHAT do I submit?!

[DogsBeastFiend]

Sorry to bore you all and I really do appreciate that this is so trivial in comparison to others' concerns on here but I'd be very grateful for some advice because I am completely in the dark about all things relating to assessment and process and for DDs sake I can't afford to screw this up.

I've got the LA's "Parental Submission Form" in front of me which came together with an information pack and another form for DD to fill in and express her thoughts.

The first part of the Parental Submission Form asks me to add onto it the details of anyone who I "think will have useful information about my child". I've listed our GP (though they'll get GP notes/reports anyway, I'm reckoning that a letter from him would go amiss) and 2 staff members from DDs previous school, one of whom was in charge of pastoral support and has an MA in psychology. The school is one for severely bullied DC and the support lady extemely involved with DD, as she is with all the small number of pupils at the school, so she knows DD very well indeed.

But... who else? Does any submission under this category have to come from someone with a professional interest in DD or are the observations of, say, a family friend, an ordinary bod like myself, relevant?

The next part reads, "I would like to provide the Statutory Assessment Team with the following information:", and I'm sitting here thinking ermmmm.... ! I've explained why I've applied for assessment in my original letter, I've added to that upon a form which the Consultant Paediatrician sent me in order that she might begin a report on DD... so what else do I need to tell the SEN team? Any suggestions please?

And one last thing! The letter from the LA says that the information gathered will be used to decide whether assessment is necessary but the letter from the Paediatrician, which arrived a couple of days later, says that "We have recently been informed by the Education Department that your child is having an assessment of Special Educational Needs", that they will also be asking my GP for info and that once the report is prepared they'll send it to the LA and to me, where at that stage I can have their submitted advice altered before it becomes part of any statement of SEN.

WTF?! My 'ead aches!

Thanks for bearing with me and getting this far. :)

I don't know but thought I would bump.

Dogs Beast Fiend.

Some of the things you have put in your post make me think we have PM'd in the past, when you had a different name.

If so I can send you my statement info etc it might give you somewhere to start.

Minx

DBF, I wrote a 9 page submission under the following headings.

Early days ( Birth, early milestones etc.)

  <strong>What is your child like now?</strong>

General Health (Health issues)
Physical Skills (Gross motor, fine motor etc)
Self-help (Toiletting in our case! but dressing feeding etc)
Communication (Lots to put in here!)
Playing and learning at home (He didn't play appropriate;y or imaginatively)
Activities outside (Cubs? swimming? is he included, can you access?)
Relationships (Family and friends, interaction)
Behaviour at home (Anxiety, rigidity, violence?)
At school / Nursery (Your opinion on how he is coping)

  <strong>Your General Views</strong>

His special educational needs (What you think they are)
How his needs can be best provided for (What you want in his statement, 1 to 1, How many hours, lunchtimes, educational rather than supervisory, social skills groups etc etc )

  <strong>In conclusion</strong> (Bullet point main bits in case it's all they read!)

I hope that's useful. Don't be afraid to repeat yourself about the main issues and your views on what you want the statement to provide.

I also added photos so they saw him as a child not a statistic. Don't know if it worked...

We are just doing ds1's submission and our LEA has a really long form for you to complete, that pretty much covers all the things Ellen lists and asks you to put some information into each section.

As Ellen advises, I have repeated myself over and over throughout the form to get my biggest concerns across and make sure they're not missed.

In addition, our inclusion team leader told me to attach copies of any/all professionals reports and make sure they are properly indexed in my submission for ease of reference, with really important parts highlighted if possible. Now I know the form will be photocopied so that each member of the panel has a copy to read, in which case highlighting isn't going to work, so I'm literally drawing boxes around and numbering the sections of the reports I want them to read the most and referring to them on the form.

A friend of mine is the secretary to the panels at the LEA and both she and our inclusion teacher told me that the panel will be given a mountain of submissions to get through in any one session and if they can't find information easily and quickly, the submission will either be refused or returned for you to supply further information (even if the information is there, but they haven't read it).

Its making my head ache as well.

Good luck!

Minx, we have indeed. It's Vall here, I namechanged cos I didn't want to be identified by a non MNer whom I suspected was reading certain threads. Thank you for the offer, that's really kind. :)

Oddly, and contrary to the experiences of the last 2 posters, when I finally got through to the LA's SEN Team today the case officer told me to be careful not to submit too much, to avoid repetition and that the decision is mostly based on the school's response to their request for info.

Apparently the school have already submitted this. Apart from sending the above-mentioned form and obtaining supporting material from DDs last school (Red Balloon, Minx), I have to get DD to fill in a form about what issues she thinks are a problem and how she feels about them.

I'm mighty tempted to make a request to the school for a copy of their submission... but that might be pushing my luck, yes? :)

is school supportive of your application? and of what you want as an outcome? can you be sure they are supportive?

For my parental submission, I ignored the form, and typed it all out on a Word document instead. I took each question of the form, put it on a new page, and broke it down into subsections using thier own sub-questions.

my submission was about 30 pages, iirc. I would offer to send it to you, but I think we are poles apart on children's ages, needs etc, so it might not be much use (if you would like it anyway, then do say).

I owuld make sure (especially in the case of a high-functioning child) that every little concern was noted - this is your chance to really make your case. make sure nothing is glossed over, swept under the carpet or filed under 'resolved' - it may be for now, but who knows what might change? this is the time to note all issues and needs - you get this one chance to do that.

I think it varies a lot from LA to LA. I think ours is quite unusual in asking you to fill in a massive form at the point of request. Its certainly something neither our new SENCO or the leader of the Inclusion Team came across in their previous LA (they both came from the same are) and both have years of experience of doing SA requests. They both said the form we have to do as part of the request is more like the parental submissions that usually come after the initial request in their previous LA.

Silverfrog, that's what I've done - basically retyped the form in Word and then put in as much detail as I thought was necessary in each section without letting it get too wordy.

(Ok, ok you can all stop laughing now - I know I don't do short and/or concise, but honestly I have tried my best with this damned form! )

Hmm, our 'parental advice' came in two parts. The first one was very brief and was when we were requesting Statutory Assessment. The 9 page one was the second part which was our submission for the assessment itself. Not sure which stage you are at?