The Annual Review from Hell

[AgnesDiPesto]

DS won ABA at Tribunal a year ago. Everyone agreed at AR today he has met all his targets, made great progress, the programme meets every single need. The LA EP was fantastic saying the LA could not even begin to offer anything equivalent and if he were us he would be doing ABA too. But they are going to do a statutory reassessment anyway.

4 hour meeting. ABA say they had never experienced anything like it and it is a total violation of the COP

They are not even offering him SS (they don't have any for HFA and accept he is now too bright for MLD). They are offering the same sh*t provision from outreach which we already proved produced zero progress. How many times are we supposed to have to prove it didn't work.

They are going to bring in a different LA EP and autism teacher until they get the report they want as the current EP is not playing ball.

Feel totally gutted. Because it means we will have to let him fail again. And he's done so well this year, I just can't bear to lose my little boy again.

And I'm under threat of redundancy, and life is stressful enough. The fu**ers will just keep going until they break me.

Sorry for the rant, just needed to sound off to people who understand.

Am going on a demo against cuts in services for disabled people in Leeds tomorrow then will treat myself to something nice at the shops I think! I will bounce back but it is awful they can drag you can to tribunal over and over again over the same argument

I think that is why the solicitor recommended a specialist placement. Once they are there, they're there. Provision in mainstream can be cut every year.

It's just dreadful isn't it? Words fail me.

These people, who whinge about cuts to the 'services' they are providing and moan about mouthy parents taking money from others - will they be there at the demo tomorrow defending cuts to services? No, I bet they bloody won't be. They don't give a shit and cuts are a convenient excuse - a 'get out of jail free' card for not giving a shit.

These people are disgusting liars but the thing that makes my blood boil more than anything is that they are self-righteous victims about it too. Oh, we struggle in a climate of cuts (when were you ever any good??).

While I was fighting for DS's provision last year, his ridiculous TA (using the words of the LA) used every excuse in the book not to put his provision in place - 'he doesn't like to be different', 'it's very hard for S&LT what with all the cuts', 'he works better with a friend helping him' blah, blah, bloody blah (although the latter might have been true as he hated her and she was crap!).

As for special schools, I am not sure how safe they are Star. I have heard horror stories too about placements being challenged now 'money is soooo tight'.

What is the answer? I don't know. It is different for each one of us. But Agnes, I know you are brave and resourceful and you will think of a constructive way to out of this.

I should say justa that special school is a fight in itself for some LAs who simply will not countenance them any more than they will ABA.

Special school provision in my county is dire and so kids go out of county so the county line is that everyone can manage in mainstream and you will have to fight them, and the school, tooth and nail to get an out of county placement.

Yes AT It will not be an easy battle, but the logic is that once won it is 'more' secure if not completely.

I'm not talking about special school, I'm talking about independent special school. Solicitor seems to think we should be going for that WITH ABA too

Says they've won it before.

It's not what we want though yet.

So sorry agnes what a fucker of a situation.

Was going to ask what the school's view was, thinking they at least might be of some help to you, then saw your post about that

There's something so wrong about a system that punishes a child and his family for making progress. Wtf, do they actually want him to fail??

FWIW if it was me I think I would continue aba during the process of appeal/tribunal. Maybe get advice on this, but could you use past experience (of him stalling) to use as evidence of what happens when you remove it? Not sure if this would count as admissable evidence but worth finding out?

The LA EP thing is frigging laughable. Could you use him as one of your witnesses?

What is the a difference between a state special school and an independent special school placement in terms of security of placement? I am genuinely interested as I suspect it is a battle we will face at some point.

However, we were told we would have to gather evidence of failure because as long as you are in a school where everyone says what they says works, and everyone lies, it will be very hard to prove otherwise.

Tribunal panels seem to bend over backwards to accommodate the views of schools and ready to dismiss the views of 'experts' hired for Tribunal. That is just local experience.

If the school is against you, it will be an extremely difficult battle but I think Star is right, it is a battle that you are best engaging legal help with at the start. My experience was that once you get too close to their weak points, they will do anything to destroy you - vexatious ban etc.

I was quoted 10k as well although I have to say we have spent about 3k already achieving bollox all - fighting said vexatious ban etc.

That is a lesson learnt.

I suppose if independent school placements are more secure than you are looking at the mother of all battles as the LA will be committing itself to those fees for the foreseeable future. Perhaps you could look into the cost of such a placement compared to the cost of your current provision?

Thanks Justa. I can see what you mean.

Of course, the disgraceful thing is you too often have to go through these things in stages to get anywhere - i.e. let a child be failed in m/s and then prove that alternative provision/placement will be best.

My experience is that the school you are at is absolutely key in all this. If they are on side, it is very hard for the LA to demonstrate provision is effective when it isn't. The trouble is finding a school brave enough to say they can't manage or can't provide effective provision when the LA tells them they can.

It is ridiculous in Agnes' case. How is a school going to demonstrate they can match the provision her son is getting and demonstrate acceptable progress under that inferior provision?

Only one way - they will lie.

Thanks guys
In my view we won indep special school equivalent ie £50k of ABA. Now they are going to give me some 1:1 hours in m/s. We're not even arguing against their best provision they are offering him their minimal, cheapest provision.

We will do ABA as long as we can and see tactically what is best. We would only have to take ABA out for a very short time for it to go wrong but the difficulty then is getting the evidence it is going wrong if school cover up /lie etc Know AT and so many others had that experience

I am going to see the Head as I think this teacher has her own views about how she thinks DS should be taught, but not convinced yet its a whole school agenda. Don't think they have figured out without ABA they will be the ones having to get him to eat new foods and teaching him to wipe his bum

you can get an independent SN school placement if there is no availablity of state places too. this is how we first won one for dd1.

LA EP agreed readily that she needed an ASD specific SN schol (when he thought there wa sa place available). he wrote a report saying that.

then, the penny dropped that dd1 was actually out of year in the ASD pre school (shoulda checked that paperwork), and there was no place available for her (we managed, through sheer luck, to miss placement panel too).

so, we got agreement form LA that ASd school was the only option for her, and they ahd to agree to out of county/independent school.

then our argument was simultaneously that:

ABA was the only way she learned (had evidence)
independent ABA school was not much more expensive than the TEACCH based independent school the LA was seeking

it has certainly been the case for us that once won, independent SN school funding is retained - even when dd1's school closed in the summer, her funding just transferred over, with no argument. we were timings worked in our favour again, of course, as due to the minimal notice, the LA had little time for manoeuvre. but there seemed to be little interest form the LA in reassessing, or even finding out if there was another place available for her. it took 3 weeks for the statement to be re-written, and the funds paid to the new school.

from our experinece, I would say that independent SN school is the way to go (even the TEACCH based ones we saw - they seemed very good at retaining pupils once they were placed there)

The problem we have silver is ds needs an independent non-special school WITH ABA! Academically (most skills that aren't affected by ASD) he is almost 2 years ahead. Socialisation skills are progressing at a crazy rate now that he has ABA but they weren't failing at his nursery, they were simply staying the same which the LA feel is a sign of remarkable success.

Grrrrr

Do remember you can be put through just as much grief to get standard mainstream/TEACH/1:1 with a hfa child so it is worth going for the approach you honestly believe to be appropriate. Not gold standard but adequate iykwim.

I suppose my point is some leas cut provision like this for the bog standard approach's so you may as well push for aba. I spoke to one lady in rl over the summer who had gone through this trick so often she'd been to 5 tribunals and her lad was ony 14! TEACH + 1:1 + outreach in mainstream was all she wanted. Some lea's are just nasty for the sake of it. What was funny is that after the 2nd she didn't bother with legal advice as she knows the "drill". She'd won all 5 tribunals.

I agree bochead - some LAs are just vitriolic. Ours, for example, seems only to part anywhere near readily with the cash if a child is disrupting education for others - behaviourally etc. Then you will get offered their bog standard crap provision.

For any other child, whose needs may be significant, but who can get along being ignored in the corner (your HFA or AS) the fight is just to get access to that bogstandard crap provision.

I think this is why, when they offer you their bogstandard crap provision, they are almost aghast that you should call it for what it is and ask questions about it. With a son with AS, they think I am lucky to get anything.

I have to say I have just located a m/s school, out of county, for DS and it appears to have a completely different attitude to supporting needs. New head, very small school etc. I wonder if the school being out of county makes any difference to their willingness to stick up for what a child needs? They're not controlled by the county offering the provision.

Just a thought.