What does this email mean? Panel for SN school

[hanaka88]

Hi Hanka88
We will be writing to you to confirm however I thought it courteous to let you know the outcome from EBSD Operations Panel, which is to refer DS to special school for consideration of a place.

I hope this meets with your satisfaction.

Special school is one of my schools therefore I will continue to be the named principal officer for DS.

Kind regards
X

Obviously changed the school name to special school and deleted names

When you request a special school a panel meets to consider that application. Special schools are expensive and places in short supply.

Those involved consider whether the school represents the most appropriate place for your child in order to ensure that the few places available to the children who most need them.
They are attended by representatives of the schools, Lea etc.

So good news, assuming you wanted the place?

ime experience this means that panel have decided to send your ds' paperwork to the school for assessment with a view to getting him a place there. In our case they also sent paperwork to other schools but they thankfully said they couldn't meet dd3s needs so we got the school we wanted.

Oh, maybe it's changed then.
When ds2s panel met it included the heads and representatives of the schools who had seen our paperwork in advance, and made the decision on the day.

Which was great.

with my ds LEA said they would fund the place initially(LEA panel) and then they applied to the SS for a place.

It means that your DS's statementing pack will be sent to the Special School, for the Head to decide if they can meet your DS's needs, and if the placement is appropriate.

In many cases this is a 'rubber stamp' because the Officers know the profile of the schools. However, there are instances where a Head will say 'would be appropriate but we don't have a peer group' or 'mmm...don't have space for another child who needs bulky equipment', etc.

Once the Head replies, it gets either confirmed as the placement or they reconsider where to place.

For DD1, by the time we had been sent the proposed statement, worked out that they were implying special school (all professional reports had said 'ms with support because they didn't think she'd get a place at SS) and arranged a visit to the school, the LA had sent the paperwork to the Head of the SS, and the Head told us that she had already returned it saying 'appropriately placed'.

If we had visited the SS and decided it wasn't right for DD, we would have had to tell the LA, then they would have adjusted the proposed statement to reflect a mainstream provision and approach the MS school of our choice.

oh it's all good fun here pag, first panel to agree to ss then back to panel to agree a specific place Or maybe that was just because we wanted an expensive out of borough school

Thanks everyone. I know the school does have places as I visited it and wanted that school and others have already said they dont think they can meat DSs needs. How long do you think the wait will be now then?

It'll probably be 7-10 days for them to write to the school, the school to reply and then the LA to write back to you.

This time last year ds1's case went before panel to decide whether they would agree to the SS I had requested. The first I heard of the outcome was exactly the same as what was said to you...I asked our advocate to interpret and she said it meant they had agreed to send ds1 there as they were not sending his papers to any other school. They just had to go through the formality of approaching the school, and as someone else said, getting it rubber stamped before the statement can be changed.

Thank you Mary that's brill