IEP Review. Please advise if target is poor.

[Oblomov]

I have an IEP Review meeting in a couple of days. 2nd review since it was set up in Sep 11. Just wanted to ask all your advice on what I think is a pretty poor target.
Ds1(8) was diagnosed AS in Spring 2011. School refuse to do anything really.
Finally get them to agree to IEP. I ask for 3 targets: social skills, handwriting, prediction skills in his reading. All classic AS traits, lets be honest. But as he is mild and no trouble to school, apparently !!, I was refused the 3 targets, and only one target was listed.
He gets no additional support or help, other than going to 'emotional literacy' once a week, where they talk about his 'problems'.
The target is :
"I will tell Mrs xxx if I am worried about anyhting at school, even if it is a little thing."

This is obviously not working.
Becuase he has regularly failed to tell me that he was being badly teased/ almost bullied. When I did find out, I told teacher each time, and reminded him to tell the emot literacy teacher what was going on. But he never tells off his own back. Its only when I find out.
Then he failed to tell me that he was getting merits every morning and afternoon, for good behaviour. I only found out because 4 children ran out, on 2 consecutive days and told me that he was being monitored and that he had been a very good/ very bad boy that day.I was livid at the time. For lack of communication from teacher. Especially as 2 weeks before , teacher, senco and Head, had told EP, that ds was doing totally fine and needed no more support than his once a week emot literacy class. So EP finalised her report saying that he needs were being met. NOT !!

Any advice welcomed.

You have written at length about your son and this awful school of his before now.

IEP - this is truly an Individual Empty Promise of a document in your son's case. Its certainly not SMART as IEPs should be and is certainly of no use of benefit whatsoever.

Did you not have any opportunity to speak to the EP?.

He is being failed by this school and this sorry state of affairs will continue as long as he is there. They are patently not bothered and or interested in helping your son reach his full potential.

I would suggest both a new school for him and to apply for a statement asap if you have not already done this.

I know you recommend statementing Attila. I have welcomed all your advice before. But you make it sound so easy.
I have contacted my Paed, CAMHS, PWP, SOSSEN, and all of them told me that I won't get statemented. Especially seeing as I now have the EP report saying that he basically is doing brilliantly. Thus pooh-poohing all my claims. And the school have always insisted that he is fine. The EP met a beautifully behaved boy with no problems, apparently. Sounded to me like a child who wasn't SEN at all, who couldn't have possibly had a diagnosis of AS. I took my mum to the EP meeting. I said I didn't agree and wasn't happy. EP report was none-the-less sent to me.
Re the schools, I have applied to all 3 locally. I am on the waiting list. I am told I am 34th, 45th, and 27th. I have been advised that there is almost zero chance.
And in the meantime, there is nothing I can do with this IEP, no?

No it is not bloody easy at all but did you actually write a letter requesting a statement to the LEA?. And if so did they turn you down?.

Did SOSSEN really tell you that you had no case or are you lumping them in with the rest of the naysayers (they would certainly tell you that you had no case for a statement because it is actually in their interests to do so. However, the LEA make the decision re statementing and not them).

The sad fact here is that your son is being failed by this current educational establishment and will continue to be failed by them as long as he remains there.

Yes Sossen said that. They said that they advised me not to apply. Definitley not yet. "Surrey are playing silly buggers" were her exact words. And we have all our cases pending appeal, or in limbo , or she said words to that effect. She advised me to wait.

Remains there? Where do you suggest I send him? Its not just me being picky. Three is NO other choice. Apparently. So you are saying that my ONLY option now is to HE?

it isn't easy to get a statement, but it is probably the only way of getting any help for your ds.

sadly, the system does not work as it should, and it will be down to yo to collect the supporting evidence, often flying in the face of reports from other professionals. this happens even when the professionals are not meeting 'well behaved children with no problems'

I have had EP reports stating all fine, when my dc was not talking at all, the school could not demonstrate a single thing that had been learned while in their care, and they could not even begin to meet needs. but it was still easier for all concerned if a 'all going fine' report was written.

are you logging all these incidents as they happen?

putting them into writing to the school, and getting a timeline of how your ds is not coping/not being supported/why the IEP is not appropriate?

the school will not put themselves out to help your ds if he is not causing trouble. if the school are not (in their opinion) needing help and support, the EP won't suggest any strategies. you are the only one who a) knows your ds well enough to know when he is struggling/what with and b) cares enough to do anything about it.

Oblomov - I was told my DS would never get a statement by lots of people - these people are TRAINED to tell you this to put you off. He got one at my first attempt & I was SO shocked.

It took a hell of a battle to get DS's needs acknowledged,and even then I was unhappy with the final statement the LEA issued, so in desperation I took it to Tribunal. I was SO shocked when I won.

A school that hasn't got a clue is always gonna tell you he's fine. My LEA EPs report and her recomendations were frankly pretty poor - whether that's due to an awareness of resource constraints or just sloppiness I don't know. What I do know is that getting an independent one in with an expertise in bright HF AS kids was the smartest thing I've ever done for my child.

You have a choice - you can either spend the rest of your child's childhood, going to pointless meetings, begging nicely for help and watching your child's life opportunities slip away between your fingers helplessly. That whole merry go round is soul destroying and eats away at you.

OR

You can think to your self , enough is enough! Draw a line in the sand and start really fighting for not just your child but your family life long term.

Write and ask for a statement - those kids whose parents don't, don't get them except in the rarest case. It sends a shot across the bows and shows people upfront that the time for waffling is done and that they have to take your child's needs seriously. For that sake ALONE it's worth doing - you need to make your point! If nothing else a statement means you can name a different school!

If he fails at secondary and you need help at that stage then you'll have formal historical documentation to back up your case. If they don't issue a statement this time round they have to do the paperwork to tell you WHY and you can use this to appeal etc.

The IEP "target"
Needs to be Specific, Measurable, Achievable & Timely

So don't sign the existing one - rewrite it!

I will tell Mrs xxx if I am worried about anyhting at school, even if it is a little thing."

Ideas from looking at the existing one:-
How able is your child to express the following:-
a) Emotion - when he's feeling happy, anxious etc
b) Cognitive understanding - how well does he follow instructions?
c) Peer Social Skills - How well does your child interact with his peers in the playground.

The above are just examples of areas he might have difficulty at school - e.g be "worried about".

How/method
How articulate is your child? Does he need to express those concerns as they happen or can it wait till a once a week session? Would visual prompts help him?.

Finally
How are they going to measure achievement? The target is utterly pointless without a method to measure it

My son had an IEP at his last school that said "X must listen in class". I refused to sign it as the LEA salt/EP report said he was on the 5th centile for receptive language. I have been where you are & get your frustration. In my case the statement application broke the deadlock as for the 1st time the school etc realised I was deadly serious about getting my kid the help he needed. These people WILL fob you till kingdom come if you let em.

Go get em Tiger ; )

What Bochead said.

Don't sign his IEP; give it a complete rewrite.

I am convinced his current school do not give a monkeys even though they are supposedly one of the best in Surrey (from previous posts). If I was given a £1 for each time I read that x y and z said that their child would never receive a statement I would be quite wealthy by now. Its all designed to put parents off from applying.

Thank you.
I knew a IEP target needed to be SMART. I told SENCO it wasn't when she first described it. But I did not know how to word it, or what words to put in its place.
I will try and come up with something better, based on Boc's post. Thank you.
I KNOW that 'if i only had £1 for every time', but I didn't feel that I could apply. Not because the stupid school said I wouldn't get one. I never believed them. But it was when SOS-SEN and an Independant EP, who I spoke to many times, advised me that I wouldn't get one. And they weren't being general, they said that because of what Surrey had been doing lately in their actions re statement requests, they advised now was not the best time to apply. And thus, I believed them.
I have spokem to SOS-SEN and PWP again, this afternoon. and I will now apply. With Immediate Effect.

I do regularly e-mail Head with all my issues. I took the advice of many, many threads ago, to get it all documented.
Honestly, I do listen, I have done many of the things you told me to, honest govenor !!

Agree with Atilla, my Dd3 was at the best school in the area. [not]

They refused to help her and refused to help us to get her diagnosed. I didn't hang around long enough to see what they would have done post diagnosis.

However if you really have no choice, go back to the SENCO and ask her to implement somekind of a visual help card/system for your Ds.

You can buy anxiety scale pencil cases which are triangle shaped, one side is green for when they are calm and happy one side is orange for when things are not going so well and one side is red for I need help now.

Or he could have a simple green and red card. All he would have to do is turn it over on his desk or show it to the teacher if he was able to and then the teacher would know his anxiety was a problem and he needed help.

Dd3 finds it imossible to ask for help and I have been looking at the idea of them using this system with her at school.

I do beleive what Attila says. I am frightened that if i ever get a statement, after manybe 2 or 2.5 years of fighting etc, that the school wouldn't honour it anyway. They insist he is fine. Barely Aspergers, if you asked them. So that does concern me, I have no chance of moving his school, yet even if I got a statement, the attitude is so inherent, that even having a stamement wouldn't help. Am still unsure how i could get over that. If I can't get him into any other local school, I am not sure that we could move counties at the moment.

Would you believe, I can not get an address, for whom/where to sent my statutory assessement request.
I have phoned pwp, sos-sen, surrey county council, their website gives no address, just advises you to ask the school. I have phoned 0300 200 100 4, then told to ring Sen Management team West on 01483 517900 or 901. Which is a number that is not recognised.
More chance of finding MI5, me thinks.

Have finally got address. Will get request sent.

not sure if all of Surrey get sent ot the same place - all my paperwork went somewhere in Reigate, I think, but not sure if educational services are centralised or not.

Thank you Marvin. I need to apply to Woking. I have the address now.
Right now, I now need to work on the IEP issue. I need to get the wording right, so that I can say to her, I refuse to sign it, its not SMART, it should be more along the lines of : xxxxx

Attila
The IEP Review Meeting was awful, truely awful.
But today I got my letter re statement, asking me to fill out the one sided page. They didn't hang about. I was a bit freaked out about how quick they were. I only posted it , recorded on friday. Pwp have agreed to review anything I write before I send it off. So have SOSSEN.

In the meantime, please could you offer me some help on some of the imminent issues.

You keep saying about moving him to another school. But did you see my post where I phoned up the 3 local schools, (one highly recomended by my Asperegers support group) and they all said I didn't stand a chance. So what do I do? What are you actually suggesting i do here?
Even if I get a statement, which is unlikely, because my school could support him under SA+ , if they CHOSE to, this school won't honour it. Because they are obstructive.

RE IEPs, I said about it not beign smart, again,and made a suggestion, based on boc. SENCO said it was SMART and had signed off, and agreedas SMART by The EP, when she assessed ds. I didn't know what to say.
I then said he was failing, in his IEP and it wasn't working.
I told them that i was unhappy with Outreach and EP report. They said they were surprised. I said they shouldn't be, becasue I had told them, at both meeting that I was unhappy, and Pwp had recorded that in the minutes.

Senco said she would write to Ep to request comments on a number of things.
I have asked Head for copy of the minutes form this meeting, now.

They said that there was nothing wrong with his prediction skiils and that the Ep has said thta. I said I didn't think her report had said that. Plus, I said if EP had said thta, it would be very ofdd, becasudse as an Ep, unqialified to diagnose, she would be totally contradicting the 3 people Paed, Clicla Pyschologist and CAMHS( who diagnosed with As), who all said he had prediction skills. I have subsequently checked EP report,and it does not say he had no prediction skill problems. But it does not specifically raise it as an issue. Although I commented on it MANY timew. That is one of the issues, that i will query when I write To EP.

I told them I will write to EP and Outreach, questioning their assessments of ds.

She refused to engagae OT or SALT. She said that she had received the OT pack, but becasue she did nto know where the referal came form ( i tol her i had asked my GP to do it), she had not actioned it. I have rung OT people today.

She said I wouldn't get a SALT. because his needs weren't good enough. I told her I had ticked it on the referal form and twice asked about it, since. I demanded that this was followed up.

They refused to do anything about his handwriting. although teacher stated it was a problem. saying that if they did, it would be at lunchtime. But he so enjoyed going outside. and it helped his socail skilsl. to which I had to agree. and I feel so stupid, because i am nto quick witted, I could not, at the time, think of a reasonable argument to persuade them, how or when they could address his handwritng. Any suggestions?

I told them that the the emotional lieteracy was not working.and basically, kind of told them that women doing it, although nice, and ds like her, was unqualified and not trained. But that a more knowledgeable person needed to be bought in. They refused.

they refused, again, to provide anyone to accompany me to the Early Bird course, which starts in April.

I queried what they were going to do about the fact that ds was failing in his IEP, because he had not told them when he was upset. No comment.

And all in all it was pretty terrible. Then the Head in. who told me I was "impossibe, impossible to please and that nothing they did was ever going to be good enough."

I had to leave. I had been in there for 1.5 hours whilst ds1(8) and ds2(3) had been running around. It was just all a bit too much.

I told them yesterday that I have applied for a statement.
I asked for a copy of the minutes. And will write a letter, with my recollections, quoting them verbatim, as much as I can.

All comments, however harsh, welcome.

Hi oblomov - as usual your ds's school sound awful. I reckon they've had their nose put out of joint by the dx - didn't they try to convince CAMHS that he was absolutely fine?
Did the EP go through the report with you? You could ask for a meeting with EP as there is confusion about what the report is actually saying about ds's needs. Tell EP that school seem to have a different interpretation.

oh, that does sound awful, oblomov. sorry you had to go through that, and sorry oyu have to deal with such obstructive people.

I understand your issue wrt changing schools. w faced the same. the solution for us was to move lock stock and barrel - we rented a house in the next county, and completed statementing there. it was drastic, but it ultimatly got us what we needed - a decent statement for dd1. it is ridiculous that anyone has to go to those lengths, but if we had stayed, what we were being offered was 7 hours a week support, non-specified (dd1 is severely ASD. she is in a SN school, with a fulltime 1:1 assistant. including break and lunchtimes) the disconnect between what she needed and what we were being offered was so huge that we knew we couldn't get the right help for her if we stayed.

your plan is good, but you do not need to wait for the minutes. you can always circulate your own notes from the meeting.

do not be put off by the school saying you are difficult, and nothing will please you - the easy answer is: what will please you is your ds getting the support he needs (rather than the support they are currently offering). there is nothing wrong with you wanting your ds to be able to access education, and have the same chances as other, NT, children. he is legally entitled to this.

in your notes, I owuld set out what SMART means - clearly the SENCO has no idea . there is no harm in setting it out, and asking for clarification on how exactly his IEP is SMART, since you cannot see that it is so.

is PwP some kind of PArent PArtnership? be aware they are not always impartial, and often work closely with the LA.

Part of the statement process allows you to name the school you feel would best meet your child's needs. I think it is section 4 of the statement. As soon as you get the opportunity write down the name of a school you'd prefer (pan figures and class sizes don't matter for statement apps).

This school have clearly shown they are just incapable of meeting your child's needs, yet again. I'm sorry they have upset you but ever so pleased you are being assertive. The HT's comment about you being impossible to please was spiteful, bitchy and unwarranted in the extreme. At the end of the day they are only being asked to do the job they are paid for.

After all if you went to the supermarket, saw the shelves were empty, the stocks on pallettes by the main entrance and a crowd of staff smoking and chatting out back, you'd think less than complimentary things about their work ethic wouldn't you? The school is no different, no matter how they try to intimidate you.

oblomov So sorry things are still so shit for you and ds.

Re: IEP

Dont sign it.

They cant say they have one in place if you havent signed it and they must have one in place if your son has had an EP report he MUST be on school action + and therefore on the sen register...them telling you he has no sen and then him being on the sen register ridiculous!

Thanks. I have calmed down a bit now. Thanks for the replies Corny, Frog, Boc & Bec.
I will start writing my letter to the school tomorrow. Just get everything documented.

Good idea ob

EVERYTHING in writing from now on!

Have you tried getting assistance from ipsea.org.uk? A counsellor I spoke to said they were very helpful in getting support for her special needs children

Becaroo, you are right. I ahve been practiciding thta for sometime now, becaue I was advised to do it by another kind poster on MN. I detail every conversation. I send an e-mail about issue. then no one can dispute it.

Vor, I ahve not. I ahev only ever gone onto their website to see packs of suggestions re statement appeals etc. You think I should phone IPSEA to get advice. what kind of advice/support do you think they could give me?

sorry, not been on for a few days. Yes, it looks like they're there to talk you. They will help you work out your personal strategy to get the help you need.