Moving to UK - boys with LDs + a year behind

[MovingbacktoEngland]

Hi, I need some help please from anyone who has any good ideas for me. I have two boys with learning difficulties - a 9 year old with ADHD and dyspraxia, and a 5 year old with speech and language delays and balance issues. Both were adopted from overseas orphanages aged 2, when they had severe delays due to social deprivation. We've been living in Belgium and they've been at local schools, where they have both repeated a year to help them cope with their developmental delays (so they are now a year below where they would be in the UK), which has been appropriate for them.
However, my youngest isn't coping well enough with two languages so we've been advised to put him in an English-only environment (as my husband and I are both English speaking) to simplify things for him, as he has some speech problems, but the picture is being clouded by having to cope with two. There aren't any English schools within an hour and a half radius, so my husband's work has said he can work out of their Kent office 3 days a week if we want to move there.
We were delighted at first but I simply cannot find any schools that offer good support for my boys, and I am being told by Kent Council that it is impossible for the boys to continue being a year behind, despite their complicated background. I cannot contemplate what skipping a year of schoolwork would mean particularly for my older boy, who has worked like a trooper to keep up this far. He has had great support in Belgium so far too. It would simply be a recipe for disaster as he is very emotional and compares himself a lot to his peers. Skipping a whole school year and only having 2 years left at primary school would be setting him up to fail.
We don't have the money for private school fees, and I'm at a loss to know what to do. Any thoughts from anyone please?
Thanks for anything at all!
Louise

I should also add that both boys are statemented here in Belgium so we had to fight and go through a year of rigorous testing here before they got this. We also have a heap of medical reports. Despite all this, we are told Kent won't accept the statement, and we'd have to apply from the beginning...Seems crazy to me when we have all the work already done for them, and Belgium is well set up for this sort of thing.

I think you need to look at ALL your options and make sure that even though you are unhappy with the provision ATM for your youngest, you are not jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.

From what I have read, Kent are not an especially nice LA to deal with. I woukd contact support groups for the area, especially ones that are independent of LA influence and ask to be put in contact with parents who have children with similar needs.

Can you tell us what, in the way of support each of your children receive and someone might be able to help you with the navigation towards that provision here or at least give you an idea of whether that provision even exists.

I don't know how Belgium schools work, but UK schools don't have a concept of Y2 curriculum.

Because we don't keep kids back or move them on, there will always be a huge spread of ability in each class. At least 2 years behind and 2 years in front in almost all classes.

So what's done in the UK is 'differentiated' teaching. ie the top table will be given different work from the middle table from the bottom table.

Each kid will be at a different level, and the teacher is meant to teach all kids at the level they are currently at.

By and large it works very well. So the fact your child is one year behind is nothing at all to worry about. The teacher will give him appropriate work. If he's only one year behind he's unlikely to even be bottom of the class.

Thanks for the feedback. My youngest has speech & language problems - he's five and a half and can't say a proper sentence yet - he's also pretty delayed motor skills wise and wobbly on his feet - balance isn't great. Here he goes every morning to a state-organised speech therapy group (it's in Dutch though) with 5 kids in it. We speak English at home, and he's no better in this. He also gets a bit of of physio but not enough in my view - an hour a week, plus sporadic OT.
My eldest is nine and a half and has ADHD, dyspraxia, mild CP and mild CVI - he gets 3 hours a week out of school hours - one hour physio for lateralisation & gross motor skills, one hour OT for fine motor and planning, and one hour visual/maths.

In school, there are no classroom assistants - just one teacher for 25 kids. He goes to small group work for maths but next year they recommend he goes to a school for kids with ADHD & dyspraxia as they say he'll do better generally in smaller classes with specialist teachers. The downside of this is that he'll be limited to apprenticeships only for the future, and as he's not very practical (good at languages and art), this worries me.

Just to add also re my youngest - he goes to school in the afternoons - but 24 kids in the class and one teacher (again, no teaching assistants).

Agree with Indigo the spread of ability within one particular year group will be more than a year either way, hence why it is very uncommon to be placed out of chronological year. You need to find a sympathetiic gp who will refer on the basis of your assessments to date. That will get you into the system with an NHS community paed and start to give you more ammunition for a statement and potentially a special school.

However unlike many parts of Europe the trend is to keep children in mainstream schools , some of which may have specialist (SAL, ASD etc) units on site. Perhaps you should focus your search on such schools and speak to the SENCO(Special Educational Needs Coordinator) regarding your children's issues and how they may be able to met them, short and longer term. There should also be someone in the council education department whose role deals with SEN and could identify possibilities.