Proposed statement advice please

[beautifulgirls]

Finally got DD's proposed statement today...only took 4.5 weeks to come through!! Anyway, it's pants. All wooly and vague. Just starting to wade through things now and write to them to reject it and will call IPSEA in the next few days when I find some time too, but I have some questions that I'm sure you lovely MNs will have the answers too.

1. They have written a very vague "access to hrs per week learning support assistance to enable small group work and individual attention". Yes you read that right _. They have also written with it that "consultation will take place with the school with regard to the level of support to be detailed in this section."
   So...can they do that? It seems totally unreasonable to allow the school to set the level of support here when they (the LA) are supposed to know her needs. I also want the 1:1 made plain and clear in terms of time and separated from the group work.

2. If we get something precise put in about speech therapy who/where/when etc (currently not well set out though looks like they are putting some in at least) do I just leave in wooly phrases like "opportunities to implement language and communication strategies across a range of learning activities" or should these also be specific...in which case how?

3. One of the points is "Staff to gain and hold eye contact with DD". Is this a good or bad thing given she has a diagnosis of ASD (HFA) and can find eye contact very variable in comfort. I know it obviously helps communication if she does look but is it an unreasonable thing to be making her do?

4. Should I have been sent a list of schools with the proposed statement? I am almost certain I know what I want but I would like the list to be given the chance to consider all the options. The letter I have refers to a list but nothing is in the paperwork but it isn't clear if the list should be there or can be obtained elsewhere.

Plenty more to look at but that will keep me going for a while. Thank you all. BG

You need to get them to specify the hours
access to learning support assistance means nothing really.
I don't understand the consultation with school bit either. Sounds a bit worrying. You can ask them to take it out though.

Don't know about naming schools - my ds's school changed from proposed to final statement though as we'd chosen where we wanted him to go at the same time.

The eye contact sounds

"consultation will take place with the school with regard to the level of support to be detailed in this section."

Blimey - That IS bad. The appropriate response is to rewrite the statement with your ammendments but I would be SO tempted to just tell them to finalise it so you can appeal. Such disregard for the law and neglect of your child does not bode well for the future or any final statement, - why factor in any delay?

And the eye contact thing - ask for evidence for this need. I'm a fan of teaching eye contact skills as I think being able to do it increases social acceptability, but that sounds abusive.

Your question wrt no.2 is the hardest one to answer but it can be done. You're so far from that stage yet though.

You can now do one of two things, depending on your time/energy and whether you think appealing is inevitable.

You can rewrite the whole statement how you want it, within a 2 week period, - or you can just send it back stating that you reject it due to it not complying with the law in quantifying and specification and let them come up with a better one first. Sometimes this is better because then at least you have something to work with. Right now, you may as well have a blank page.

Would concur with the other respondents here.

God your LEA have surpassed themselves by issuing such a document that is currently only worthy of the recycling bin.

It needs rejecting straight off along with a complete rewrite of Parts 2 and 3 which are the most important bits of this document. IPSEA or one of the other charities should be able to tell you what it should say.

They have also written with it that "consultation will take place with the school with regard to the level of support to be detailed in this section."
LEA cannot do this. I am just wondering if this LEA like many others are going down the devolved funding route as that seems to be much more common these days, to me they are saying to the school "its your problem to sort out". LEA cannot dovest itself of such statutory responsibility though.

The eye contact that is being proposed sounds completely unacceptable as well and without any sound basis.

Call IPSEA asap as it may take you some considerable time to access their phoneline. I would also suggest you try SOSSEN and or ACE as well as the more independent advice you get the better.

Ensure that you get SALT in Part 2 as well as 3.

Look at this legal summary here. It covers all the things wrong with this statement.

Clear the LA must determine the provision and specify it - cannot leave it open for future assessment e.g. by consultation with school

They must also put the number of hours in. It should be in the proposed statement otherwise how can anyone comment on it?

This is not a proposed final statement - this is an initial draft.

Thanks to you all - I have already started to re-write the statement myself and hope they will listen to that. If they don't then I will move on sooner rather than later to finalising and taking them to tribunal as I am not prepared to negotiate and negotiate over this and waste any more time. It has been (as seems often the case) a long road to get here with delay tactics thrown in at every stage of the way. I have appealed to tribunal twice in the process and the LA have backed down before a hearing on both occasions so hopefully they will not be stupid about this from here...dream on!

I'll call IPSEA asap too - found them very helpful in the past.

The eye contact thing is dark ages stuff. If they insist on that sort of rubbish it should read ' the staff should encourage xx to maintain eye contact'.

Other than it the Statement is total bollox.