Applying for SA for the 2nd time advice needed please

[claw4]

Ds currently has a NIL, after previous SA request.

Do i have to apply for SA as if it were the first time or am i asking them to reassess?

Thanks Star, it gets so bloody complicated with all the lies. Literally the whole of the decision notice is one big lie.

"SENCO stated school were not aware of his self-injury" I had written to her, gave her pictures several times, written notes in his home/school book. She had copies of CAMHS reports. She had meetings with myself and CAMHS.

"He has a speech and language programme designed for him and monitored by a SALT therapist, his targets were termly" His SALT 'programme' was a bundle of DIY sementic link worksheets. SALT did not review him for over a year, there are no targets.

He follows a programme designed by OT, who also has termly meetings with school to monitor progress. There is no OT, there is no programme designed by an OT. School have said there isnt an OT, it was a mistake in the decision notice.

All of his IEP's were unevulated, targets were lowered and repeated, where he had not met them. I asked school to provide evulated IEP's after Tribunal and when i received a copy of his school file, a post it note had been stuck to my letter stating "tell mum xxxx, to cover targets and no IEP for xxxx" and this what they replied to me, obviously without the tell mum this is to cover for targets bit!

I dont know where to start, what to mention, what not to mention. Im trying not to mention lies and sound like a gone mad conspiracy loon, but whatever angle i go at it from, it leads back to lies.

I need direction, somewhere to start from, i need to know what to focus on.

Lack of progress is my starting point, but i cant prove lack of progress, without proving lies iyswim. School are saying he is making progress, based on nothing.

HELP!

it's simple - You prvide the background to your previosu request and what the outcome was i.e. Tribunal decided that as school were providing X, Y & Z, a Statement write was not necessary and a NIL issued. Then set out to prove that the promises made by the LA to Tribunal were not carried out and that, as a result, DS's difficulties have escalated. So,
"School said they would do X. To date they have not provided that help. School said they would Y. To date that assistance has not been provided......

School said they were not aware of his self-injusry, however I wrote a letter to school, addressed to Mr X informing them of this on xx/x//xx and again on xx/xx/xx...." etc etc etc

It basically says they are lying in a non-confrontational way. I certainly wouldn't write anything along the lines of Mariasalome's suggestions. Far too conciliatory for me

Start by writing it as a loon. Get the whole story on paper.

So that way you have it all in order for a) reference and b) for if there is ever a time that your DS needs to know how hard you fought for him.

That's what I would do. Then I'd try and match as much of it up to the COP and then rewrite only using the relevant points for that.

Then I'd cross reference what you are saying with evidence documents.

I find using a chronolgy very helpful

X post with Wet.

I think basically any approach that is systematic will help you not feel so overwhelmed.

Thanks guys, much appreciated, exactly what i needed, a starting point!

I have scribbled all the advice down, will get started thanks again.

You don't need to use the word lie to show someone has lied but the implication is clear and damning enough if you state, as wet and others have suggested, x promised to do this, x has not done so, this has been the consequence for ds.
Good luck with the composing.

Lies are probably more constructively described as:

inaccuracies
plans which didn't come to fruition
erroneous statements
incomplete information
extrapolations
presumptions
mistaken assumptions

Saves tribunal from having to attribute intent ie blame to hard working teachers/ lea officers etc, which allows them to focus on the far more important question of who to believe now.

An evidenced list of claimed but actually non-existent provision, inconsistent with what was described to the last tribunal will speak for itself. Inadequacy is obvious to us but could be argued against, after all, his needs may have reduced dramatically and the whole point of a nil is that the 'head knows best' so it's purely optional and discretionary.

Proving yet again that the current offering is failing to give him an education that anyone could consider adequate will surely be needed too .

The reassess/SA is designed to trip you up I'd guess. Must be a precedent somewhere. Ask SOS:SEN? Or one of the 15 min free lawyers?

Conciliatory was to school as first shot. A face saving way of admitting they can't magic up gold standard provision without resources. Also nods to their professional judgement: there might be something DS needs which they genuinely feel is a higher priority than what's on the list.

Make it easy for them to oppose you as ineffectually as possible. They dont necessarily want to succeed in blocking the statement, but they have to be seen to play to their LA's rules. Constant tribunals are going to be major hassle for them, as is a child who might cause problems (truancy stats, budget issues if they do have to give all that help on SA+, fear of being in the local paper if something dreadful ever happens etc)

They may well have been threatened, and repeated threats have a way of becoming much less effective over time (unless carried through of course, but LEAs aren't well known for their understanding of behaviouralist learning theory ).

I agree with Wet it has to be a fresh assessment. A re-assessment is when you already have a statement but the statement is not meeting need and you want it changed between annual reviews.

I would take a different approach

I am not sure i would emphasise that the school should have done more but haven't at this point - that is almost conceding that a statement would not be needed if the school were not crap. I think you want to be saying a statement is needed (even if everything on the NIL was being done).

You could say that there are learning needs which are unmet because the school has not recognised them - or does not see evidence of them in school - even though you see such evidence at home. That is different than saying the school see the problem, been given strategies, but have not done what they should about it.

Tribunals will order SA where a school and LA has persistently failed to put in place provision at SA+ but the LA Panel will just bat it back as the LA needing to get the school to do more at SA+.

I would approach it on basis he does meet the criteria for statement on basis of lack of progress - and leave the LA to blame the school.

So go through targets in NIL and say where not been appropriate progress. Give evidence of lack or progress but don't speculate why at this point.

Then list anything for which there are no current targets and explain why these are educational needs.

If you blame the school will the LA not say (SENCOP 7.5) they can think of alternative ways for the school to make the provision without a statement. See 7.34 'In deciding whether to make a statutory assessment, the critical question is whether there is convincing evidence that, despite the school, with the help of external specialists, taking relevant and purposeful action to meet the child?s learning difficulties, those difficulties remain or have not been remedied sufficiently and may require the LEA to determine the child?s special educational provision...LEAs will always wish to see evidence of, and consider the factors associated with, the child?s levels of academic attainment and rate of progress.
7:50 Where the balance of evidence presented to, and assessed by, the LEA suggests that the child?s learning difficulties:
● have not responded to relevant and purposeful measures taken by the school or setting and external specialists
and
● may call for special educational provision which cannot reasonably be provided within the resources normally available to mainstream maintained schools and settings in the area,
the LEA should consider very carefully the case for a statutory assessment of the child?s special educational needs.'

So to me that reads that if the school has NOT taken relevant and purposeful measures, the response is not a SA but for the LA to go back and make the school do better.

I would instead concentrate on lack of progress

SENCOP 5:42 Adequate progress can be defined in a number of ways. It might, for instance, be progress which:
● closes the attainment gap between the child and their peers
● prevents the attainment gap growing wider
● is similar to that of peers starting from the same attainment baseline, but less than that of the majority of peers
● matches or betters the child?s previous rate of progress
● ensures access to the full curriculum
● demonstrates an improvement in self-help, social or personal skills
● demonstrates improvements in the child?s behaviour.

I would set out why progress not been adequate against each area of need.

That gives the school the opportunity of saying yes even though we have done x, y and z progress has not been adequate. Whereas if you go in hard on criticising the school they will then lie and say we have done x, y and z and the progress is fine.

Sorry to give a different view but I would just go for it on lack of progress and not speculate at this point why the progress has not been achieved. You will have a chance to address that later when / if it goes to appeal

Good points Agnes. Blaming school is a get out clause for them.

Good luck Claw

So you think that proving that progress is not adequate is the way to go for claw and probably anyone who is appealing against a note in lieu or applying for a statement?

Agnes' post makes a lot of sense. The question of WHY progress is not adequate is perhaps not so much of the issue. Just that progress with the NIL hasn't been and so now a statement is required.

Thanks Agnes, lack of progress is intially was i was trying to focus on, but seen as school are claiming progress and falsifying documents, IEP's for example, it was proving hard to prove lack of progress unless i pointed this out ifyswim? For example the IEP's supplied to tribunal were unevualted, targets repeated, success criteria lowered. What would have been his current IEP at the time of Tribunal was not included, 4 months after they falsified his IEP's. I have evidence of this.

The only way i can prove lack of progress (without mentioning that school have supplied inaccurate info etc), is with expert reports that i have, these range from 2009 until 2011, a mixture of LA and ind experts. I have approximately 30 reports/observations and ds is having the same difficulties in 2011, as he was in 2009. This has been observed by literally ALL the various experts EP's, SALT, OT, ASD advisory, CAMHS etc.

I also have lots of reports saying ' teacher claimed no difficulties, however it was observed xxx' from both ds's previous school and this school.

Is that going to be enough to show lack of progress, along with not having any targetted support in those areas, so no way of measuring progress?

The difficulty i have with ds, is that formal assessments he can achieve average scores. But this does not describe his functional ability, this has also been written in reports.

I am not sure Claw, for my own ds I have a school report which clearly states that despite lots of intervention and support little or no progress has been made, we are challenging a note in lieu.

You have to prove lack of progress whichever way you jump as I see it.

Even if you could prove the school were not implementing NIL you would still not get a SA unless you could also prove inadequate progress. It is the lack of progress / unmet needs which triggers the need for a statement

I am sure you will get into the school issues eventually but not sure tactically you need to now.

I think you should concentrate on as you say functional skills
eg has self harm improved, has behaviour improved, have social skills improved etc. If you have assessments, NC levels, P Scales etc showing lack of progress great use those. You can refer to IEP targets not being met or removed before they are met but at the moment I would emphasise the evidence of 2009 cf 2011 from external professionals. You can also give your parent view that you have not seen evidence of improvement e.g. in behaviour, self help, friendships, anxiety etc etc

You could score P scales yourself as evidence still gaps e.g. social and emotional P scale tends to be useful

For NC levels should be 2 levels of progress in each key stage

This is an e.g. of a LA chart which seeks to show the progress that would be expected for a child here

I suppose as you may not see the school response before it goes to any panel and you want to rebut this in advance you could say you disagree with the school assessment as you do not see the improvement at home - and say that could be due to a lack of recognition of problems by school or to skills taught at school not being generalised to other environments. I probably would not get into the lying right now, just say that the evidence from school contradicts what external professionals / you see and that this confused picture in itself merits SA.

I am not saying the school will support you but if you can give them a way of doing so without losing face it is worth a shot, at least to get over the first hurdle. If you say they are lying about progress then that will be passed onto the school and they are more likely to dig their heels in and lie even more so you have an even bigger hurdle to jump.

Thanks again Agnes, the NIL is not worth implementing, i have not seen another NIL, but im betting this one is pretty rubbish, it just quotes extracts from reports and provision required to meet his needs is things like giving him stickers and being in an 'ASD friendly' environment. School couldnt implement it if they tried, as there is nothing to implement!

I agree totally causing conflict with school, is in no ones best interests.

I am currently wading through all the reports, ive broken it down into needs sections and writing down anything and everything, which i will then keep as my copy and supply a much shortened, to the point version once im done.

Thanks again, much appreciated.

Sorry forgot to add where do i get a copy of P scales?

Wassup Its difficult isnt it!? Thank god for MN, i would be lost without it. Feel free to hijack, if you have any questions, hopefully this thread will be helpful to you as well as me

Trying not to hijack Claw as I know you have had a tough time of it!! I am on my 3rd statement mission (3 with sen) for one of mine but it doesn't get easier.

I think we all have a tough time, in one way or another, hijack away, i might find it useful too Wow 3rd statement, i thought 1 was bad enough!

I think this is the 6th tribunal hearing I am waiting for a tribunal date for now only been to 2 tribunals because the LA backed out of 3 of them. We had a great panel and judge the first time round but the next time they were a bit wishy washy but we got the baiscs that we wanted from it.

Blimey, as many as 6, im a complete novice!!

Im going to have a break from it all now for a bit, have a cuppa, a bath and play with ds for a bit, if he will let me! he was recently given a map of London, a bit like a tourist guide kind of thing, he loves a map, he is currently locked away in his room, with it spread out on the floor and im not allowed in!

Hmm took some finding the Government have shut down all the so called quangos and archived everything

<a class="break-all" href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110813032310/www.qcda.gov.uk/resources/search-results.aspx?keys=&page=0&phase=&topic=21&format=&for=&sortby=2&sortdir=1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">try this page 2 and 3 have some docs

Or this

My school is using Lancashire Council scheme called PIVATS which breaks skills down into smaller parts. Unfortunately you can't download these as far as I can tell they seem to be commercially available. You can ask your school if they use P scales or Pivats. They may not have thought about it for a child who is ok academically but the PHSE p scale / pivats tends to show up a lot of gaps for ASD e.g. around reciprocal relationships etc Not sure if your DS is at P scale level for social / emotional or not. The school should have a folder you can look at to see if your DS would fit into them or not.

Thanks so much Agnes, I dont have much knowledge of p scales, will have a good read later of the links, once i get ds to bed.

If im entirely honest i dont think ds has many dificulties academically strictly speaking. It tends to be his other difficulties which get in the way, for example his rigid thinking and inflexability, will stop him from doing the work or his literal understanding will mean he misses the point and is off on a tangent or his handwriting is slow, so he doesnt write many of his ideas down or he gets anxious/distressed very quickly and obsessed about getting things 'right', so gives up easily. That kind of thing, will the p scales cover these kind of difficulties?

Ds is very deceptive, he uses lots of visual clues to give the impression that he has understood or school mis-read some of his behaviours for example they will say that he has an excellent imagination after RE lessons for example he will make up his own religion and tell everyone about it, what they dont realise is that he isnt actually making it up, he actually believes it and has difficulties seperating fantasy from reality.