SS is out of our catchment (same city) but peer group more suitable than the one in our catchment, do we stand a chance?

[used2bthin]

I am also hoping for a split placement but have no idea whether this will ever happen. I have made and appointment to look around the one that is in our catchment but I know from another parent I met at a support group that she got her son in to the out of catchment one because the peer group was more suitable for him and he has similar needs to DD. So it must be possible? Anyone done this?

The out of catchment one btw is about the same time wise to get to so its about area boundaries not because its too far. I rang and asked to look around but was told the head would get back to me- and that we are out of catchment and they are almost full for DD's year group.

dd3 goes to school out of borough, can't say it was particularly easy getting there but we did. The school we wanted was definitely the right place for her but our focus with the LEA was more about how the other schools they suggested couldn't meet her needs rather than on how good the school we wanted would be for her. Peer group played a large part in that as it's a requirement in her statement that she has a suitable peer group and no other school could provide it.

I used to work at a residential SS and regularly put pupils on a plane to get home because it was cheaper than a train due to distance (all within UK)

If it's the best school for your dc, they have to sort it. Just make sure you have solid evidence :)

used2bethin, you don't have to be able to show that the school you want is the best school for your DD. They don't have to give her the best school, merely an adequate or suitable one. That's in the SEN CoP. After all, a parent could argue that a LA should fund a private school for a child because it is a 'better' education, and lots of parents of NT children would dearly like their child not to go to the sink school down the road, yada yada yada.

It's important that you know that they aren't obliged to give you the best school for her, because it changes your focus, as Ninja says. Your focus is not to show that school x (your choice) is 'better' or 'best'. It is to show that school y (the one they would send her to) is unsuitable and cannot meet her needs. Not just 'not ideal', but detrimental to her progress.

THEN you show that school x meets her needs in the following 100 ways

Thank you goo advice, hadn't thought if it that way around. Her mainstream school is lovely so I would rather not give up on it completely (yet anyway) as we moved across the road from it recently because it all seemed so promising. Despite best efforts I can see DD becoming stressed and they have now applied for 30 hours support so I am waiting for that as I bet they will now want us to try it.

So I need to read through the amended statement when I get it and see whether there is stuff there I can use for showing she needs a different environment-I am pretty sure there is and school are finding she responds well to small, quiet groups which backs up her needing a small class (says this on independant report she had 18m ago)

The difficulty then would eb one SS over the other so I need to visit both and find out more- I know our very local one has no verbal children in her peer group so I haven't even booked to see that one as she is verbal just way below her peers and very unclear. That should be easy enough to use as a reason not to go to that one I would imagine?

I suppose until I look, I don't actually know whether one of the other two is better than the other its more I am going on hearsay so I will look first.

In terms of moving to SS/split placements then who do I speak to after I have visited the schools?

does the special school not have any satellite classes in mainstream settings? sometimes this can work well rather than split placements

Funny you should say that because one of the reasons I liked the mainstream DD is in was because they used to have a sattelite class from the nearest ss. But then the village the school is in became part of the city not part of the small town the ss is in so it stopped. The other SS that is now our cathcment one doesn't afaik but I will ask. And the out of catchment one does send children into the school next to it, a parent i know has a child who does literacy in mainstream as its his strong subject but the rest of his classes in the SS.

The complication is I would only want DD in the mainstream she is in I think. Maybe I am being a bit in denial and not quite ready to give up on it but I suppose my hope would be she could then be reintegrated into it later if the SS helped enough for things to improve.

How old is she? Is she still working at P level?

Just rang the very local SS which I had discounted initially. The head teacher asked about p level too and I have never heard of it! I think its because DD is still in foundation stage?

She is varied because her large physical skills are almost age apprpriate (fine motor is quite behind) some areas for numeracy she is age apprpriate but her speech and language and understanding is way below her age level, I think around a three year old for some, lower for other bits. Neurologist said she is around three developmentally but it was a quick assessment not detailed. She will be six in september.

p levels are the level they use to assess children who are not achieving national curriculum levels, so below level one. i think the best thing to do is to look around your catchment special schools and see what you think first and what they offer, what the head thinks before you set your sights on a school out of catchment.

She said we could probably get LEA to support a split placement but she personally thinks they are confusing for children. Also she has offered to let a member of her staff go to DD's current school to offer advice on how to best support her. She was great actually, unfortunately she is only acting head for now though. I am going to look around next week then will decide about whether to mention the offer of extra support to school, don't want them to feel I am saying they don't cope as I think they do a brilliant job. Then I wonder if I could say in terms of for when DD is in year one, then its kind of advising before she moves not saying its not working now?

does her statement not have 1-2-1 support on it?

It might be that being the only verbal child in a non or pre verbal class gets her more attention? My experience of SS is that the curriculum is much more differentiated and break/lunch times spent as a school not class or year group.

I don't know if that applies here but worth considering?

Sorry x post there fiofio, the ss I spoke to today is the one in catchment it is very local and is the one that used to send a class out to dd's mainstream school till a few years ago. Yes she has one to one support on the statement, but only fifteen hours. The school have been managing this because there are lots of staff but have recently applied for the 30 hours as when she moves to year one it will be a very different set up. I feel quite encouraged by the head of the local ss so will see when I go to look around next week but would be a massive step.

yes good point purplepidjin, I do think, having spokem to the head of the local one I may have been misinformed about it as she said they do have children with a range of abilities there and that they do have verbal children.

DD1 is verbal and in a class of 9, with a huge range from completely non-verbal, to speech/Makaton mix, to verbal.

The class has 9 children and 9 lesson plans! For example, some of the children might be doing tacpac while DD1 is doing phonics with the class teacher. Or a small group do Rainbow Road (OT) while those who don't need it do something else.

Class of 9 sounds so lovely! And the differentiation sounds great too. I wish I'd been less in denial and looked at ss when looking around schools a year ago tbh but then she only got her statement through in the July thanks to me having listened to various professionals who said she may not need one. Hindsight is all very well though or whatever the saying is! And I think I had to try mainstream.

The other thing I was amazed by was just how much DD1 fits.

I remember going to a sports day in her first year.a girl was in front of her, with poor fine motor skills, trying to get a ball into a net with a hockey stick. I thought 'poor love, it's just spinning in her hand....I don't know how lucky I am...' Then DD1's turn came and I almost had an out of body experience. Here was a girl that I knew was my daughter, but I was watching the hockey stick spin in her hands because her fine motor skills were poor!

DD1 is as good friends with children who use wheelchairs, standers, Walkers, etc., and those who don't. Children who have feeding tubes or not. Children who wear nappies or those that use the toilet....it's all irrelevant. At SS those things are what makes the children 'normal', not what makes them different.

I can really relate to that Lougle. DD's dad said to me yesterday that going forward, DD will need to be someone with people she can relate to. It stung a bit tbh as I;ve had a similar thing to you this week, only watching an NT girl's embarassed reaction to DD's behaviour at the doctor's surgery where I realised just how different DD is to the children at her school. And at present it is masked by the fact that she is in a foundation unit mixing with children as young as three.

So I can quite see how much of a relief it must be for you that your DD fits in. Shows it was the right decision for her I expect? And did she go to mainstream first? And did you have a fight to get her into a ss? Iirc your DD and mine have similar ish needs I think.

She thrives in SS. Today, she hit her head in the playground.When I went to get her, she was sat at the receptionist's desk with a cup of water 'typing' to distract her.

She was at MS preschool with 1:1, but it seemed we would have had to fight to get the full 32 hours in MS. All professionals said MS with support. Amazingly, the SEN Officer who dealt with DD1's SA reviewed all her reports and issued a proposed statement which made provisions that would have been impossible in a MS school.

When I phoned her, and said 'are you suggesting SS?' she confirmed it. I told her everyone had said MS plus support and asked her if she was sure. She said 'I've been doing this job 20 years, and I've never been more sure'.

Honestly, her friends (and her!) are a right old motley crew, but they fit, they all adore each other, and they are adored by their teachers, too. Millie went to her first successful birthday party last week -a child at her school.

dd1 is at an out of county SS. as previous posters have said, it was a bit of a struggle, but it is possible.

again, as said, you need to concentrate on why her current place (and the catchment SS) is not suitable, rather than highlight how much better the school you want is.

we managed to get a highly specialised and sought after placement, but you do need to get your points in order - sometimes including enough time to 'fail' at a non-suitable placement so that you can 'prove' it is no good.

in terms of verbal/non verbal - dd1 is in a class of 7, with all of them technically verbal to some degree. they all have individual IEPs and lesson plans, and are all catered for very well - dd1 is probably the most 'outwardly' communicative, but is not the most academically able in her class I don't think (hard to tell, as the classes are arranged not by age, but by suitability of children to be grouped together, and dd1 is the youngest by a good year or two).

I absolutely and wholeheartedly agree witht he 'fitting in' statements. none of dd1's class are that similar (they do all have the same dx, as it is an ASD school), but the one thing they have in common is that they all fit together well. dd1 can just be herself, and has proper friends for the first time.

Ah proper friends sounds lovely. DD according to her teachers has one "friend" at a time who she will obsess over and only sit next to them etc, but they did say she is getting better with this.

I find it so hard to know how she is actually doing there as they are so nice I suspect they wouldn't want to upset me. Also I suppose all the meetings have focussed on her needs and statement etc so I havent asked much about levels, maybe I should ask to see.

Being arranged by suitability not age sounds good silverfrog, the whole set up in ss going by what I have read on here seems to be far more focussed on individual needs , they seem to have more freedom to be flexible.

lougle I had the same re mainstream with support, other than the ICAN team who said s and l unit (we don't have one here) , the statementing officer said mainstream with support but rang me to say she knew fifteen hours would not be enough and to apply for more after six weeks. My parent partnership worker said that the statement was written in a way that would be good to use as a way of getting into a s and l base though(if there was one!) so maybe she had similar thoughts.