Question about accepting/rejecting proposed statement

[moosemama]

Hi

I think I have royally stuffed up.

When ds's proposed statement arrived, I had a discussion with our statementing officer at the LEA, explained that we had a lot of changes, not to do with actual provision, but lots specification and quantification rewords. I also explained that we had been through all the changes I wanted with the school SENCO and she was happy with them. (Actually we did make a couple of extra changes after seeing the SENCO because it was the Easter break and we couldn't get hold of her.)

I asked whether we should have a meeting to go through the changes, given that there were so many and she said it wasn't necessary, as we were not changing the provision and the school was happy, but that instead they would issue a second proposed statement before issuing the final one.

I asked if I should tick 'accept with my amendments' or 'reject proposed statement' box on the form, given there were such a lot of changes and she said ticking the 'accept with amendments' box would be appropriate, as we weren't contesting the content.

Fast forward a few weeks and I find out that despite having had our changes for 5 weeks they haven't even looked at them.

There are now only two weeks until the date they have to finalise and still no sign of a second proposed statement - despite having it confirmed by two different people at the LEA office that there is a big note on the file to say this will happen. Dh spoke to them to chase up the second proposed statement and they were really rude, saying they have no deadline to meet now except the finalisation date, so basically he should back-off.

So, it has slowly dawned on me that there is the very real possible that I completely stuffed up by ticking accept rather than reject.

By ticking that box, does it mean that they can now finalise the statement, without my amends/changes and I have no come back or can I still reject the final statement and go to appeal to make them specify and quantify?

Put more simply, do I/we have to sign something to say we accept the final statement or can we reject that one and go to appeal at that point?

You can appeal the final statement if you dont agree with it.

However follow up what you have said and what they have told you in writing.

You haven't stuffed up. They could do the same whichever box you ticked!

Tbh, if they're not gonna play you actually want to get to appeal stage ASAP!

Thanks, a feel a little better now. Not that they are messing us about, but that I haven't accidentally hogtied us.

I think I will get the appeal docs ready to post. I can't see this ending well. I'm told we have a very good mediation service, so will try that first, after telling them that if we can't reach an agreement at that meeting I will be posting the appeal docs on the way home.

I am so annoyed, because contrary to all my expectations of our LEA from what I'd read and heard, things seemed to go fairly smoothly and well for us - until this.

Damned final statement is due on my blooming birthday as well.

No. If you have the appeal documents send them ahead of the mediation meeting. They will take mediation more seriously if the appeal documents are in and you will feel stronger plus have a consolidated argument for what you want if ou have already documented it for appeal. And you don't lose Tim or give thm h opportunity to give you false hope in order to delay the appeal or try and make you miss the deadline.

You don't have to open it on your birthday though!

Ah, good point Star, thanks.

I still have such a lot to learn about all this. I thought they would be a good bargaining chip, but I see your point about them being worth more if already sent.

Doubt I'll mistake it for a nice big birthday card.

I doubt it will actually arrive on my birthday though. My LEA deliberately finish everything exactly on the deadline and then post it out using a non Royal Mail service that takes an age to arrive. So I guess, in reality, it's more likely to arrive the Saturday after my birthday.

You know. It feels like a scary path to tread, and tbh it IS. But it is well worn on MN and one of the things about the effort required to do what you are doing is the desire it brings about to make it not all for nothing by sharing experiences with the people behind.

It often isn't a matter of hoping you can do it. You HAVE to do it. The system makes it so and increasingly.

moosemama commiserations that you are still going on this treadmill. [waves as she goes by]
FWIW I have been trying to meet my LEA to discuss the content of the statement since last September. I finally have a meeting this week, and my tribunal date is only 2.5 weeks away.
I hope you are more successful than I was. Having said that they have so far agreed a lot of the changes I wanted so things are much improved from the original statement that I was sent back then.

Thanks alison.

I am confused. Been reading the SENIST 'how to appeal document' and it says we need to appeal within two months of the LEA making their decision. Well that would have been when the proposed statement was first issued, I guess?

Well, at that point we didn't have anything to appeal. We had some amendments we wanted to make. We had discussed them with the school and the LEA gave us the impression they wouldn't be a problem.

It's now six weeks since we sent our amendments (two weeks since they told us they hadn't looked at what we sent), which was 15 working days after they sent the proposed statement to us, so we are out of the two month deadline for appeal.

In fact I'm also thinking at the moment that we wouldn't have legitimate grounds for appeal anyway, because we don't know that the LEA aren't going to make the changes. So I don't think we could appeal even if we were within the deadline, because I wouldn't have a clue what to put on the forms as to why/what we are appealing.

It wasn't till I started re-reading all the SENDIST stuff today that I realised the timescales. [send]

Struggling mentally today, so apologies if I am making little sense.

Ah Ok, you need to get them either to make the changes or to send the statement as it is as a finalised statement. At that point you can appeal to tribunal - which is what we did. it is 8 weeks form a final statement that you have to appeal by. My LEA told me that they were finalising it to get the money to the school to avoid further delays.????, and finalised it rather than discussing amendments with me. Anyway I don't think you can appeal until you have a final statement. The LEA have 8 weeks from sending you a proposed to issuing it I think.

If you want amendments I am not sure if they can indefinitely extend the timescale. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than me will come along to tell you.

If you can appeal you can appeal on the proposed statement which is what you have and ask for the changes that you want made ( as you say the LEA haven't made them yet so this is legitimate) so you can appeal because IIRC the statement was not quantified, did not contain details of all of the provision etc as they are required to do in the SENCOP.

Just come to the horrible realisation that I really am not up to this, which effectively means I am going to end up letting ds1 down.

I used to be such a sharp thinker. Prior to me becoming ill, this sort of thing wouldn't have phased me one bit, but now I can't take anything in or hold a thought long enough to come up with a meaningful response and on top of that I just don't have enough stamina to fuel me through the process.

Dh is no help, he hasn't bothered to read anything in depth and doesn't really understand it all. He's basically in the 'aren't we lucky, ds1 has a statement' camp - whether or not that statement is actually worth the paper it's written on. He was keen to sort out the language on the proposed statement to eliminate 'weasel words', but I think that's because it was something he knew he could do without getting any deeper involved. As soon as I started talking about quantification he backed right off and started stressing about upsetting the LEA and/or SENCO.

Much as it breaks my heart, I think I'm just going to have to roll over and accept whatever ds gets.

Thanks alison. They told dh they didn't have to stick to the timescales because we had requested amendments - but everywhere I read it seems to say that that isn't true, they still have to finalise 8 weeks from when they issued the proposed statement.

I'm now wondering if they get another 8 weeks if they issue a second proposed though - which would explain why they were so keen to do it and basically means I was well and truly stitched up.

I just don't have the energy to keep on keeping on with this. [pathetic Moose emoticon]

Moose, you can still improve things without an all-out fight by just going through the system motions without being

There are some people who would argue that The full-blown battle really isn't worth the effort anyway in that even a tight statement can be meaningless as you can't control the detail or quality of provision and it can all be removed within a year. Some LAs put you on a tribunal carousel if you win too much.

Don't put so much pressure on yourself. You can still make a difference with the resources you do have and as frightening as it looks it isn't really that difficult to push on a bit from here.

They don't get another 8 weeks. Listen. This document is of über importance to you. It is serious.

It isn't to them. The statementing officer is churning them out without even proof-reading. Something pings on her computer to make sure she doesn't miss a deadline but there is no legal sanction for statements not making any sense at this stage.

It's a high adrenaline process for most parents but I'm telling you it does not need to be so. It's just an admin exercise and there is help available for you.

Thanks Star.

I know I am being pathetic and there are so many people on here fighting much bigger battles and coming out fighting again and again. I am honestly in awe of every one them.

Been struggling quite a bit with my health/neuro limitations and what they mean for my family and I longterm, so I guess this is just bad timing.

What do you reckon then, keep pushing the LEA to make the amends (specify and quantify) and try mediation if they don't, rather than going the whole appeal route.

I think I am going to try and stop worrying about having the final statement available to view potential secondaries and just take along my amended version to see how they react to that. Ds is doing ok at school for the moment (although who knows what next year will bring). It's secondary school (Sept 2013) that I want this all nailed down for really.

I need some energy to deal with the whole school year transition that is already raising it's ugly head and getting all tangled up with his fears and distress at only having one year left at primary. If I use all my strength up on fighting the LEA I'm worried I won't have enough left to support ds and I can't let that happen.

You have a whole year to get the statement sorted to your satisfaction before high school. If Primary is OK at the moment then just keep pushing through the process. Get them to issue a new final statement then appeal it. Don't keep negotiating with them if this is taking too long. They will drag it out as until the statement is final they don't have to get the funds to the school.

I didn't even know if I would have a statement for DS when this time last year I went to visit secondaries and meet the SENCOs. The good ones asked me all about DS and fell over backwards to tell me how they could help, statement or not. The bad ones well........ Lets just say you realise pretty quickly which they are.

So,my advice would be to go and visit the high schools now. Its a good time to do it before you start having to fill in the applications. Don't worry about lack of a statement for this.

Then separately push the LEA. I took to e-mailing the officer asking for timeframes then chasing her when they were not me.

You are not letting DS down. You are fighting for him. This is what mothers do. We will keep you going as much as possible. I have had some great advice from others on here.

In that case moose you have started in really good time. Don't look at the process in terms of a long battle, just he stage you are at and what you can do now.

I would almost always suggest filling in the appeal forms and sending it off because you don't have to think TOO hard about it. The minimum detail you can give to get accepted for appeal is just to say that statement isn't quantified or specified. The detail of WHAT isn't specified and all the other stuff can be dealt with later, or not.

You will then get a hearing date and will likely agree the statement a few weeks before - or not, if you don't want to.

You know that having a final statement in any form gives you the pick of state secondaries don't you? You've done well already!

Well, primary is ok-ish - much better than it used to be and I am more confident in my dealings with them, so tend to be able to get things sorted out fairly quickly when there's a problem. To be honest the forthcoming half term is always a right off for ds anyway due to all the end of year disruption and anxiety about moving up a year.

Our LEA don't let you have email addresses, which has been a right pita to be honest. I absolutely hate making phone calls these days, because I have problems with word retrieval (saying completely off the wall the wrong words or not being able to get the word out at all) and have noticed people treat me with a lot less respect than they used to as a result and speak to me as if they think I'm just not very bright.

I prefer to type emails and letters, because I can proof read them a few times and if necessary, depending on how bad a day I'm having, get someone else to proof them for me before I send them off.

I think I'm just having a bad day today. Sorry.

I did promise myself I wouldn't do this and told everyone on the Friday night thread to give me a good kick in the backside if I started to wallow about this stuff.

for all your support.

Star, that's what I thought about state secondaries - until the latest bombshell about academy admissions. We did all this to make sure we could get ds into the school we want, that will (we hope) best suit his needs and now there's the possibility that having a statement might make it harder rather than securing him a place.

Unfortunately there are no non-academy secondaries left in our area. Which is why I was such a pita on that webchat last week.

Moose, send letters, - always. I know they are a faff but the document trail is essential

If you want to be bold you will be able to get the LA email addresses easily enough. I was once told they don't allow parents to have emails but somehow they just stopped the silly nonsense as I used them anyway. Usually for rhetorical questions for 'evidence'. In he end they just emailed me back.

Ah yes. Academies. Bloody mess!

Anything out of county? Transport would have to be provided. Don't rule them ou as a possibility.

We've tried to get hold of email addresses, for exactly that reason, ie sending mails to 'confirm' things we've been told verbally. We have one email address of someone I think is the junior admin assistant, as she was asked to email the proposed statement to us (when I rang up and pointed out they had missed their deadline and our SO wasn't due in for another week). From hers we tried to guess our SO's email address, but her inital and surname combination is the same as one of the Councillors, so met a bit of a dead end.

I do tend to do letters. Everywhere we go, be it education or health our family's files are always really thick and heavy.

There is one out of county possibility, for which precendent has already been set in our LEA and there are, I believe at least half a dozen other children from our area who have ASD currently attending. It does seem like a great school, but a really long journey to and from, which I'm not sure is in ds's best interests.

Haven't seriously looked the other way, given that I thought we would be able to choose the local school we wanted before all this academy admissions debacle. It's pretty much all fields and countryside for quite a long way, so again, any schools over that way would mean a really long day for ds with travel time etc. Might have a shufty to see what there is now though.

for your patience Star.