So, - statements are going, kids chucked off SEN register and no legal entitlement to homeschool hours!?

[StarlightMaJesty]

Have I got it right?

If so, why aren't teachers striking over this or ar thy just going to throw the kids out for their parents to care for during school hours?

I think the other thing is the personal budget bit. I really haven't got my head around how the funding/commissioning will work.

On the one hand, they want to give parents control of budgets so that the EHCP specifies an amount of money for the child, and the parents decide where to spend it. On that basis, although academies may refuse to admit or refuse to supply what it says in the plan, if the plan has enough money in it they will change their tune because the kids come with money attached and the better their SN provision the more of that money they will get. It's a very Tory vision that the Free Market will make all this pesky legal and Tribunal nonsense redundant.

On the other hand, Special Schools (which is where a lot of this budget will end up) will still be more under the control of the LA than mainstreams. Mainstream academies can decide how many places they can support and control their own admissions. Special academies still have their admissions controlled by the LA, even though their funding comes from central govt. They have to accept precisely the kids the LA sends them. I'm not sure how that is going to work if eg the LA funds 20 places at a special school but all the parents take their individual parts of the budget elsewhere.

Well, I'm still battling our pathfinder authority about SN direct payments as what they say is a load of old crap and they seem only to be 'trialling' direct payments for social care - what is new about that??

In terms of human rights star, there is nothing to stop the human rights framework being applied to the SEN of children with disabilities. I am currently trying to get some funding for this area of research as LAs, schools and oversight bodies like the LGO, seem to think the priority in all this is the LA and not the child who has rights as well as needs.

The thing is there is currently a process for challenging the system. It's corrupt and unfair but you don't know that until you have worn yourself out on it. It's very unlikely that anyone would THEN explore the HR path.

But, this process, currently wrt academies, and possibly with the new plans, is becoming less relevant or appropriate. I wonder if I stead people will go directly to the HR laws instead!?

I think people will be forced to go to the HR laws instead soon. Which is interesting as it opens up the potential for genuine compensation payments, unlike sendist etc.

Does denial of access to the national curriculum count as a personal injury?

The academies situation is currently nothing short of a disgraceful mess, particularly in those authorities where there isn't a mainstream secondary under LA control. It extends beyond admissions to provision and even exclusion law as it appears that our kids have reduced rights to non-sen kids at every stage. The government needs to clarify stuff in this area as a matter of urgency.

Sadly I envisage more & more SEN kids being homeschooled, against parental preference as it'll be their only chance of getting any education at all. I also see an increase in the no of kids being placed in voluntary care, soaring escalation of the child poverty rates etc as a result of this.

I think Smamerloon genuinely belives that a £100 parenting class voucher will slash ASD rate to a fraction of it's current levels. I'm not getting any sense that anyone in this government grasps the issues at all. The nanny earned her salary in caring Camerloon's own disabled child as far as I can tell!

I am always surprised at how little interaction between SEN law and the HRA has been explored though.

The HRA has been around for 12 years. In other areas of law, criminal, employment, civil litigation, it seems par for the course for the implications of the HRA to be considered and the logic of it to be used to challenge processes.

Education law seems a bit of a backwater where people (lawyers) have been stuck pursuing a statutory system, putting up with crap, not challenging the reasoning behind determinations, taking the money, shrugging and saying 'that's the way it is'.

Think outside the box. What have they got to lose? Seriously. Crap LAs, crap Tribunals, crap LGO, just do it!

I suspect it is assumed that because there is a process for challenge the HR is not needed.

What no-one has seemed to have done is challenge the process itself with HR. who coukd do this? And is it necessary?

Could you just go directly down the HR route for an unspecified or non-adhered to statement, and more more importantly can the child do it in thei own name?

Sorry started replying and been busy busy since.
Not sure if things are different here as we are in Wales. It was announced at a recent governors meeting. I was a and and hoping to get some more clarification about what exactly is happening.