aagghhhh statement review time(again..!!)

[chatee]

aagghhhh statement review time(again..!!).....this is looking worse than the last two years

1. OT won't attend
2. Physio is a ?
3. Area Education Officer for LEA informs school that he won't be there but to carry on without him and forward notes through...

4.OT for physical/medical needs who has seen dd only once!! So that leaves only school staff and us parents.....is this allowed?? We are also aware that LEA are trying to reduce hours again(like they have done every year) last year i informed them they had 72 hours to issue the proposed statement(according to the government guidelines)and they sent the school head teacher a fax "stating the current statement will be maintained for a further 12 months"(this was sent on the last day of term-this year they are trying to time it so it will not be sorted until the middle of the hols/beginning of next term)....... anyone have any suggestions...words of wisdom...i will be contacting ipsea(again)...anyone had any dealings with cumbria lea?? thanks xx

Can you not postpone it until relvant people will be there? ie the people who will help your case.
We have done that at our school in the past (cumbria), afaik at the moment Cumbria is not keen on sen support everyone I know going through this they are trying to give minimum support (think they are worrying more about the budget )
sorry not be much help, good luck!

thanks nikkie,
i know it's them watching the pennies but it's a disgusting thing to think about pennies over a persons life...
am going to see what ipsea say....don't really want to postpone for too long as it won't be in place for start of next term(dd will be year 2 so quite an important year for her)or would they have to continue with the statement she has now?especially if we had to go to tribunal?

I would be delighted to go ahead without them all. They can hardly reduce the hours or make any changes if they don't attend. Make the most of it and forward the notes, stating that the hours should be kept the same. In my opinion they shoot themselves in the foot if they don't attend but maybe its an indication that they're not that bothered about your case at this time. Good luck.

well this is tomorrow and i am sat frantically jotting down points to mention-

school have informed me that they can not afford the extra hours support that they have been giving dd so if the statement is maintained at it's current level dd will receive 7 hours support a week..(5 of this is earmarked for lunch time and 2 hours for pe and self help skills)...
your thoughts gratefully appreciated please....

bump please...

I would agree with Davros in this regard having been through a statement review.

People like the OT, paed, speech therapist were invited as well and they could not attend. Some of them did not even bother to write a report. Ed pysch only showed up at the end of the review!!. Was not amusing at the time (none of us were at all impressed) but can smile now.

The only people we had at our Statement review apart from us as parents was the woman from the LEA and school. The decision was to keep everything the same (something that I wished for and made crystal clear to them during said review).

Are you happy with the seven hours as it stands and how it is divided?.

Certainly get IPSEA on board again.

well, just back from the meeting and feeling quite hopeful that we might get extra hours from the lea.....everyone expected turned up and everyone was pushing the same problems....i was even quite confident and said my bit..(only as i had it wrote down on the paper in front of me), and i must say someone was astonished at what i did say(i don't think they thought i had it in me!!)
fingers crossed for a good outcome....

7 hours a week - no i am not happy with it so will wait and see

oh, i think that because i had taken a parent partner to support us at the meeting(and boy did she know her stuff)then we were treated differently to the last years when they have known that they could 'fob us off'.
would definetly reccomend a parent partner from any charity involved with the disability...

Sounds good Chatee and good/interesting advice about the Parent Partnership person (that's a lot of Ps!)