Who is responsible for ensuring statement is followed? And question for those with language disordered children

[used2bthin]

Following my thread about DD hurting children in her mainstream I have been emailing the SENCO and have set up a meeting with her.

The SALT is coming out now(having not turned up last week.)DD is almost six and is has severe SLI (plus medical stuff and sensory processing issues). She was on the intensive s and l therapy package last year and is due to be again this year but the SALT assisstant who would be coming oto do it has left and apparently they are recruiting another and will get the intensive therapy started asap. This makes me nervous as I know that could be a week or months! Her statement says her programme needs to be set up and monitored by a SALT and delivered daily by school. So if this wasnt being met because the SALT wasn't over seeing it who is responsible, SALT, school or LEA?

Also for those with children with sevre SLI affecting thier ability to be understood, have you had success with mainstream? DD can't speak clearly enough to have others understand her and needs so much support with this that I'm worried its not going to work-looking at ss at the moment as there is no s and l unit here.

LEA are responsible

Thanks star-they have already taken since april till...hopefully very soon to increase DDs one to one hours to 30 so I am speaking to our statementing officer tues. I need to have a list for that phone call then.

Ds had a statement that specified daily salt activities to be delivered by trained school staff under direction of SALT. It was really difficult to monitor as school told me they were delivering and ds did go to groups and his ta did get training.

BUT instead of a SALT monitoring the prog twice termly as per statement I found out (when I specifically asked for dates) that for three terms that it was the salt assistant who had come in perhaps once a term. and one of those visits was used by the SENco for trying out an assessment tool (which she later said didn't seem to be very good).

Impossible to know how much difference this made to ds' lack of progress.

The accurate answer is 'it depends'.

If the SALT is in part 6 of the statement, then the LA are not responsible. They are merely stating provision that is given by another agency which supports the child.

If the SALT is in part 3 of the statement, then the LA are responsible for the provision. They will say that they contract with the NHS, therefore the NHS provides it, but in truth, they have to ensure it is provided, and if the NHS cannot do so, they must do so privately. But you are likely to have to go to tribunal to make them.

My only experience with MS with DD was MS preschool. It didn't work, even with 1:1, because the expertise was in the professionals who visited to advise, and the assumption was that the preschool staff would somehow understand the techniques that were suggested.

The reality was that the staff didn't understand the basic premises which made the techniques work, so couldn't adapt the techniques to other situations, only the specific one they'd been taught and had 'modelled'. Because they didn't understand the basic concepts sufficiently, the staff assumed that the visiting professionals had simply misunderstood DD1's difficulties and therefore disregarded their advice.

For example, using 1 key word. The staff member said 'DD1 can understand much more than that', so disregarded it. No, DD1 is brilliant and smoothing over a lack of understanding with social manipulation, so appears to understand, but the effort of that causes frustration, hence the behaviour which the staff saw as the priority. Had they listened, they would have negated much of the behaviour by reducing DD1's frustrations.

As you have found, it seems that in MS a lot of the strategies involve dealing with the child who is causing an issue, which gives that child massive attention, and reinforces the behaviour. For example, if DD1 didn't want to do circle time, the staff were told to take her off and do something she wanted. So, she got to know that all she had to do is throw a tantrum, and she could play with a balloon. At Special School, they said 'Oh dear, DD1 will find the first few weeks a bit tough then, because if we do circle time, she'll have to actually do it...'

It takes a lot of skill to successfully support a child with SN in MS, and the vast majority of SN assistants are hired with very little experience. Then, they get experience of one child, but think that they have 'done SN'. That's why I love SS. The staff there 'do' 110 children with SN daily. In the classroom, in the playground - it's all teaching time at SS. The children aren't just left to it at playtime, activities are set up with the intention of teaching a skill. The children don't have to use them, but they are there, and the teaching staff are all out on the playground (they have two lunchtimes, so that the staff are staggered).

Thanks for replies. Its in part three. And we see a SALT privately as often as we can so would love them to pay her to come in but bet it would take longer to sort than the gap. The lack of provision as shocked me, we are in a similar situation latedeveloper, it is very hard to know what really goes on.

Got two ss to see now, spoke to two parents from an out of catchment one that I am hopeful about (and cross that I've not heard of it before as it sounds like it is very suitable for dds needs).

Lougle I want to thank you so much for sharing this. DS1 will most likely need a special school and I am very anxious about it. what you have described sounds really ideal and made me feel a little better.

Sorry for the hijack OP.

Dev, I've seen loads. The variability is staggering. There is no such thing as 'a' Special School!

And, what Lougle said.

I still believe my Ds would have managed mainstream. I do NOT believe there is any chance that the resources put into ms, even ordered at tribunal, would be used in the way to meet his needs. A sparkling statement cannot change attitudes or whole school SEN culture.

dev, no problem at all. I also love the sound of lougle's dd's school!

zzzz, that is what worries me, dd's behaviour is badly affected and her confidence is going down,it must be very stressful for her. Will post properly in morning-up feeeding but too tired to make sense

I, too, will answer the last part of your question. Our DD3 was really fortunate to get a place in a specialist S&L school when she started. It was amazing and I can honestly say that I really do not think she would have coped in MS. By the age of 7 or 8 she went over to MS and by then she could be understood more and the move was good for her.
If the placement in the special school had not been there I think I would have chosen to Home-ed as DD3 was definitely not ready to be thrown into MS and I know she would have floundered terribly.

Star any opportunity to remind me that what society perceives as the 'norm', in this case MS is not the only option goes someway to console me. After spending more time on this board than I care to admit, I am also aware now that the first school whether it's MS or SS, is not always the right one.

Positive that's pretty much what I would like to do. We are being pushed to send ds1 to a local ASD resource unit, but it's so badly resourced that I wouldn't dream of sending him there. I will HE ds1 until we know ds1 is ready AND we have found a place suitable for him, not before as long as I can help it.

There is mixed opinion as to whether MS schools don't want our children, don't care about our children or just aren't good enough for our children. I don't think it's any of those.

DD2 goes to the MS infant school that DD1 would have gone to. Her teacher last year assured me that DD1 was at the right place. She said "we would have done our very best with her, but at the end of the day, SS are the SN experts, and we just don't have that level of experience or knowledge."

In times gone by our children were excluded from education. Now, we have hundreds of children who are denied a chance of progress in the name of inclusion. I know that some children will survive MS, some will thrive, but there are many whose parents are told that they are too bright for Special school, who still can't access MS life. Mind the gap

Well perhaps you should come and meet Ds one Sat Dev, (and Used2 if you're near). Then if you include Ds' school on your list of ones to look at you can see him in an education context. Not necessarily to chose his school but just to get a feel of the options etc.

Usedto -it was so difficult to monitor everything because if you didn't ask exactly the right questions you didn't get told.

I moved ds to another school nearby where he is part m/s and part in the attached provision. Early days but it is a completely different culture. For example the unit teacher seeks me out in the playground at pick up to give me an update and wants me to come in and talk to her about ds's entire history starting from his difficult birth so she can start to try to understand how to get the best from him.

At the unit ds is one of only 9 kids that the teacher is responsible for so she really has time to concentrate on his needs and progress.

I still have my reservations about how ds will cope with the 50% of the time he spends in m/s and how this will affect his anxiety but I'm cautiously optimistic.

zzzz yes to a rough guide! I am feeling so much clearer on this today but it has literally taken the last two years for me to get to the bottom of how some of this works in my area so I totally agree and with latedeveloper about having to know the right questions!

Positive and latedeveloper I so wish we had a unit for children dd's age. I would have ideally liked her to start at one and end up in mainstream but in my area it seems to be done the other way around despite all the evidence about early intervention.

Star where abouts are you?

And...today I visited our local ss again. They have a new class and I THINK I could see DD fitting in there...maybe. I still wonder if she would be challenged enough but at the same time see that she would be more likely to progress witht hier expertise. I am not convinced enough to take her out of the lovely primary she is at , away from familiarity but the head at the ss is happy to chat with current senco and head at ours and we may take dd across a little to see how she gets on, I would like to build this into a more regular thing. I've another school to look at and also need to have a good think about this BUT the thought that DD is struggling every day, losing confidence and will not have friends where she is is sinking in.

Also it has sunk in that no one will tell me mainstream is not right for her because they have to give her the opportunity. Sorry long post but bit of an eye opening day tbh.

thanks star, I have pm'ed you.

The LEA are responsible. If they are messing you around (and from your other recent thread it sounds like they are) go above the case officer's head and write to the Head of SEN, politely reminding them of their duty to arrange provision as specified in dd's statement.

I did this after our school failed to implement ds's statement for over a term - wrote to Chief Exec of LEA. Letter would have been received on a Friday. Ds's TA started on the following Tuesday

Agree with Bialy - kick arse at the top and things will happen . I have a major complaint ongoing and the case worker had the gall to say she didn't understand why I had complained

Thanks. Phone call with statementing officer tomorrow. And also have the number for the person in the LEA responsible for ss placement that we may very well be about to ask for.

God but its stressful all of this isn't it?!