Draft SEN legislation - worrying!

[AgnesDiPesto]

SOSSEN views on draft legislation here

If you have views you can submit them to Ambitious About Autism by 11 October here although probably other routes too.

SOSSEN urging everyone to complain to their MP about removing parental rights.

SNFather - "Is there general agreement among interested posters that a single submission should be what is being aimed for? Is there an argument that multiple submissions from 'ordinary parents' may carry more weight?"

Difficult one! I'd suggest creating and submitting a position statement representing 'parents from MN' (could be signed by all who want to, perhaps).

Your offer to take on the job is very generous! I really hope I don't seem rude, but may I ask if you have background/expertise in this field?

Oh dear. I hope that I wasn't unclear in my previous post. I am happy to help any group that emerges with anything that might be required in terms of putting something together to submit to the committee, and if there was deemed to be a requirement for any division of labour, I would be happy to look at one discrete issue. I certainly do not consider myself to be adequately qualified or experienced to take on the whole job, nor would I be so arrogant as to swoop into the forum with any offer to do so, and am sorry if I inadvertently gave that impression! And no, I don't think you rude at all - it is a perfectly reasonable question to ask.

For the record, though, I am an ordinary parent who has had to navigate the SEN system for far too many years, with tribunals, threats of tribunals, LGO complaints, reviews thereof, and all sorts of other delights. I also happen to practise law, although in a field that is completely unconnected to education or public law, so in terms of expert knowledge and experience, mine is certainly no greater than other parents in my position.

It would be a pleasure to work with you again SNFather!

I think we need to decide if we want to bounce anything in the select committee for next week.

All possible contributors please post aye!

Just mulling things over, but What strikes me is that really, here, we are individuals.

Would it be sensible therefore to put together a MN general stance as guidance and to help formulate thinking and ideas but then respond individually either as well or instead?

Or individual groups even?

Just a thought that hasn't been properly thought through, but with the intention of strengthening the power of our contributions.

But I'm certainly up for involvement in a group effort. It's incredibly important.

Thank you, perfectly understood

It seems clear there will be a few/several core issues which most of us here, and elsewhere within the charity/campaigning sector, will agree on (eg duty to specify provision, independence of mediation services, securing servies etc). I think, therefore, that it won't make a huge amount of difference to submit individual or separate responses. But submitting a single response through this board which we could put our names to would probably mean more people would be respresented (as I think it likely that many of us I won't have time to submit our own).

So I'd vote for a single response.

If there are issues which are not covered by the single response there's nothing to stop anyone submitting their own one too, is there.

I'd also be happy to draft a position statement based on collated concerns, btw.

I'd be happy to support a group submission or write my own to my mp, but I am relatively inexperienced in this process so far, and ill at the moment and unable to sit at a computer for more than a few min (I'm planning to apply for SA for the first time once I am better in a few weeks). I would really appreciate the benefit of all the experience here, this seems too important to ignore, but I can't contribute as much to the debate as mamy of you.

appropriatelytrained - likewise, it will with you. I have commitments tonight, but will take a look tomorrow and at the start of the weekend.

Agnes, just read some of this thread and found your post to be really well written as usual and just wanted to say it sounds nothing like a sermon to me but more an honest and representative parental perspective of this board. Can't help with any submissions although I am writing my own as a parent who has encountered similar nastiness from our LA, particularly when i was employed by them and utilising the tribunal process to secure what my child needed.

Just to add - SNFather and I have done something similar before as a group response and it worked well.

I am sure those who wish to identify me can do so nd that I am outed already to those of you who know me - I was, until very recently, a legal advisor to a select committee. I can say that clearly thought out group responses which are personal enough to give a flavour of what happens in practice can really help busy MPs get to grips with key issues.

I am super busy this week but may have more time next.

I'm very worried about the fate of those children with average IQ + disabilities. This effectively ends the universal right of all children to a state education in practical terms.

The wording should be simple enough for an ordinary parent or LA employee to understand. That it isn't means a bonanza payday for laywers, at the expense of funds available to pay for frontline services; and a whole generation lost until the weight of case law establishes the ground rules for local authorities to follow once more.

I agree with delays in one area such as health not being permitted to cause delays across the whole support package. DS waited 4 years for a diagnosis.

The lack of accountability for failures by the various services also concerns me.

I had hoped the existing process would simply be streamlined & simplified so that more parents and LA staff could easily understand it. The only changes needed were improved accountability at every stage & especially for health services. Instead mediation and other measures just seem to be adding additional layers of complexity to an already intimidating process.

Sadly I see increasing numbers of ordinary IQ children disapearing from the system into a world of amateur "home education" as a result of the proposals due to the inevitably slow timescales required to obtain help.

Parents today just cannot afford to let a generation go to waste while case law clarifies the many points raised on this thread.

I'm very worried about what will happen with children with high IQ.
so for example if your dc is in an independent SS out of the area and is therefore costing your LEA £££, can the LEA then find a way to wriggle out of funding?

I also don't understand the references to average cognitive ability throughout this thread? For me , the big changes in the legislation were the introduction of the EHCP, the Local Offer idea, and the loss of specifying who can apply for SA. Review times seem to be annual - reasons for ceasing a plan are disappointingly linked to education - mediation will be compulsory before certain appeals - haven't found any direct reference to penalising parents or to 'types' of need?

HereBenson - if articulate and knowledgeable parents can't speak up on the behalf of parents, then who can? If articulate and knowledgeable parents are struggling to make sense of the draught - and of the responses by various charities and bodies - then how the hell can less confident, less articulate or less knowledgeable parents have the first clue where to begin to understand what their rights are going to be?

I only don't count myself as knowledgeable as many other parents here because my LA is pretty well behaved and the kids go to a lovely, supportive mainstream school. I'm possibly going to be moving one of the boys to a more specialist placement in the next year or so, and I'm sure that by then I will know enough about SEN law for you to consider me elitist, too.

I think the cognitive bit came up in the SOSE-SEN document. We need to look at the actual proposed Bill. I will try and do this at the weekend.

I seem to remember that the council for disabled children are trying to encourage people to write to their MPs as children without SEN will not be eligible for a plan. My understanding is that unless there are cognitive needs then the child won't be eligible. I will look for the link but am sure CDC wouldnt be raising this if it hadn't checked it out. Children with physical needs but no learning needs will not be eligible for example.

Similarly, presumably, EBD statements will not be replaced by a plan if there are no learning needs. Would this not also link into them trying to redefine by using terminology such as learning difficulties or disabilities rather than SEN?

I mentioned IQ in response to the SOS doc in the OP. I'd be really relieved if someone could clarify it as I'll happily admit my attempts at reading/understanding the source doc are just ending in confused befuddlement right now.

I don't comprehend the half of what they are on about, and honestly think that as I'm not daft, then LA employees are likely to struggle in the same way? This is not a good sign, as if they don't understand it how can they be expected to implement the new legislation effectively?

The high/ordinary IQ thing was mentioned in the SOSSEN report, but I don't think was based on the draught statement, but rather reports form elsewhere. Of course, it concerns me a lot, if this is true, since DS1 is twice exceptional.

2nd half of issue 1:

Even more concerning was a report by a well known Local Authority solicitor (who represents a number of Local Education Authorities) that training is being given to Local Authorities to the effect that they can now refuse the equivalent of a Statutory Assessment for any child who is of average cognitive ability. This would bring the practice of education in to line with the practice of Social Services, who frequently refuse help to disabled children who have an average cognitive ability.
In practice, this would suggest that cognitively able, (i.e. children of average abilities) with disabilities such as dyslexia, Asperger's Syndrome, visual impairment and hearing impairment to name but a few, will be excluded from the system. There is nothing in the Green Paper or any statement in the manifestos of either Party in the coalition, to indicate there was an intention to reduce parents? rights, to the equivalents of Statements of Special Educational Needs for these groups, although in practice, we are informed that is the training now being given to Local Authorities.