Sm hours - is this unusual?

[badgerparade]

Am trying to find a school for ds who has very complex needs (LA is saying that any mainstream school will be able to provide the necessary support). I called a school (with a unit) to make an appointment and was asked about his difficulties and if he had a sm. I said that he had one with full time hours so was asked if that was for 15 or 20 hours.When I explained it was over 34 hours the Senco was rather stunned and said that she had never known a child to have that many hours of support. Surely there are other children in ms with full support? After visiting another local school I am getting the feeling that no-one will want to take him on.

I know quite a few DC with SM in my town and the maximum I personally know of is 28 hours and this is for a DC with both physical needs and learning difficulties. A full week, including breaks and lunchtime is 31 1/4 hours in my school. Usually a DC with full time needs would be in a SS. At my DS's secondary they run a breaktime and lunchtime 'club' so full time support is 'only' 26 hours.

DS has 35 (only in school part time, rest is home ABA, but all school hours covered with 1:1)

EllenJane I also agree that children with full time support would perhaps be more suited to ss. I think that a specialist school would be best for ds but there are none in the county so apparently the plans are to create a package of support to enable him to cope in ms. He needs small class sizes though so not sure how they will manage that in a large school

So MS isn't what's appropriate, it's just all that's available? Too many special schools closed over the last decade due to a badly implemented policy of 'inclusion' that seemed to be more about saving money than meeting children's needs.

Sorry, rant over as that's not going to help you. Have you looked at the private sector? The trouble with small village schools, for example, is that they lack experience. Bigger schools can actually be better, but won't give you the class sizes you need. How is the school with the unit organised? That sort of thing may be a good compromise, expertise and small groups, yet still with MS role models?

I have a visit to the unit arranged so will see how it works. With regard to expertise, there is none in any of the schools as his condition is quite rare so training will also have to be provided for all staff that work with him. Have seen an independent school with experience of children with his needs but it's expensive.

Badger - my ds had 32 hours 1 to 1 support when he was at ms.

We had to fight to move him to a unit. School and LA wanted to keep him at ms even with that amount of support (and SALT and OT and Autism Outreach etc).

DS has 25 hours which the LA class as a full statement of hours, but school are funding the remainder for full time support.

If they are going to receive the funding for it why is it so difficult to accept him I wonder.

DS has 27 in statement but in reality school top it up to at least 30 of the 32.5 hours he's in school (with the exception of a blip at the start of this term). He's MS.

I think you have to need at least 15 to even qualify for a statement in this LA & lord knows what you need to do to qualify for SS (one of the reasons I intend to home ed past year 6 tbh).

In some cases hours provided are additional to those in school to allow for the TA to prep specialised teaching materials & resources for the VI etc in mainstream. Obviously these cases are few & far between. It's important to remember the length of the school day varies from institution to institution too. I was really shocked to discover one local bog standard comp has a school week of only 27.5 hours recently, (not my idea of full time to finish at 2pm daily!) so you are sometimes comparing apples and pears with regards to "full-time" support.

My son is in mainstream, has 23 hours on his statement but has a 1:1 full-time at school including lunch and break time (33.75 hours)

It is looking like there are two choices you could make.

Either visit every ms school and ask them to give their reasons writing why they cannot support your son. Then visit a SS out of county that you feel can support and name that school as the beat school for your ds nearing in mind it may be a case of a long days travel for him or a possible move for you?

Or pick a ms school that you feel best suits which is hard to do if they are refusing to take your ds but the LA will choose one anyway and can insist they take him by naming them on the statement wether they like it or not.

I don't envy you at all what a dilemma x