Special needs as a result of a brain tumour - school unhelpful

[whathasthecatdonenow]

Sorry this is long.

My niece had a brain tumour when she was five. She is now eight. Most was removed in an emergency op, but a small part remains and her brain is still mostly squashed up on one side. We were told she was unlikely to make a full recovery, but she has astounded everyone with how well she has done. Walking and talking with just some right-sided weakness. However, she finds school work extremely challenging. She has issues with double-vision and finds concentrating on more than one thing at once impossible e.g. she cannot write the date and title whilst listening for her name in the register. Verbally she is very bright, but can barely read.

School have been less than helpful. She has not been assessed for a statement despite the hospital recommending this (she has 3 monthly scans/assessments) and when challenged by my sister they said they hadn't bothered in the past as they didn't expect her to survive. This was deeply upsetting for my sister as never had anyone even suggested that she might die. Now my niece's reports are stating that she is lazy and the school's only response to her needs is a nurture group once a week.

My sister has a meeting with the SENCO later this week after mentioning complaining to the governors. She has asked me to go along as I am a teacher (but I'm secondary and my school would never be so crap about Special Needs). I think I need to insist on a proper assessment of my niece's needs and threaten with governors and local authority if this doesn't take place.

I would be really grateful if anyone could offer any advice on how to approach this meeting? It breaks my heart to see her being treated by the school as lazy and dare I say 'thick' when she has suffered so much in her short life.

Had some good advice from the Child Brain Injury Trust helpline, so feeling more confident now. Meeting is on Friday, so I'll update then.

Veritate, the website states that the class teacher is Mr X, but the class is taught all Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings by Mrs Y. Looking at the staffing list on the website, Mrs Y is a HLTA, employed to do PPA cover. Mrs Y is the one who does a lot of shouting and calling my niece lazy.

Looks like a lot of PPA. Bet they are all fighting for Mr x's job!

Hope the meeting goes well on Friday x

Mr X is ironically the SENCO, and KS2 leader, hence the extra time out of class.

Is that the whole of Monday and Tuesdays plus Wednesday and Thursday mornings - i.e. 3 days a week? That's appalling. They're using her as a cheap teacher. Children are supposed to be taught by qualified teachers, with TAs there simply to support the teacher. Yes, there will be times when they provide cover but that's only short term. To have a TA timetabled to teach the entire class 60% of the time is very dodgy indeed. I really think this has to be taken up with the governors and the local authority.

You could request (strongly) a CAF (Common assessment framework) assessment to be dome by the school to get the ball rolling. CAFs are a way of identifying unmet need in a more general sense but it does bring an obligation on the school to arrange meetings with parents and other agencies involved in order to ensure needs are met. The CAF meeting could be the place to insist that an education statement is done. CAFs are a national thing and a school would have to have a damned good reason to refuse to do one. I'd suggest requesting it when you speak to the SENCO (or whoever is speaking to the SENCO). The school has a duty to ensure that the child's educational needs are being met and they are failing to do that.
I would consider getting heavy on their ass if they continue to fail to do the necessary - make a formal complaint to the board of governors and then to the local education authority.

In that case, I would almost be wording a strong letter to the C of G, copied to the LEA, pointing out the irony of this, and making a formal complaint about the class being taught by an HLTA for the majority of the time.

Unacceptable, notwithstanding the issues with dn.

A very small part of me found the irony a teeny bit amusing in a schadenfreude manner though. I know that's not helpful, and it's exactly the sort of twattish Defence they will use - but her teacher is the senco.

Copy all of your letters to HT, C of G, and LEA. Start a file.

Aren't academies allowed to use anyone they want as a pretend unqualified internally trained "teacher"? Like free schools and private schools?

I would be so very tempted to thank them profusely for allocating Mrs y as her 3day/ week 1-1 HLTA, but suggesting it's unfair on her to be covering for the class teacher at the same time.

We had a similar problem. DS had medulloblastoma when he was 8. His primary school were fantastic but when he went up to high school they just decided to ignore it and all the info we gave them, including an information sheet from the hospital designed for schools about the effects of the tumour itself, surgery and radiotherapy re short term memory loss and IQ points.

His school didn't have a SENCO for the first 2 years and I can still remember having to explain over and over to teachers and year heads about DS's problems. Yet still he got detentions for forgetting to do things when he wasn't given any extra support for anything, particularly in writing things down that he needed to do before the board was wiped clean and the class dismissed, called stupid, thick etc. Oh and a wimp by the PE teachers cos he wasn't allowed to play contact sports cos of the bit of skull missing from the back of his head.

I spoke to his oncologist who referred him to the paediatric clinical pyschologist. I note you have been there but our oncologist and PCC didn't just write recommending a statement referral, they wrote a stonkingly brilliant letter to the Head, copying in the LEA, about how disgraceful their treatment of DS was, how the lack of a SENCO was shocking and asking how they could explain punishing a brain injured child for issues that were symptoms of his illness and treatment. Thankfully his school did step up to the mark and although DS was never statemented he did eventually receive the help he needed.

Could you perhaps talk to his oncologist/clinical psychologist and ask them to send a more assertive letter and cc in the LEA, Board of Governors? I hoped things would've improved since the late 90s but obviously not.

mariamama it isn't an academy, so the use of a HLTA for so much class teaching is not on really. I only discovered that she wasn't a teacher by looking at the staffing list on the website.

Glittery that is terrible. I teach secondary and I have to say we are good at providing for those with additional needs. There is an inclusion unit as well as special forms in mainstream for those with significant additional needs, staffed by specialists, and then regular information dissemination for those of us who teach children with SEN who are not severe enough to warrant the special forms.

My niece has been upset this week as she has been kept in at break for not having finished work. Work that she can't understand or access. I don't understand how they can be so unfeeling. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I treated any child this badly, let alone one who has been through two major operations and chemotherapy. I tried helping her with her maths homework on mymaths last night and it is completely undifferentiated for her. She is struggling to add and subtract and it was multiplying fractions.

God whathasthecatdonenow knowing what your secondary school can do must make it so much harder watching your niece struggle and be treated so unfairly.

I would definitely get your DSis to go back to the oncologist and PCP. This really shouldn't be new to them considering the huge geographical areas and LEAs they have to cover. Your DSis needs to make it clear to them that your DN is not getting the help she needs and that she needs them to ramp it up because the school isn't doing what they should and that your DN is being punished for things outside her control.

Again, I doubt having to do that will be new to them. And if they are that crap I am happy to share the transcript of the letter the PCP sent to DS's school so they can copy it.

Just back from the meeting. Apparently they were shocked at how many difficulties we were telling them she had (despite regular reports from Christies). She stares into space a lot was an interesting gem from the SENCO and class teacher. I kindly pointed out to him that it could be because she has absence seizures, which they were informed of in writing. They think she is happy because she is always smiling. I had to point out that she smiled through at least 3 years of a brain tumour before it was spotted, all of her operations and chemo as well. She smiles as a defence mechanism when she doesn't understand what to do.

The head teacher was present as well and said that the local authority do not issue statements. I said I'd be surprised if that were the case as legally they cannot do that. He agreed but said they would need to be threatened with legal action. I told him that we would worry about that and that we wanted the process started.

We have agreement for an ed psych assessment asap, and on the basis of that we will be applying for a statutory assessment ourselves.

He couldn't defend her last report which was a mass of contradictions and had to apologise for that. I took notes and got him and the SENCO to sign them so if nothing moves forward I have proof of what we were promised.

Thank you for all of your help. I left them with a copy of 'Must Try Harder' so I hope they actually watch it.

Well done. Now you get to make sure they follow up. When are they expecting EP assessment to take place?

Form will be completed this weekend for my DSis to sign on Monday. Ed Psych is in about another student on Tuesday so will be given form again. Assessment expected early Jan, so if no movement by end of Jan complaint will be going in to both governors and LA. School were left in no doubt that we will do this if necessary. They have a chance to put things right, but they only have one chance.

Great news. I do think that once a setting is in no doubt about strength of advocacy, then there's a good possibility that they'll manage to get stuff moving. Sad that it isn't par for the course, but hopefully things will move quickly to get support in place, now. X

If there's any recurrence of her being punished for the effects of her disability, mention the words "disability discrimination" to the school. The prospect of being taken to the tribunal themselves might make them try a bit harder.

Good point veritate.

They both sat there saying that they didn't know about her double vision, her headaches/nausea etc, despite it all being included in reports from Christies. Communication is apparently the key - a nice way of trying to put the blame on DSis I felt. As we had copies of all the communication, it didn't work. I had to explain about 5 times that just because she has been told to do something doesn't mean that she can do it. Sometimes she forgets instantly, turning her head from the whiteboard to her work makes her forget etc. I honestly felt they didn't know her at all.

One chance and one chance only is our mantra now. Interesting point you raise there, Veritate - I will keep that in mind!

The more I hear the more I think your DN needs another school. This bunch sound awful :(

I agree narmada but DN cries and gets anxious at the thought of it. She does have some friends there and is terribly worried about starting again. She has little in common with the average 8 year old girl, other than a love of Justin Bieber, so it will be hard for her to make new friends.

Yes, I can deffo see that :) and friends are v important. And kids can be cruel as they get older, especially to newbies and newbies who are a little bit different in some way.

The head sounds like a right drip doesn't he? Altho at least he had the decency to apologise fir one of the school's seemingly many mistakes.

How does the school fare in ofsted/ results? Know these measures have Tgeir own issues but was just interested.

Yes, I can deffo see that :) and friends are v important. And kids can be cruel as they get older, especially to newbies and newbies who are a little bit different in some way.

The head sounds like a right drip doesn't he? Altho at least he had the decency to apologise for one of the school's seemingly numerous mistakes.

How does the school fare in ofsted/ results? Know these measures have Tgeir own issues but was just interested.

Sorry don't know where that random smiley came from at all .....

School got a 'Good' at the start of the academic year, but to be honest as I teacher I am well aware that Ofsted reports are rarely worth the paper they are written on. Head has only been there 18 months and is widely acknowledged in the playground to be ineffectual.

Hopefully they have more of an idea of the extent of DN's difficulties now. I told them to think of her like a 5 year old rather than an 8 year old and that seemed to be a novel idea to them.

Ineffectual sounds about right :( what a shame he is relatively new. Let's hope he leaves sooner rather than later....