Parent comment to LEA durring assessment for statement - What do I say?

[MisForMumNotMaid]

I know I should be in education but I was hoping for more traffic here and I need to be getting on with this.

DS1 is 9, yr 4 on school action plus getting shared 1-1, behavioural therapy support, he's had occupational therapy support, he's diagnosed ASD and 'indicated' Dyspraxic, he's MAT for various subjects and now meant to be getting additional work for these areas. We are hoping to move to a different area before he gets to secondary school. One of the reasons is to get him into an Autism unit attached to a mainstream secondary school, others are we would have family support and long term the area has things like public transport/ things are in walking distance so he may have a greater chance of a degree of independent living.

We understand that unless he has a statement he doesn't have a chance of being in an Autism unit. We also understand that only a statement with cross county boundaries that he wouldn't get the support he's getting now.

Yet I believe that all this back story is not relevant for his assessment (he's been accepted for assessment, both school and parents requested). Should I include it anyway?

Are there any online guides that can walk me through what to include/ exclude?

SNAPCymru have offered to read what ever I write but at the moment I've got pages and pages of things I'd like to include but don't know which are the salient points that will actually be taken into account. Too much waffle, like this post!

Any pointers very gratefully received.

My Parental advice document was 28 pages long. If you think it's relevant, it is.

Hampshire gives this guidance and it's what I used for my Parental Advice.

I wrote loads, and I think it worked- issue for ds was that there wasn't a 'big enough' gap between his actual and potential performance - I stressed the emotional impact of his SEN, his poor self esteem and so on. It helped that he had a clear diagnosis of dyspraxia from a paed also

Thank you. That Hampshire guidance is fantastic. Just what I need headers to focus me.

It's also good to hear that loads is the way to go. The standard form I've been sent is one blank page.

No excuses now, need to actually make a start.

Oh god, loads. Include everything from birth to date.
I would also suggest using photographs if relevant. It makes the child seem 'real' rather than just another paperwork exercise to shuffle at evaluation.

We used Hampshire's.

Our parental advice was huge and the best advice I was given was to include everything, but make sure it's all clearly numbered, cross referenced and indexed.

Apparently in our LEA it's not unheard of for things to be completely ignored if they can't be found in a split second.

I numbered every single paragraph and emboldened and cross referenced anything and everything I thought was relevant. I also included lots of appendices, some of which had sub-appendices eg ds's class work which included examples of handwritten vs computer based work, samples of his feelings diary, copies of letters to the school about bullying etc. All of these were also clearly numbered and cross referenced.

We got SA and the statement on the first try, which I'm told is pretty unusual around here and I am sure that's down to the advice I had to make it foolproof and ridiculously easy to navigate.

Good points. I will use examples of DS's work. He is on 99th percent line for IQ yet at 9 his handwriting is often illegible, letters and numbers are the wrong way around etc. I have any emails to school tat should be relevant too.

I can, unfortunately, believe that LEA's ignore things if they aren't staring them in the face. I will endeavour to make sure everything is labelled and cross referenced.

Also, I think it helps to state your thoughts about his educational setting.

I concluded mine by telling the LA that whatever they did with DD1, it would cost them lots of money, but that if they spent a bit now, they might have to spend a bit less later. She was offered special school despite the fact that all profs said MS + 1:1, which would have been cheaper by a country mile.

You're right of course. DS with the right input and direction should be able to contribute to society in future years. Without it he potentially could be quite a significant cost. He is coasting at present. Being kept quiet / excluded rather than learning and being motivated.

Similar to my ds then MisForMum.

Ds1 is considered highly able academically, but has illegible handwriting, no spacing between his words, inconsistent letter size etc. I gave them examples of his class/written work and also examples of word he'd done at home and school on the computer, which demonstrated his potential, once the barrier of 'handwriting' was removed.

I used as many catch-phrases from the SENCOP as I could throughout my submission. Things like 'barriers to learning and achievement' and other 'buzz words/phrases'.