tribunal and mediation - had the phone call

[bjkmummy]

tribunal now 26 days away - LA informed me yesterday in writing at 4.30pm that my school choice cannot meet his needs and they are moving to name a manistream school. he cannot cope in the mainstream hence hes out of school. teh school they are proposing is twice the size of current school. i wanted an asd special school but they say cannot meet his needs.

all reports state he needs a specialist school placement.

i managed to pull of a miracle yesterday and today a independent school came to see him at home. they can meet his needs but i will not know i=until monday if they will have a place, if they say yes will apply to amend my school choice, if no will apply to postpone to try and find another specialist placement.

got a phone call earlier, havent responded, from LA solciitor saying they want to mediate. as far as they are concerned their rubbish school only one on table , have no idea what we are doing so i dont want to speak to them until monday once i know our position.

it seems abit late to mediating if im honest and im going to struggle to do it with 26 days to go as my son is currently out of school! i have nothing to say to them - the mainstream school they suggest have made it clear he is going in a mainstream class and will never access the autism class. every single report says he needs a specialist placement with less than 15 children in the class. he has huge anxiety and sensory isses as wel as his autism

Say yes happy to mediate but would have preferred to have done it sooner and avoided tribunal registering. However, given that you ARE in a tribunal situation, would like to do the mediation via email and coukd they please start by sending you the goddamn working document.

they sent the working document back yesterday. in part 6 they had put the therapy from both Ot reports but in the one that has come back they have strangely taken out all the therpy in part 6 from their report - this is due to their report therapy only able to be done at a specialist placement.

working document still been done wrong - they have now written on the side why they disgaree with amendments - they are trying to argue this placement is a special school placement??? its a mainstream school with a asd class which the school are refusing to place my son in as he is verbal - the school have putting in writing he will be in the mainstream full time - how can tehy say its a special school placement???

Why can't the special school meet his needs. Is it because he is too severe, or because they are saying he is too capable?

TBH, I would still ask the tribunal to grant an extention. I know that you want it over with but don't fall at the final hurdle by placing him anywhere that will accet him purely because it isn't the shit placement the LA are proposing.

My special school can't meet his needs because of the OT - that do not have the equipment on site and he needs more than they can offer. The stumbling part is the LA OT report! Hence why they are now trying to get it out of the working document. The 2nd school LA consulted a generic special school said no which now leaves this mainstream place that they are trying to tell me is a special school which isn't and he's in the mainstream full time. They also don't have the OT on site or any equipment but were twittering that they would buy it in if necessary and they have quotes for it.

The school today is one we considered back in may. It is a very well renowned school for asd in our area. My lea send children there already . The only reason we didn't peruse it was because we found the other school and it was cheap and could meet his needs and thought LA would snatch our hands off but as the LA rejected our OT report and got their own, it is this report that has caused the issue. The school today have all the therapy on site and can meet all of his needs. It's expensive but every report says specialist placement so no way the mainstream school can meet his needs but as theLA have consulted school before the working document finalised the mainstream school do not know about all the additional reports and of course the LA have not shown them to them. They are going into the working document as we speak now that we have finally got it back

'My special school can't meet his needs because of the OT - that do not have the equipment on site and he needs more than they can offer.'

So why can't he have the OT off-site?

Well it sounds then that you ought to persue this new school.

I wonder how much he genuinely needs the expensive specialist equipment (which your OT never mentioned). Desirable doesn't mean essential... and he's only entitled to an adequate education, not an optimal one .

Having a last-minute OT report done, which suggests quite generous quantified and specified provision, over and above what you'd asked for... is deeply suspicious not typical. Including every scrap of their advice in part 2 and then writing part 3 to insist on the one thing that your preferred school can't do is even more suspicious unusual.

There are usually several treatment options which offer similar results. Some expensive, some quite cheap. My granny called it having more than one way to skin a cat . As you know, private and LA professionals are obliged to work together and share information. And tribunal is obliged to look at value for money. If the two OTs could find common ground on options for equipment and provision your problem might vanish

So if expensive new-school does this expensive OT,
with your good arguments against the unsuitable mainstream
you might find the LEA suddenly decide to compromise....

i dont think he does need it hence why my OT report didnt put it in my report. the LA rejected my report and got their own for 'balance' their report mentions this therapy.

my shcool choice then said couldnt meet his needs last week due to needing this therapy so spoke to my OT and she said speak to the school and say you are happy to take it out of the working document. spoke to school again and he was happy then behind my back last week he wrote to the LA again and said no still couldnt meet his needs so that how i ended up with no school placement. i think in hindsight he was looking for a reason - i dont know why - disappointed he felt the need to do it without speaking to me first.

my latest OT report still doesnt recommend this therapy but does say that it is helpful and i guess that what she will say at tribunal

the OT actually is a side issue - the main issue now is that the LA have named a mainstream school - he is out of his current school as he cannot cope - this next school is twice the size! all the reports including the oT say he needs a specialist school place with class sizes less than 15 kids so the mainstreasm school proposed cant meet his needs - yes my new expensive school has the oT stuff available but my main thing now is a school that can meet his needs not just the LA trying to plonk him in the school that they plonk all the other kids in to save money

Are the SS and LA working together to get OT as an add-on thereby making ms workable? And therefore not requiring school to have any OT resources!?

Btw, the SS might not have written the letter. It is possible and likely the LA wrote it and insisted HT signed it.

If this is true and an example of the underhanded-ness then you defo want independent.

i think you need to focus on the key issue whih is that mainstream is not suitable and that you need a specialist placement. if all the evidence supports this including a failed mainstream placement then you need to keep the LEA and the tribunal focused on this point. If the only schools on the table are the mainstream proposed by the LA and the independent one then your focus should be to prove why the LA option is inadequate. Keep in mind it's not about the best its about being adequate to meet his needs. Be careful they and the tribunal don't get side tracked by the OT.

good advice cansu. i have emailed their solcitor today and have asked them to put the request for mediation in writing to me to consider. have also asked what they would like to mediate about. i stated that as all the reports say he needs a specialist school placement then that is what we are persuing. will wait and see what they come back with next week - if they do come back to me of course i have careful to make sure that i come across as the reasonable parent. im miffed because i have done nothing but try and mediate all the way through this since march last year. even had a meeting in july before we lodged teh papers to desperately try and resolve it