Boring question about statements

[LadyIsabellaWrotham]

Thanks partly to some great help from knowledgable people on this board ( ) DS's Statement has just come through. I have to respond, saying we accept it (which we do) and our choice of school to be named on the statement. DS is in year 4.

So I guess we name his existing school (which is fab) for now, is that right? When do we get it changed to the appropriate secondary school? How do we go about that?

If you're happy with his present school then name that. The statement will be reviewed each year and you will be asked to make a parental contribution to that as well as attend a meeting to discuss the statement. When the time comes to consider secondary schools you should visit them, talk to his SENCO about appropriate choices, it's a long process of consideration and planning for the transition. When you've decided on a secondary school and he's git a place it will automatically go in his statement at the next review.

You will start having reviews of the statement at least annually, which entail the preparation of reports about ds followed by a meeting at the school. You would normally start discussing secondary school at the year 5 annual review, and the LA must issue a new statement naming the secondary school by mid February in year 6.

can i just add that if it is a special school and has a secondary school element then you might not get the opportunity to change, and the lea will not automatically change the statement. In our area the child automatically carries on into secondary school and we had a fight to get the statement updated - even tho it was done when he was 3 and no amendments had been done since.

Thanks all.

I didn't know about the annual review, so now it all makes sense. Current school is mainstream, we're keeping open minds about secondary, I don't know yet what the local special secondary schools are like for high IQ HFA children, but with the statement comes access to the local autistic support centre, and I hope they'll have good experience they can share with us, and will be able to compare DS with other children who have/have not thrived in mainstream schools.

Just to say, Lara2 isn't quite correct in saying that, once you have decided on a secondary school and your child has been offered a place that will automatically go on the statement. It still needs the LA's agreement, and they may not agree if they think the school will be too expensive, for instance. If that is the case you might have to appeal to the tribunal to try to get the school you want. That's why it's very important to hold them to the mid February deadline, to make sure you've got time for the appeal to be heard well before the beginning of the next school year.

That's great OP. have you had someone check through the wording?

Ds had 'access to' 20 hours of 1:1 which sounded great until it never materialised. When question we were informed that 'access to' meant he woukd have access to the class TA for up to 20 hours as and when the class teacher thought it appropriate, which incidentally was never as there were more disruptive children in the classroom.

I'm going to make an appointment to talk to the SENCO next week for her to explain it to me. It looks to me like we've got 20 hours of which only 5 is actually additionally funded by the LA, but I'm pretty happy with the way he's supported by "his" TA at the moment - it's the support from the autism outreach centre and the choice of secondary schools which means more to us.

I stand corrected Veritate - . That was my experience, but that was obviously because the LA didn't have a problem with the choice.

I would not rely solely on a senco to check the wording of this document. Would instead run it past one of the charities like SOSSEN or IPSEA re the wording of parts 2 and 3 in particular.

All provision has to be both specified and quantified as per case law; if it is not it needs to be rejected.

Parts 2 and 3 are the most important bits of this document and they have to be bang on now because once you agree the content, its damn nigh impossible to get it readily altered.