Good luck bjkmummy!

[inappropriatelyemployed]

It's tomorrow isn't it? Mucho good luck. Will be thinking of you.

Thinking of you. Hope you get some satisfaction from tomorrow as well as obviously a win.

Thinking of you for tomorrow - hope that justice prevails.

Sending you lots of luck and positive vibes for tomorrow :)

will be thinking of you tomorrow... you go girl :)

Will be thinking of you tomorrow.

Thinking of you especially today. Don't feel you have to come and update until you're properly recovered.....

Good luck today. HONK

Hope today is going well, fingers very tightly crossed for you

Hope it's gone well.
X

im not sure how it went - LA on the day conceded the Ot and SALT then when the head started to give evidence she just announced that the placement now being offered was something completely different. it all felt a bit of a mess, we didnt even have a clerk but the tribunal judge himself doing it. it all seems to be down to the cost of my placement as its 30k more. their head spoke for over an hour. the LA accepted my school could meet his needs so my head only spoke for 10 mins. i managed to get in how badly the school had let him down last time he was there before i removed him after 6 weeks but i just came away with a horrible gut wrenching pain in my stomach which i still have today - i am on the verge of tears all the time.

dont think it has helped that my EP has emailed me giving me advice re grounds of appeal if I lose. she has grave concerns about the costs the LA gave yesterday plus how they changed the placement whilst giving evidence - there was nothing that they had previously submitted re this placement so the heads evidence could be deemed as late evidence and the tribunal allowed the LA to do it.

im trying to put it all out of my mind - the case on the evidence was strong, my witnesses were good but i felt that the LA were given most of the time to argue their school placement. lots of promises were made but there was nothing in writing etc. i really have no idea which way this will go

Well, I hope the judge is sensible and sees through the LA's machinations, bjk. Holding your hand until you get the result.

I also felt the whole tribunal was a shambles. I have since thought that IA was lucky to have escaped it otherwise she'd have had a fit.

But, it's the only challenge we have and you were brave and tenacious. What more could any child with a disability want alongside the love of their parents. What you did counts for a lot, and those skills gained will help him in the future however this pans out.

What do you mean about the placement being changed? Did they offer an entirely different school? How could the head give evidence about it if that was the case?

the LA were going with him being in the mainstream of a school with 300 children with support of a specialist team - he would be in the mainstream full time - this was in writing. the school submitted its prospectus which was just a series of photos and made no mention of the specialist provison at all.
the school also has an ASD class where the children are quite severe and some are non verbal. as the head gave evidence she suddenly announced that she had made a mistake and the child she remembered when he was in her school 2 years ago before i removed after 6 weeks, was not the child that he was now and that he would be better placed in the asd class rather than the mainstream. they did a complete u turn on his placement. they only did this because the statement said he needed class sizes of less than 15 kids and if he went into the mainstream they would not be able to do this but by just announcing mid way through the tribunal he would go in the asd class then they could meets his needs for that part of the statement. the asd unit is unsuitable and the wording for this in the statement is wishy washy and the reality will be they will place him in the asd class and within days will farm him into the mainstream part of the school full time - there is nothing specified as to what support he would get except for the head teachers word taht he would be supported. other kids in the mainstream do not have 1:1 but shared TA support. it was a desperate act by the LA but im not sure if the tribunal would see straight through it

It is a lottery bjk and will depend on the experience and common sense of the panel. This waiting will be horrible for you but you have done so well to take it all the way.

fingers crossed bjk
sometimes i think if a panel have decided on indep they do give the LA alot of leeway at the hearing so the LA can't complain / appeal
certainly we felt the Panel were helping the LA out - they gave them a big steer about not specifying provision (but LA rep too thick to notice)
But we won on every point.
Obviously I was not there but its not always a bad sign if they let LA talk - the panel may have made up their minds before you walked in.
The Panel cannot issue an unspecified statement
Thats what we keep clinging on to when we walked out - they can't have won because they did not specify.
Costs would be irrelevant if the differential was more than marginal so its not surprising they did not spend much time on this.
If only one placement can meet need cost is not an issue

Have your experts been to the school, and have they seen the ASD unit? Were they able to comment on how that works? And did your representative object to the way they changed tack?

No we werent Represented so i feel that really let us down. The tribunal did ask my EP if she had been to the school and she said no as the LA had given no notice of this change to placement. The tribunal asked the LA EP when he knew when the LA had decide to go for the bit - he didn't answer the question.

Veritate The OP represented herself, as the literature and charities state that it is perfectly straightforward to do.

Sorry, I thought she'd mentioned somewhere having lawyers, my mistake. It does sound as if the tribunal got the point that by changing tack at the last minute the LA were acting unfairly - really they should at least have offered an adjournment so the EP could go and check it out, though I guess that's the last thing bjk would have wanted.