SALT advise please

[kalpamum]

Hi, I am new this and decided to join as this site has given me great inspiration to battle on with school and LA for a statement for my DD. To start with sorry this is lengthy!! My DD moved up to secondary school this year and we received a statement of education just weeks before she left primary school. Severely Dyslexic, with many difficulties - working memory, Auditory processing in the lowest 1%ile, language. Also VMI & Motor skills low. Vestibular and sensory difficulties and a physical hand tremor. At primary we had a good I.E.P supporting all areas, now we hardly have anything!

Putting to one side ALL my moans and groans regarding school not providing the support that is on the statement (school getting out of this by saying things are supported within the curriculum). She should have 12.5hrs support, at the moment pulled out to do workshark and Lexia once a week with 10 other children. School state support is in class with a TA, the TA in class mainly is working with another child with behavioral issues. DD states she does not get any support and strategies that are on statement are not happening.
One area I would like some advise on is the statement has on it that ?Implementation of specific strategies to help her develop her communication skills, the speech and language Therapy can offer guidance and advise to support this?. DD had a speech and language assessment and they provided a plan with strategies and one to one program for school and home.
Oral expression bottom 5-25% raw score
Giving direction 14%ile (7yr old)
Listening Comp 16%ile
Understanding sentence structure 2%ile
Linking words together 25%ile
Vocabulary 25%ile

Therapist put together a pack to work through including the Black Sheep press Pragmatic/Semantic program. My DD only had 2 sessions on this at primary before she left. New school now has decided that she is at her ?Articulated level? and does not need any one to one support (his was without any further assessment). So far she has been given a book to write vocab in that she doesn?t understand and then she is to go and find the meaning by herself. She has had this for 3 months now and nothing in it as DD says she can?t remember the word to write it down whilst a teacher is talking.
I have rung the therapist for advice, she spoke to school and has come back to me saying that she is going to give school some advice on how to support DD but this can be in class strategies. This is probably because school has given the same answer to her as they do me; that there is no time to pull her out of lessons to give her any one to one support.

Does anyone have any advice please on what kind of support my DD should be getting and should I be fighting for some one to one support. I can?t believe that support can be provided only within classroom strategies when a child is 5 yrs behind in some areas.

That's a blanket policy, which is illegal. See if you can get the quote in writing then ring IPSEA or SOS:SEN for advice.

The school CAN pull your DD out of lessons to provide that support. They CAN, and my own DD is a case in point.

My DD is in Y10. She dropped MFL halfway through Y7. The school uses the lessons that are timetabled for other children in her year to provide her with additional support.

So they are LYING if they say it cannot be done, because my DD's Secondary has done it, and IS doing it, for my DD. (she now gets pulled out of random lessons as she didn't choose MFL as an option, but the school are careful to avoid pulling her out of practical sessions in Catering, Science and textiles!)

It's only since she has got to Y10 and obviously didn't choose MFL as an option that it has got slightly harder for them to offer that support - but they do it in conjunction with liaising with her class teachers though we are having ongoing issues with the Mat leave cover teacher in Catering since October, which I am rectifying next week.

I would argue that you KNOW it is possible.

The school my DD is at asked me who h lesson I would most prefer her to be pulled out of to offer her this support. MFL was my choice because DD was totally unable to access the curriculum in that subject, was making NO progress, and tbh, I'd rather she could speak and write ENGLISH, her first language, than bloody French!!

The school are, I'm afraid, talking bollocks when they say that they can't pull her out of a lesson to provide this support, because OTHER SCHOOLS DO.

And yes, I WOULD quote that blanket policies are illegal, as per MareeyaDolores' advice. Because it's true.

They aren't LEGALLY allowed to set a limit of no support unless 3/4/5 years behind. Because it's a blanket policy. And blanket policies are illegal.

Or of no support outside the classroom unless X amount of years behind. My last post wasn't clear on that!

I forgot to say on this thread - my DD doesn't even HAVE a statement - she is 'only' on SA+.

And she STILL dropped MFL halfway through Y7 to fit in her additional support!!

Thanks for your replies MerryCouthyMows. I was wondering what support your DD was getting in yr 7. Although we have a statement stating support for literacy, Maths, Memory, Language, hand writing, fine motor skills, sensory and vestibular activities; the only support I can see is one hour a week sat in front of a computer doing Lexia reading and Wordshark for spelling! (lexia not working IMO as her listening comp is low and very poor auditory skills) School have told us that all teachers are aware of statement and a document has been produced with strategies, but I don't get to see this and have seen very little evidence of anything happening i.e each subject teacher to give DD vocab list at beginning of topic, TA to go over previous lesson to ensure understanding. I have raised with school I am not happy that DD only doing 2 English lessons and 3 MFL when behind on own language, she is pulled from the third English lesson which is Drama/reading to do Lexia and work shark, but have been told there is no way she would be pulled out of MFL. IMO it is rather ludicrous that a child with speech and language difficulties is pulled from a drama lesson, as this lesson would benefit her immensely.

I never got a very clear idea of what she was doing, because she was only on SA+. All I know is that she started Y7 working on p-scales, and now in Y10, she is working between lvl 3-4 in all subjects. Might only be a 10yo lvl at 15yo - but at 11yo she was working at a 4yo lvl...so she has not only made a years progress every year, but she has also made another year's progress on top over the 3.5 years there.

Not brilliant, but better than I ever hoped for when she started Y7!