Advise on speech and language support please

[kalpamum]

Hi, I am new to this site 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. Thank you for reading my lengthy wording and I hope to get some replies.

I think you need to look at the wording in the statement first of all and see how things are written. Words such as "access to" and "consideration given to" will be much harder to enforce than "DD will be given x hours of support in specific area y" If there is provision listed that is not being given and isn't wooly worded then you need to put in writing to the SENCO and head of year/head teacher that you expect that specific provision to be in place in 7 days otherwise you will take it to the local authority. The LA have the ultimate responsibility to ensure that provision is put in place, so if it doesn't happen then you go to the LA and give them 2 weeks to rectify the situation otherwise you threaten judicial review. If however you have wooly wording then life is harder to get things enforced. You need to sit down with the SENCO in school and try and work out what they can do to assist your daughter and how they are going to comply with the statement further despite the fact they will try and wriggle out of anything. You can also consider calling an early annual review. In that case you get the statement reviewed and hopefully tightened up, but even if the LA do not agree to doing this you then get the right of appeal. You can then move to tribunal to get the provision put in that is needed, assuming you can prove the need from the reports and assessments that have been done.

Before you do too much I would strongly advise taking a look at the IPSEA website and then having a chat with them about the finer details of your specific case and they can point you further in the right direction.

Hi beautifulgirls. Thank you for your reply. Yes the statement is very woolly, I think at the time I was relieved that we achieved getting a statement. We have had a meeting at school with SENCO and head of year. They believe that they are supporting all of DD?s needs within the curriculum and say that DD has not got the time to do extra interventions on top of her time table. We have sent another letter stating what we agreed with Primary school needed intervention when we met with the Ed psychologist. Now High school has removed all this.

Has anyone had a child with similar speech and language difficulties to guide me as to what support they are getting. I feel that the Speech and language therapist will go along with school saying she does not need one to one support; as there is no time. I do feel that in this case I need to get statement amended to dis apply DD from some curriculum timetable such as MFL as she is not getting to grips with this subject at all.
Thanks

I don't have any experience of what has to happen with statements, so I am not too sure what they are supposed to provide, but I can tell you what my daughter gets in her state school (no statement but pretty near the boundary). My 11 year old DD has just had an ed psych report with dyslexia, dyscalculia and speech/language problems and the school response is to put her on School Action Plus. It has taken the school forever to catch up - primary were much more on the ball. Nothing got passed on and she actually passed the school dyslexia/dyscalculia screening (which I find absolutely unbelievable, quite honestly - don't think they are very good). She is finally getting additional literacy support (one 1-1 a week, when she is pulled out of a Humanities lesson), has approval for laptop hire, maths is nowhere, and she is supposed to get some assistance from the TA whose main role is to work with 2 children who have statements. There are also instructions to all class teachers to provide her with a vocabulary list. So some support but not great. To be honest even with some TA support there is not enough to tackle her literacy & language issues. Personally I do not think it is possible to deliver it in-class - her ed psych states that in english and maths she needs 1-1 and a differentiated curriculum. So yeah. Arrange a review, go back to the ed psych if need be. The language support sounds useless. Good luck, hopefully someone else more expert will chime in.

I think I have replied on your other thread. They CAN take your DD out of MFL - my DD doesn't even HAVE a statement, she is 'only' on SA+, and she dropped MFL halfway through Y7 to make time for her additional support.

So it CAN be done, even for a child WITHOUT a statement, because my DD's Secondary has done it!!

Thanks MerryCouthyMows. Can I ask what support she is getting, how many hours a week. would be nice to have in my mind what I need to be asking for.

I think she gets 15 hrs a week, but a lot of that now is floating TA support, she is also in very small classes.

I think that is the maximum she can get on SA+, and the school has always said that she needs the maximum, because they feel that she should have a statement but even the school couldn't get the LA to even agree to assess for one!

I am just struggling to get my head round what level of support an MS school should provide. SLT provided a plan with one to one support, school saying DD does not have the time to do programs/intervension. Don't know whether to leave things as they are or challenge for support, am I asking for too much. I am getting tired of having to battle for every thing, but I can't continue to try and tackle all extra support at home, DD is exhausted on an evening now she is as High school and has school homework to complete which is a long drawn out process.

Kalpa I hear your frustration, it sounds exhausting. School cannot argue that it 'does not have time' for these interventions e.g. SALT because if it did, she would not have a statement!

However the LA are ultimately responsible for delivery and it sounds like the wording of the statement needs looking at to make it specific/explicit. I suspect the best thing to do is look at the statement and you could do this by calling for annual review, initially.

Good luck x