school being funny!

[nupurkumarika]

The school will not support me through the statementing process but they are accomodating enough to let my ABA tutors in to work with dc. They are quite helpful in that way. However, it was implied to me through my consultant (when she met them for the IEP meeting) that every private school has an assessment before kids are accpeted for reception and any child with a statement is not taken into this school and if I backed off from statementing, the HT is on the panel and she will make sure dc gets admission.

Regardless of this, dc is doing well right now under ABA and my consultant aims to make her 1:1 free by this September. But the home ABA programme will continue for the next 2 years.

I want to look at the practical possibilities of getting any sort of funding from the LEA. Am a bit confused in terms of what to do really....

Does the school have to declare number of statemented pupils anywhere?

You might well spend most of reception at tribunal fighting to get the statement anyway. Why not thank them for the offer of a place and say its up to LEA to decide if he's 'bad enough' for statement, and you'll let them know the outcome.

You dont need to decide now. You can get a statement removed quite easily by calling an emergency annual review on the grounds they don't need it... Or at the end of statutory assessments you can tell the LA you'd be happy with an informal advice document instead, ie a 'note in lieu'

starlight...the school does not have to declare statemented kids anywhere. they do not want the extra paperwork. they do not want to spoil their relations with the LEA but cos' they are stuck with a super-bitch like me breathing down their neck, they are stuck. dd is doing well but only with the support of my tutors....nursery workers were shocked to hear dd talk in sentences.

the school is very clever. it never says anything illegal to me.

my feeling is that they will be ok once the statementing is done and I know dd will be able to clear assessments as she has cleared in other private schools recently on her own.

but yes, my tension is if school do not support, how will I get dd statemented?

If you want dd to go this school, are you confident of what support they can offer her if she doesn't have a statement? Or do you think she doesn't need support?

Just one tiny thing to consider, as we were in a similar position just before ds started school. Our ABA consultant also said he was confident ds didn't need ABA support at school beyond halfway through Reception. I actually didn't agree with him so kept it going.

We are now in Y1 and ds has a TA who 'looks out for him', and is kind of ABA trained. Although it's not an ABA shadow as such, and ds definitely doesn't require 1-1 input, I am happy with this as she is more like a well-trained classroom assistant who keeps a special eye out for ds, takes data as required, comes to our ABA workshops at home etc. Tbh even though ds is very 'high functioning' and probably could get through school without this support, I will continue to fight to make sure he keeps this as I know he needs it (eg he can appear focussed when he's actually drifting away, and needs social support). So the ABA consultant might be confident but imho you may want to make your own mind up about that.

So (long winded, sorry) you may want to bear this in mind when choosing schools - if you go private bear in mind they are not obliged to offer any support at all, so you need to be absolutely sure that in say a year's time dd will definitely not need support. And tbh (again imho) I don't think you can predict that.

I think you are right bialy...esp with your last comment. I cannot predict if dd will not need support in a year's time. I think she may - it is after all a disorder - and they need all the support they can get. The school was not agreeing to ABA before and they agreed when I pushed back.