Advice - Go it alone Statement application

[SallyBear]

A friend of DS3's has HFA and Dyspraxia. He was dx last year, but is only on SA+ at the Mum's insistence. School haven't even done any IEPs and he leaves class twice a week to work on social stories. His parents feel that he is slipping further behind, and that the school se hesitant to do anything. She decided last week to apply for her DS to our LA for a statement. I've told her that its all about evidence to support the application, Health Professionals reports etc. but if the school have no evidence themselves to support her application I am worried that this will end in disaster. I have forwarded to her PDF copies of the Code of Practice, anything else that she needs to do?????

I would also mention IPSEA's website if you have not already told her about this www.ipsea.org.uk. There are also model letters on there re the statement request that she can use.

Your friend will need to write to the Chief Education Officer at the LEA (council will give her the name) and she will need to give them six weeks to reply (she should note that date on her calendar).

I am not an expert but I have heard that lack of evidence can support getting statutory assessment. The school will be asked for evidence and they should have some from assessments.

Hi Sally

If she hasn't already done so, she needs to make a list of all the interventions/allowances that school makes for her ds3, eg early start/late start, early finish/late finish, sensory breaks, extra time to complete work, quiet space, etc.

Sometimes schools make allowances as a matter of course for some children, and when put together makes good evidence that a child needs extra help.

If attendance is an issue, she should also draw up a chart showing trends.

If her ds has a dx of HFA and Dyspraxia, is he seeing any health professional? Letters offering appointments and after appointments make useful evidence.

If she has already submitted her application, she can carry on submitting any additional information.

If I think of anything else, I'll let you know.

Thank you. All very good points that I will pass on to her. I should probably tell her to join MNSN kids as I think she will need lots of advice.
I'd forgotten about Ipsea - so thank you Atilla.
The Dyspraxia dx still needs to be given, and I have urged her to chase up the paed about that as I know that my LA like to see lots of dxs....

Hi Sally

I just wanted to come from the angle that dd school did not have any details of support for my application, yet we're almost at the proposed statement stage now. It can be done but its so much more hard work.

I've found great strength in this forum and the advice you've had so far is great.

I didn't have the support of anybody so we firstly had to get private reports done, just to get someone to believe us. I'm not sure if you're in a position to do that but it's a great starting block.

Good luck, the people here are amazing

Thanks sweettea. I've told my friend to join as I know how brilliant the advise is on here. I have got two dc with statements that needed no fighting to get as it was obvious from day 1, but I am at the Statutory Assessment stage with DS1 (13), as I allowed myself to be governed by the school he was attending. Secondary School and a further dx of dyslexia and dyspraxia on top of his Aspergers kick started the process. Hopefully we will get a statement (the LA Ed Psych thinks we will) with the hours we want and the right level of support for him. My friend's DS is 6 years younger than mine, and she read through my report and told me that it was like I was talking about her DS. I wish that I'd had her tenacity back then.

I know what you mean. I've got the same situation with ds, but the only thing that put me off was dd almost at statement stage and I keep convincing myself they won't allow another one in the family.

Hiya
It depends upon the authority but many publish criteria which follow the code of practice. In my authority one of the criteria is that the school has used its own funding (they have a high level of delegated SEN funding) to try to support a child's needs, and another is that they have collated advice from SEN professionals. Without evidence that the school has done that, the local autority argues that it is not yet time for them to step in as the school still has responsibility to try to meet the child's needs and could and should be doing more before they approach the LA. So if your authority is similar (and many are) I would expect the request to be turned down. She may well still be able to get a statement in the long run but it would require a tribunal. In your friend's position I would speak to someone as high up as possible in the local authority to try to get the school to do what it should be doing to support her son (ie have IEPs. How is he at SA+ without external advice and an IEP? FFS...) and then she would be in a much stronger position in a few months time to request statementing, and may save herself the worry and expense of having to go through tribunal (or may even find that if someone supports her son in a monitored and appropriate manner, that actually he doesn't need a statement. My HFA DS is at SA+ and that is fine for him, though all DC are different.)

The only criteria that should be in place for a statement is need of one.

Many LEAs use criteria that is blanket policy and thus illegal in case law. There is no excuse on the part of the LEA: they know the law but many try and circumvent it on cost grounds. They know too that devolved funding is extremely bad news for children with special educational needs and such funding as well is not ring fenced.

Attila - you may be right about the knowledge that devolved funding is bad news, but to be fair on LAs they had no choice but to devolve or be taken over as OFSTED absolutely panned LAs like mine where they retained 'too much' budget centrally under the last government. The government thrust was crystal clear that LAs had to devolve or if OFSTED came they would receive a terrible rating. If the rating was bad and not improved, then the local authority would be taken over by a private company. There was a great deal of misery about having to devolve in my LA.

I don't think the criteria for statutory assessment necessarily counts as a blanket policy (but am not a legal expert!) because the whole point of the criteria to to try to ascertain whether a statement is needed on an individual basis - if there is no info on what a school has done, the LA cannot make an informed decision as to whether or not that is the case. I do know that our LA's policy exactly follows the CoP because they were very careful when they set it up about 10 years ago that it did. This is a quote direct from CoP

In considering whether a statutory assessment is necessary, LEAs should pay particular
attention to:
● evidence that the school has responded appropriately to the requirements of the
National Curriculum, especially the section entitled ?Inclusion: Providing effective
learning opportunities for all children?
● evidence provided by the child?s school, parents and other professionals where they
have been involved with the child, as to the nature, extent and cause of the child?s
learning difficulties
● evidence of action already taken by the child?s school to meet and overcome those
difficulties
● evidence of the rate and style of the child?s progress
● evidence that where some progress has been made, it has only been as the result of
much additional effort and instruction at a sustained level not usually commensurate
with provision through Action Plus.

ilike, what would you do in my position. Ds is school action plus, was on enhanced school action plus last term but for some reason that's now not the case.

Despite highly differentiated work he's not progressed since year 2 sats - he's now year 5. Although, since I've queried the lack of progress his class teacher has suddenly changed results of his year 5 work and what levels he's working at.

Ds is currently being assessed by various agencies as possible ADHD, dyspraxia, spd - He's also just been diagnosed with dyslexia, by a specialist teacher that the school bought in.

I thought the lea had to provide statements for those children who probably needed one - I've missed all the legal jargon out there but I'm sure you get the jist.

Well I'd start with a school meeting with a parent supporter of some sort to ask why he is no longer on enhanced SA+ and to try to get all those people working with him together to formulate a plan, which might include a request for statutory assessment (I'd raise it specifically). If you get no joy, then calling the meeting will probably at least have prompted most people to have got their reports done and you'll have a stack more evidence to make a request yourself if you still think that would be appropriate. The fact that your DD is goingt hrough stat assess is completely irrelevant, don't worry about that.

I've been reading through the ipsea website which gives insight into this. As ilikemysleep says, LAs do in fact use broad criteria (moderated by focus groups, not sure if that's what they're actually called - I forget) to achieve some consistency in agreeing/refusing SA. This is different from having blanket policies. That's the theory according to ipsea, but of course there is a fine line, and there is no accounting for how the 'broad criteria' might be interpreted by short-sighted paper-pushing office monkeys at the LA who might use them as blanket policy. The SENCOP, however, is clear on this.

Ipsea also suggests, like ilikemysleep that requests for SA are likely to be turned down when there is limited evidence that the school has made a decent attempt or had a chance to make provision to meet the child's needs. The more evidence the better. For this reason I am biding my time and allowing IEPs to be set up and reviewed before applying for SA because this will strengthen my case that the school is unable to provide for dd2 from their devolved budget.

However, a balance has to be met for those circumstances where parents have been banging their head against a brick wall and no provision is forthcoming, in which case parents may have no option but to go ahead and apply for SA. In those instances, setting up a papertrail would be vital.

Oh and sweettea we had a very similar situation with dd1 (Dyslexia) who failed to make any sublevel NC progress 2011-2012. School tried to pretend I was wrong (despite having the NC levels in black and white on two school reports) and then when I requested a meeting with SENCO/CT to discuss, lo and behold, suddenly some sublevel progress had happened, magically. Reading between the lines I think dd1's NC levels had been somewhat inflated from KS1 SATs. Schools try their hardest not to let NC levels go backwards, because that makes them look..... er..... shite. It is frustrating, to put it politely.

My friend has received an email from the HT requesting a meeting about why they are applying for Statutory Assessment. I told her that she will need big balls to deal with this HT (I know I did, when we had DS4 there). I think that the LA will turn down their application as there will be insufficient evidence to support it from the school. No IEPs is just the tip if the iceberg as the school feel that the parents have no faith in them. Cynically I think that they're a strong performing school who probably don't want a lot SEN children on their registers as its all about league tables....

This little boy is very very bright but he seems to have plateaued and struggles to hold it together throughout the school day, before it all comes out at home. I worry how on earth he will cope with Secondary School as change is inevitably going to upset him. Hopefully as he's only year 2 they can start to make things right, but only if the school come on board.

She will need big balls.

She will indeed need big balls and a good strategy. Hopefully something positive will come of this meeting for her ds.

I told her not to get emotional, or angry, but to stick to the facts. List incidents where the school needed to step up and handle things better. Their policy is that all children are entitled to get social story work, but is it followed up in class? I don't think so. I will be watching with interest.

It's amazing how your children drive you to take a stand, when in a previous life you would have probably accepted what was said.

Thank you everyone. I appreciate your insight.