Final Statement issued ignoring some of my amendments....what now?

[messmonster]

That's it really. I sent back lots of changes to my DDs proposed Statement about 2 months+ ago. Since then, I've not had any feedback from my LEA other than an email to say that most of my changes had been accepted and that they were sure everyone (meaning us, school and LEA I assume) would be happy with it.

Roll on, this weekend when the Final Statement arrives in the post. Yes, lots of my changes have been accepted but the really important ones, the ones that really mattered to my DD, have been ignored.

All the specificity that I put in the SALT programme has gone, as has the requirement for relevant staff training and worst of all, the fact that the allocated hours in the Statement are to be used exclusively for a 1:1 for my DD. Now, the wording allows for the X hours funding to be used "flexibly for resources and/or adult support". FFS

What are my options? I've looked at the Code of Practice and can't see anywhere where it says that the LEA must consult with parents if they don't agree with changes to the Statement suggested by the parents.

I feel totally mislead - the email I had made me relax a little and think it would be all OK - how naive am I?

I know I've got Tribunal as an option and some kind of mediation through Parent Partnership just not sure if there's any point having a dialogue with our SEN Officer who, up to now, has been helpfulness personfied - bloody snake .

All ideas welcome.....

p.s. have good relationship with school DD is joining in Sept and no reason to doubt they will do the right thing but really wanted it in Statement obviously.

WWYD?

Thanks v much

Starlight - that's the point, THEY shouldn't be differentiating, the teacher should. I am saying that is what happens, not what is meant to happen. I sit in a whole lot of classes watching a whole lot of TAs working and I absolutely agree with the what the study of TAs I quoted found, that TAs spend a heck of a lot of time enabling children to complete work that is not differentiated properly, because having the TA there means that the teacher can 'leave it' to the TA. It absolutely happens. Maybe not in your kids' school or in certain classes, but it happens a LOT. Once a child has a TA, the class teacher often more or less hands over responsibility for that child to the TA and they spend far less time interacting with an actual teacher than the rest of the class do. The intention is and should be that the child will learn, but unfortunately with the way TAs are currently deployed and the way statements are written at present citing hours of support but not citing planning or preparation time between the TA and the teacher, this is what too often happens. By all means add on those hours but the point is that specifying that those activities should be included would probably be sensible.

I don't understand why you say you wouldn't want your child to develop any independence skills (that you 'want him to be dependent on people to learn'), I don't know how old OP's child is or what her issues are but I would think that almost everyone with an SEN child would want them, if they are able, to be taught some strategies they can apply to support their difficulties themselves as they grow older, I know that is what I hope for for my son and I used colour coding because that is one organisational strategy I am trying to teach him. I could have just as easily said visual timetables, social stories, learning about how to use comic strip conversations, jigs, now and next boards, PECs etc. These are all resources to encourage independence and / or development and the key advantage to having a TA is that they can actively teach a child how to use these resources and then back off a bit and reduce the amount of prompting a child needs to follow the strategy, in a similar way as ABA uses, initially high level prompting then reduce the levels of prompting. It doesn't matter if a teacher or TA makes those resources, but a key issue is that someone has to make them and they often have to use their own time to do so, and so items are made less frequently or followed up less well than they could and should be, if time to do that sort of thing is not specified in a statement or if it specifically says that all provided time MUST be spent in 1:1. I am a bit offended by the 'not a robot' statement, and that he needs people to learn, I wasn't suggesting that a TA make a load of resources and dump them in front of the child leaving him to steer his way through them on his own.

yes. It happend in my ds' school, despite a tight statement that says it should not.

That is why he is in a special school. It isn't because he can't be supported in mainstream, it is because he wouldn't be.

Now try winning a tribunal on those grounds!

I would want my child to develop independent skills, but the same ones as other children, not artificially created ones.

I want him to be able to ask for help from a real life person, which means LSA supporting, prompting until he can do it. Not giving him a card to turn over on his desk. That is too short term and specific and whilst reduces his dependence on that TA at that time, reduces his practice opportunities for asking for help in the real world.

One of the strategies introduced in my ds' school for him was that because he was disruptive at carpet time, and poking the other children etc. to place a green spot on the carpet at the back away from the other children and teach him to stay in it and keep his arms in it.

The TA was then freed up to go and tidy the classroom.

When I complained (took a good two terms as they didn't bother sharing this with me) and said that the TA should be sat next to him, reminding him to look at the teacher, giving him one or two things to try and listen to for a question later that would be rewarded, and then prompted to listen just before the teacher said it , as a way of including him educationally, and teaching him who he is supposed to be listening to, what he is supposed to be listening for and generally build up his group listening skills, I was told that having the TA there like that was a)stifling his independence and b)taking up too much of the busy TA's time.

No. Giving him a green spot to sit on and be ignored was stifling his independence. It might have been physical inclusion, but it wasn't social or educational inclusion.

I wanted him to learn how to sit on a carpet and learn with other children, not 'managed' to not be disruptive with that being the sole objective, and then sold to everyone as a great independence generator because he is no longer 'dependent' on a TA.

Thanks again for all the contributions - you're all giving me food for thought about things I need to be talking to the school about as part of the transition planning - e.g. who'll be doing the differentiation, when will the TA/Teacher be making resources etc.

With regard to the resources point, I understood it to be referring to the funding being used in part for resources, not the making of them so had visions of some of the funding being used for an iPAD that miraculously is used by the rest of the class .

Plan to go through it with a fine toothcomb tomorrow and talk to IPSEA if I can get through, will let you know what they say.

Right now, I'm having a huge wobble about MS altogether but just ignore me, I have regular wobbles

I'm sorry that you're offended. My comment was a projection I think of so many people that have told me that TEACHH approaches create independence and ABA creates robots when I believe the opposite.

TEACHH appears to create independence from people, onto THINGS wherase ABA teaches how to get what you want from interacting with PEOPLE iyswim.

That's okay, Starlight, no longer offended. My offence probably came from my feeling that sometimes I feel like my motives get misjudged here a lot. So we both have explanatory baggage :)

BTW I'd have liked green spot AND your TA prompting, fading to post-carpet questioning / asking DS to summarise etc :) This is exactly the kind of not-thought through 'support' I see so often :(

I don't know what your motives are Ilike. I think you're very brave posting here and I'm really glad that you do. I really do like reading your posts.

But I think it is worth pointing out that many of us have had years of being ignored, misinterpreted, dismissed by LA EPs and probably, unfairly, you're too good an opportunity to miss, not to throw things at but to challenge I guess.

When you come of and say x,y,z it can sometimes create a flashback to frustrations of x,y and z being meantioned in real life and in a busy EP's life either not communicated well, or simply offered as a generic solution and not applied individually.

Whilst you are so open about your profession, I'm not sure how it could be avoided tbh, but I would like to say that I think you are and always have been an asset to these boards.

Oh I know, and I have learned a lot and become humbler about my profession since being here. I come on here because I have a boy with autism and for obvious reasons can't go to local groups etc and because I am passionate about advocacy for that group of children, and I think sometimes I am able to explain something that hasn't been explained well like a cognitive assessment, or explore an alternative possibility, like in this post what the LA may have meant in what it had written in the statement, precisely because I haven't got that background of being so hurt by trying to navigate SEN processes on behalf of my child. I don't want to start to say 'all LAs are simply evil' or 'all non-private EPs are corrupt' because I don't believe it, though I have seen first hand how hard some parents' fight is and very nearly resigned over a case recently (the LA agreed to assess, finally) and absolutely understand why some parents might have that view as a result of their experiences. I understand that I am always going to be a bit of an interloper here :(

That reads like 'I know I am an asset' when I actually meant 'I know many of you have had years of being ignored etc'

Hi ilikemysleep. Thank you for your contributions to this thread - it's very useful for me to have another perspective. Can I also say that our LEA EP has been brilliantly supportive

Ah ilike. We know you're an asset

I particularly like the long-term effects of suitably qualified SN parents being undercover MNSN agents in positions of responsibility. It reminds me of the cafe in 'Allo 'Allo

Ah Mareeya, I couldn't possibly comment ;)

Thank you both :)