Moving son to independent school after statement finalised

[Ronifromwales]

Hi all

I'd be grateful for advice on the following:

I have found a lovely private school for my son who's 6 and has currently been given ABA funding for a placement in a classroom one year behind his age from our local lea. He moved from a special resources unit to the reception class last year in November with an lea ta until July this year when we won the whole package with his own tutors shadowing him from September in year one (at a state school).

The problem is that it has taken so long for us to win the right provision that I feel his time in the reception year was wasted as we had to prove that a full time ABA home programme with phased integration in a mainstream classroom would only work with his own tutors shadowing him. Just a bit of background.

Two queries:

1- If I move him to a private school will this be illegal since his statement says his placement is with a comprehensive school if I'm paying? I'm not asking the authority for any more money and we are funding independent school ourselves.

2- does it matter if I'm putting him back two years in a private school if lea allowed one year behind in a specific school if I'm paying? Independent schools don't care about this and I will never put my son back in a state school after moving him to independent.

The authority are funding a full time home programme with tutors going into school already. I'm hoping I've got the right as a parent to change schools after statement finalised (we've missed deadline to appeal) if this will be beneficial to my son and put him back two years as one was wasted if I ever have any hope he will catch up with the national curriculum. Relations with the head teacher and staff from his current school will not improve after I moved him from the unit and proved that the school ta could not help my son in school.

Apologies it's so long and advice would be appreciated.
TIA
Roni

I'd be very wary of taking him out of the LA's loop . You may well lsoe access to some fo their services if you go private. Are you very confident his needs will be better met ? 2 years behind is quite radical and may create issues later on as he matures .

My understanding of it is unless you have the placement named in part 4 of the statement the lea has no obligation to fund. I would also be doubtful whether you would retain what you have already without paying fully yourself. We sent our son to a private school. He started in reception a year later having spent an extra year at nursery. By year two (8 years old) he was still very very behind his present class. In the meantime we fell outside the loop of speech and language etc and had to fund ourselves. We have now got a statement naming an independent specialist school which the lea are paying for x

We are not asking the lea to fund independent school. We are paying ourselves. We want them to just continue funding his ABA provision which includes phased integration into a mainstream classroom one year behind his age. We might put him in the right year group but he will be much better off in a smaller class size.

My son would cope extremely well in reception as he is catching up. We want to increase his chances of following curriculum with his peers in whatever he can rather than having activities modified for him in year 1. He spent the whole of reception year last year going for one hour only being supported by an inexperienced lea ta and still progressed. Shame he could have progressed more if he was with his own tutors. I just want to continue believing he can. Thanks for your views. Lea called and said we can enrol him and we will be holding an annual review beginning of sept.

Ps we don't use any lea service speech and language, ABA all private which they fund. The issue is only changing schools which we are not expecting them to fund. So it shouldn't matter where we move him?

As long as you realise it may mean you have to fund all future EP assessments and therapies which they might otherwise provide.

ds3 is at an independent school but has a local comprehensive named in Part 4. (grandparents fund it). Whilst there is no legal obligation for the school to provide everything that is set out in part 3, there is an obligation on the LEA to make sure he receives an education suitable for his needs and as such an LEA officer comes to his annual reviews each year.

Have never had a problem with the set up - he's about to go into Y11 and moving to college for 6th form so the statement will lapse.

There is new legislation out about auxiliary aids and provisions which may mean you won't have to pay for the extra support your ds. afaik its not been tested yet. There is a thread here on it. Mummystyle's link will take you to the actual legislation.

My ds is at a private school and has a statement which says he must have 20 hours TA support. We were paying extra for this already before he got the statement. Another little girl was given 25 hours on a statement issued at the the same time as our son. The LEA agreed to fund her T.A support in an arrangement where the school could claim back the cost from the authority. They claimed there was some sort of 'banding' and our d.s wasn't in the right one. However another child in the school was assessed later, statemented, and the LEA agreed to pay for his 7 hours support! It didn't make sense and I think there are a lot of grey areas surrounding statements in the independent sector. I'm not fighting it now as my son is going to special school in September.

As I understand it parental preference must take priority and if you choose to send your child to an independent school the L.E.A must respect that decision. If you can argue it is the best place for him they should fund any extra help he receives. It is true that it puts you outside of the NHS Speech and Language service etc, but like you, I've never had much help from them anyway.

My son has stayed back 1 year and I was told that if I had that written into the statement the L.E.A would accept that in the future. As I said, my ds is now going to special school as he is 11 and he needs more help than his current school can give him. I got the feeling that the L.E.A would have been happy for him to start this September for defer to next September (and stay with his current year group) if school and other professionals advised it.

Not sure that helps as it's a lightly different scenario...

This board doesn't get much traffic.

Try reposting here:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs

as this is where the majority of experienced people hang out!