Help needed not happy with hours on statement, legal route?

[Lesley25]

I would really like some of your advice.

My daughter was diagnosed with Autism a year ago at the age of 3.
Since then we have been going through the statementing process and have received a provisional statement which has a banding attached to it. This banding correlates to support of 25 hours a week when she starts school full time in september. During the last year she has had access to the school and is familiar with the routines etc.

However, upon receiving the proposed statement 2 months ago, the school and myself sat down and queried the amount of support from the Specialist teacher and also the initial 25 hours. We all agreed to submit reports showing that my daughter would need 1-1 support for the whole school day which equates to 30 hours support and thus the banding should be moved to the one below.

We went to panel in July and this was refused.

I wuld really like to know what everyone thinks about this and if we should go down the formal appeal route with solicitors. One side of me says "its only an hour extra a day" and the other side of me says "we only have 8 weeks to appeal and need to get this right now.

Some advice from all you sen mums out there would be greatly appreciated.

If you've exhausted communication with the LEA and they won't budge, then yes you will need to appeal the statement and go to tribunal. I would say that you don't necessarily need a solicitor for an appeal like this although I obviously don't know all the details of your child's case.

The thing to focus on is what evidence you have in the way of written reports which will support what you are asking for and show that what the LEA are proposing is not adequate to meet the needs of your child.

Presumably your child will need lunchtime support as well which is why you need the 30 hours. I don't think it would be difficult to make a case for that but you do need evidence if possible. I would also look at using a private Ed Psych rather than a solicitor if I was going to pay for one or the other in this case.

Btw - I think that one hour a day can be a very long time for a child who has communication and socialisation difficulties and who presumably also needs help with things like going to the loo and eating lunch?

One final thing I would say is that if the LA has decided your dd will need 25 hours a week and have put that in the statement then I think they are going to have a hard time explaining why they feel that she can cope by herself at lunchtimes when she needs full time 1:1 for the rest of the time.

The problem with LEAs is that they often have a 'Because I said so' approach and when expected to explain their reasoning they often cannot. I think a tribunal would want to know how they have made this decision.