Hi everyone! Thank you for all your messages
Well the day was quite harrowing and very tiring but thank god its all over now...
The LEA's refusal to assess DS1 was based on the fact that they maintain that their provision of 2 sessions in a nursery per week with an ancillary support worker was adequate to address his needs.
This is of course ridiculous - we have very good reports (including ones from Gillian Baird and Auriol Drew and a well respected Ed Psych) all saying that he needs an intensive programme and that LEA provision was wholly inadequate. The LEA ignored every recommendation in these and their barrister picked out one point - that Dr Baird says ideally this would involve a combination of nursey and home programme and used this to put down our home programme and make the LEA's (crappy) provision sound great.
The head of Early Years even went as far as to say that Auriol Drew (a well known autism expert SALT) was wrong with her recommendations, and that our Ed Psych (who was also one of our witnesses) was wrong when he described DS1 as having severe autism - EVEN THOUGH the stupid cow and none of her 'team' have ever met or assessed DS1!
She also said that because DS1 had good gross motor skills and his main problems are with receptive and expressive language then he is likely to progress well and certainly will not need a statement, because kids like this presenting with 'severe' autism at 2-and-a-half often suddenly catch up. I mean - WHAT PLANET IS THIS WOMAN ON!!
AARRRGGGGGGGG!!!! Its was sooo frustration but our solicitor Paul Conrathe was very good and in his summing up he very clearly and logically pointed out the flaws in the LEA's provision.
Its a waiting game for us now - although the panel have already decided who have won - we wont find out for another 2 weeks! This will no doubt be tortuous but there is nothing we can do now.
Sorry for the essay - had to vent!! Thanks for your support