Can MS give up on my child even with a full statement?

[Lesley25]

My DC has a full statement yet school says its not enough in a very roundabout way. They say she needs a special school. All the staff that work with my child (senco, TA, Head) all pointed their feedback to the "would be better supported elsewhere" card.
Quite obviously they had all been briefed.

This boils down to money and funding, i could hear them whispering that any extra support would mean x amount of pounds and it wasnt enough.
When i mentioned the statement was currently being appealed (at the end of the meeting)- the first question i was asked was "does that mean more money?"

Whilst i will see some SS i dont want to feel like in the mean time the school/TA Staff have given up on my child, and ready to wave him off.
I have a full statement.
what would you all do? i will speak to my solicitor tomorrow re. statement appeal but that doesn't help me now make sure that the negativity surrounding my DC doesn't filter down through the support staff in place for them.

But what exactly is a "full statement"? Do you mean full-time 1:1 TA support? Perhaps a (probably untrained) TA isn't enough? Perhaps your DC needs very very specific help from trained professionals and all the provision is quantified?

My DS has over 17 hours of weekly very very specific and quantified provision - OT provision from a qualified therapist, SALT (again from a qualified specialist), and literacy teaching from specialist teacher with post-grad qualification in dyslexia.

All hard fought for and won at Tribunal. In fact my DS's statement is so very specific that no mainstream school would be able to cope with it - the Tribunal Judge agreed so my DC is now at an indie ss.

Is you DC's statement specified and quantified?

TOWIELA - Thats interesting, my DC's statement is erring towards the "very specific" type.
Its basically 1:1 for 32.5 hours (entire school week with even playground supervision/support)
The TA came through a Loufapp (spelt wrong probably) 8 years ago for another child but no other qualifications.

i offered to pay for a OT to come in and train the TA. This was point blankly refused by the Head, saying they had their own special asd teacher who currently has no extra time but 30 minutes allocated to my child once a week to help with cognitive strategies. Her diary is full till next september.
I pay for ST twice a week. My question is, surely the MS can buy another asd specialist teachers time?

My statement is currently under appeal because it states the 1:1 hours but not the ST,OT and qualifications of the TA along with the woefuly inadequate provision set aside for the specialist asd teacher.
The school actually told me they only get 13k and that doesn't even cover the TA...

Focus the LA's mind by telling them if they don't give you a Statement with proper specified and quantified provision from qualified specialists to meet your DC's needs, then you will have no option but to force them to name (a very expensive) independent special school.

That should focus their minds.

If they can't meet your DD's needs then they can move your child to SS.

As an aside, bear in mind that most special schools have a waiting list as long as your arm. Genuinely. DD1's SS is always being asked (and having to turn down) to take more children.

I am of the general view that if an LA is offering SS, there is a good reason. That is a personal view, though, and one that isn't shared by too many on here.

Our potential mainstream school HT told us that the LA funding they would get for my DD - full time one-to-one statement - doesn't even cover the cost of one additional person (and of course to cover lunch, breaks, sickness etc they'd need more than one person).

So yes it could be the financial implications for the school (not saying that's right btw)

The school has funding (not ring fenced) to cover the shortfall that the funding with a statement brings. But, as it's not ring fenced, the school would rather spend it on general class TAs or nice new laptops etc. Funding is not your problem, it's the school's problem. If their ethos is so adversely affected, though, it may prove not to be the right place for your DC.

Funding & budget is not the parents issue, the school & lea are wholly responsible for providing the provision as laid out in the statement.

What pot they get the pennies from is entirely up to them, if the school have a shortfall its up to them to find more money, not burden you with their budgetary issues.

If your son is happy & thriving & in the right environment (given the right support) then stick with it.
If you think his needs cant be met (regardless of funding) in his current school then jump on the suggestion of SS BUT still check out the SS as thet vary as much as MS schools

New funding regulations now in place mean that schools are expected to put in the first £10,000 worth of funding for each child for each year and then apply for higher rate funding. So if the school get £13,000 this should give a total of £23,000.

I agree that funding is not the concern of parents but it is being made so more and more, by schools saying they have suffered cuts to SEN funding and by LAs arguing that IEP provision on application for SA does not constitute £10,000 of support. The SEN budget is not ringfenced and so is likely to have been spent, even if only on SEN, on cheaper whole school or group interventions.

It would seem that in this case the school have already spent the £10,000 the LA argue is attributable to your child from the devolved budget and are therefore saying that they only get £13,000 which is insufficient to cover the cost of the statement.

This is not the only school to say that it can't afford statemented children because they are legally entitled to fund up to 10K.

LAs want to remove the link between statementing and funding. So a child may be given a statement but the school be expected to meet needs from devolved budget if the cost is less than 10K per year.

The school do not sound as if they have your son's best interests at heart.

At our Tribunal in July, my barrister put together a very comprehensive legal argument exactly on the point Keep makes in her post up thread.

However, he and the judge had to abandon this point during the hearing precisely because these new funding rules are so new that there is no case law as to what exactly this means when arguing that the parent's choice of school is not unreasonable public expenditure. Interestingly, during the hearing the LA didn't say a single word about this point - implying that they either knew what it meant and decided to keep quiet, or, alternatively, they hadn't got a clue.

Fortunately, for my DS, the Judge found that the LA school couldn't meet need so we didn't have to go down the funding root at all. I was rather disappointed that the Tribunal didn't then have to work out all the costs because the LA said that their school cost £576 per year (a figure plucked from the air as there was no evidence for this sum anywhere). During the summing up, they very graciously allowed us to up it to the age-weighted pupil unit (AWPU) - for which there is very strong case law that this figure has to be the starting point for any funding (obviously prior to this year's changes). So I never did get to find out if my barrister was correct with his funding calculations.

I think this new funding issue is going to run and run until we have some strong case law on it (meaning that some poor parent has had to go to the Upper Tier to challenge their Tribunal).

Thanks everyone. But i get cross. This is because i feel like the school is making me feel uncomfortable and therefore psychologically forcing me to take my child out EVEN though this may be the best provision and place.

I know it happens, but this i so wrong on so many levels. I can deal with getting the dirty looks and the stink eye from the Head but what if they are deliberately being negligent in their care for my child to prove their point that a SS is necessary??
Thats what gets me.

I want what is best for my child. They want what is best for my school.

If i remove my child -even though this is the right place, - isn't this disability discrimination?

I wonder if this is why the school has an outstanding ofsted. It flicks away all the sen kids as soon as they walk through the door.

I wonder if this is why the school has an outstanding ofsted. It flicks away all the sen kids as soon as they walk through the door. Yep - exactly this. In my DS's case, his indie mainstream Ofsted outstanding school took him in (because no-one know he had SEN when he started Reception) but then flicked him away when the going got tough and said they'd never had a child like him before.