Anyone fought the school and won?

[tiptoes]

Following on from my thread about my disagreement with the school on keeping my selectively mute DS in reception along with 3 other special needs children instead of moving him up to year one to be with the peers he has started to talk to,has anyone fought againest the schools decision and won?

Am running out of time due to end of term to resolve this and would value anyone elses experiences and whether it would damage relations with the school in the future?

Anyone?

No direct experience tiptoes but hope someone else can help - anyone?

What reasons did they give you for their decision? Hope you don't mind me asking but it might help us understand.

Thanks for the responses.

The reason threy have given is class sizes and have said he will still be doing somne year one work.He is doing above average academically and is ability and understanding has never been in question.
He will be with a different teacher as his reception year teacher is moving up to year 3.
So in effect he will have to get used to a new teacher and a new influx of reception children who will not be familiar with his mutism.

Have got backing from the SALT and educational support agency that this would be the wrong thing to do and could cause DS to regress back on all the progress we have made.
Still the head is adamant she is making the right decision and has advised for us to go ahead in sept with him staying in reception and it will be reviewed as to whether ds is happy with this and changes could be made.
My agruement to this would be
1.If changes could be made at a later date,why not now?
2.If DS does'nt settle in to this and he regresses back the damage will have already been done.

Bump

I would contact the LEA and ask what the policy is about keeping children down a year. Some LEAs are very anti this, unless there is a very convincing argument. You may be able to use this as a bargaining point with the school. It might also be worth discussing it with the governors.

Personally, I think it sounds a very odd thing for the Head to do. Teaching staff have a legal obligation to differntiate their work to match the needs of children in their class. They can't just keep children down a year because they think the work given to them in the year below will be more appropriate. Your child needs to follow the whole of the Year 1 curriculum, not just for some of the time. This is true for all the children with SEN, not just your son who sounds as if he is coping very well with the academic side of work.

Thanks neolara for your reply.

The school are saying it's not keeping him back as such as he will still be doing year 1 work.I have spoken to a governer who is in agreement with the Head.Ds is coping very well with the work set and is more a case of continuing the confidence to speak in school with the peer group he has gained trust in over the past year.
If anything staying in reception wil be a bigger group of children ,more pressure to talk.

Message withdrawn

Snorkle-You would think I would have a good chance at success due to all the medical evidence but for some reason the Head seems to be unwilling to acknowledge this.
This is why the SALT and other professionals are now putting this in writing to her.

Message withdrawn

from my experience the headteachers dont listen to medical opinions though it is.

Have you contacted your PP or IPSEA?

PP will be able to give you the name of the bigwigs at LEA SEN then start writing letters and pestering them thats what i had to do, everytime i didnt agree with what they were saying a would write a letter to the SEN bosses.

HTH

snorkle,jenk1-I have contacted the LEA and am looking into the SEN code of practices to see if I can find a loophole that allows the class size of 30 to be extended if the child has special needs.There should be some flexibility on this in certain circumstances but not sure if DS would be an exception to this.

I have spoken to the PP and they gave me some good contact numbers.
What is IPSEA?

jenk1-It is so stressful when you seem to come up againest a brick wall and not sure where to turn.Like you I will write to the SEN bosses and see if that will carry any weight with the Head.

Looking at the SEN code of practices it mentions the word flexibility quite often between the Head,professionals and the parents.Something that the Head of DS's school has failed to recognise.

tiptoes
Its disgusting, If the only reason for keeping a child back a year is class size then this is a clear case of discrimination against a child with sn.
If it is not going to benifit your son in fact it is going to have a negative effect on his development & his eduaction then surely the only criterea for selecting him is because he has sn's this must be discrimination.
They should be selecting based on the needs of the children & surely an nt child would be less adversly effected?

Stapo1-My thoughts entirely.

As they made such a big thing about the selection for some children staying in reception was not purely based on SN I did suggest than why not put a NT child in ds's place and ds in year 1 .If as she says they will be doing the same year 1 work.
Coincidently or not all the children staying back in reception have SN.

Yes, at least I think so- could go tits up any minute!

School refused to acknowledge Sam ahd any problems, then said they couldn't teach him- just like that, 'I can't teach Sam'. Cuer dh and I on war path, add in one consultant and statement now being applied for. They still try and trip us up (eg giving me the Statement forms yesterday- 'if we don't have these back by tomorrow can't apply until September'- they were in) but on the whole getting there. Relationship with Teacher brojken down, but after tomorrow no child of mine will be n her calss agin by agreement with Head, and IO've been making myself deliberately aggreeable to the rest.

SFPC-Your experience gives me great hope.

Was the Head on your side then and the teacher againest you?

My problem is the head teacher so the buck stops with her in effect.

Have been finding out more about how I can appeal againest this and am going to give it my best shot.I have gone from being frightened to upset to manic to fuming now and I know deep down I've got to see this through and not give up,for my DS's sake but also for any other selectively mute children the school may come across in the future.

Hi Tiptoes,

You asked who IPSEA were:-

IPSEA offers free and independent advice on Local Education Authorities' legal duties to assess and provide for children with special educational needs. These include children with physical disabilities, sensory impairment, emotional and behavioural difficulties, general and specific learning difficulties (including those arising from specific conditions such as Down's Syndrome, autism and dyslexia).

Their web address is www.ipsea.org.uk. I would definately speak with them in your circumstances as they could help you.

You are your child's best - and only - advocate.

Attilathemeerkat-thanks for the information,I will take a look at the website.

I only have 2 days left now before the end of term and have to accept that the school are'nt going to change their mind as I see it at the moment.But I will continue to fight this after summer term.

Am feeling really emotional at the moment and wanted so much to sort this out for my ds's sake before the end of term.I will now spend the summer holidays worrying about how my Ds will cope with this new arrangement and feel heartbroken for him.

Yesterday the children went to visit their new classrooms and teachers and DS was left behind and was telling me on returning home that he was not with his friends and he looked confused and could'nt understand why.

The Head wasn't at first, to put it mildly! They don't really do Sn kids at that school for a variety of reasons, they're kinda selective but have to accomodate a small catchmenta rea- which we live in. The catchment is so small you could walk round it in under five minutes, and it's primarily elderly poeple (old part village of town). So they were stuck. The Paediatrician even had to write off any evidence from the school in making a dx, as it directly contradicted what they had given to me on his school action stuff. Anyway, spoke to IPSEA, and also Kidscape about the bullying, and got a dx, and had someone from BIBIC go in- I guess we finally hit them down. It did get quite nasty one day, DH didn't shout or anything bt was very upset about the 'I can't teach him' bit, she accused him of aggression (more shyness manifested badly) and it all went from there; she ran to the Head, us to the Deputy (we have spoken to her in the past when Hed was off....) and suddenly things get done. Add in a DX and it seems to be OK. Sam gets the SENCO next year who is lovely and has taught several AS kids apparently, so it's just a case of fingers crossed (and indeed here we go again as DS3 is shoewing signs of a different SN, )

SFPC-Am glad you are getting somewhere fianally.As you well know it is emotionally very draining and I get the feeling from ds's school after my meeting with the head that they may have thought I had accepted the decision.
I am determined to continue with this and my intuition as a mother tells me this is the right thing to do for my DS,it's such a shame they can't see that!

Have started another thread as I have been told that the school need to have a sound educational arguement and not just the agruement that they can't go over 30 in that class.Will hopefully get somewhere with this as am running out of options.

children being kept back a year (despite the school saying your child will receive a year 1 curriculum) should not be a very common event - three other children in the same group sounds like this schools approach to special educational needs is not in line either with good sn support, or even with legislation. your time constraints are unfortunate and your desire to maintain good relations with the school is good, but your ds has a point of view as well, if he wishes to move up with his peers then this should be taken into account. you have 'professionals' who agree with you and have said that the heads actions will actually hinder your ds's progress. are there others like educational psychologists etc who might be able to help you fight your corner?

Caffiene-I have the backing of the LEA psychologists who are in agreement with me that this would be the wrong decision for DS and could dent his self esteem and set him back months even years.It's as you say the time scale invovled and also what weight they would carry as the Head has refused to listen to the SALT's advice so far!
It does state in the selective mutism guidelines that transistions to classes must be carefully managed as part of the programme.It also says which is really relevant "It is releatively easy to elict speech with key adults and children but generalisition to other children and adults in all situations can take years and it cnnot be assumed that once a child is talking to one or two people (as DS is now )they will now improve spontaneously and transfer easily to a new class "

Strong evidence I would say.

forgot to ask before, does your ds have a statement? if he does then i'd ring the sen department at the lea and request / demand to see the sen manager, rather than write given the time pressure.

Caffiene-DS does not have a statement and was told by the SALT that he would'nt require one as with selectively mute children it is better to keep them in the mainstream and keep things as normal as possible with no added pressures or hi-lighting to him through taking him out of normal lessons that their is a problem.
He does recieve DLA allowance.

agree with not highlighting sn, but generally, (though i appreciate not in every case) having a statement is one way of protecting children with sn from just such insensitive head teachers. its all so tricky isnt it, but even if your ds doesnt have a statement, id be inclined to ring the sen department and see what they say. hope it all goes ok and your ds is supported in the way he deserves to be.