Attendance at school when ABA shadow is off sick - advice please

[mamidou]

My 5 year old DS is in reception in an independent mainstream school - small school (10 children in class with teacher and no assistant).

He currently has a statement with FULL ABA support - he is fully supported at school - OT and SLT (both private).

In fact, the school does absolutely nothing.

On the days that the tutor is off sick or has to leave early (for whatever reasons), the school refuses to have my DS in.

Are they allowed to do this. They used to take him but I think the teacher has refused recently (there is another child in class with issues (undiagnosed) and nothing has been done yet- if anything he is far more challenging and difficult than my DS).

I feel the school is not doing anything at all to meet his needs, esp when tutors cannot come. Should I complain to the head - anyone has similar issues.

Thanks

No, they can't. If they're taking fees, they're in breach of contract, and they are also discriminating on the basis of your child's disability. Point both those facts out to the head.

Does the LA pay the fees? It could be worth drawing it to their attention if the school continues to do this. They have the primary duty to ensure that your child has full time education and the provision in the statement, so they won't be amused if they're in the firing line if this isn't happening. They also won't be amused if their fees are being wasted.

I would say it depends who organises and funds the tutors.
We use an ABA provider who employs and provides tutors, we don't have any self employed or school employed tutors.
The ABA provider has cover staff but if they are not available (sometimes lots of staff do go off sick, its the nature of working with children bugs and viruses tend to go round all the staff) and there is no tutor available DS does not go to school.
In our situation its the ABA provider which is in breach of the statement / not providing the provision in the statement.
We have always just kept DS home. Often time has been made up later (DS also has home ABA)
We used to have lots of cancellations but now the ABA provider employs staff specifically to do cover.
If we sent DS to school and school staff stepped in that would significantly undermine our argument he needs ABA trained staff - my LA would love to remove ABA staff and gave us school LSAs permanently! As school don't get funding for DS - it goes directly to ABA provider I wouldn't expect the school to provide a LSA if ABA can't.

If DS instead had a school employed TA / LSA then the school is taking responsibility for providing whats in the statement & getting the funding and in that scenario I would expect the school to have cover arrangements if the usual tutor was ill. I wouldn't expect him to be sent home. It would depend how often it happened really as if it was occasional - usual and back up person both ill - then I would just regard it as one of those things and actually not want DS to go to school without someone properly trained. If it was happening a lot I would be asking a second school TA / LSA to be ABA trained to step in.

I'd be wary of making it look like your ABA programme is not very robust