Help - can't decide what to do

[KOKOagainandagain]

Please help me work out what to do I keep going round in circles and the 15 days is up on Wednesday.

DS2 can't stay where he is as they are using punishment to force compliance - eg not motivated to remain in seat but punished for leaving it - and it is damaging his mental health.

I hoped that the proposed would at least match what he had at SA+ but it doesn't. The school did an about face when I applied for SA and he now has a proposed for a child with ASD but no problems in school. Six months ago the position was no suspicion of ASD but severe problems in school.

So the original plan was to finalise and appeal for Indi placement.

This clashes with the timeline of my phd submission and I can't change this as I took leave for DS1s tribunal. I can't imagine doing both at the same time

Also we are moving house. The landlord wanted an extra £200 a month. DS1 boards but DS2 will need a new school from Sept.

Also there is my mum who is being discharged to DB's today and has the DST for NHS continuing healthcare on Thursday. They have a month before they declare someone is in eligible and then the family has to appeal. As bad as SEN.

What the hell do I do? I will post some more specific questions when DS2 has gone to school.

Late to the thread so ignore me if talking rubbish.

Current school neither can, nor want to, meet needs, and he needs to be out of there yesterday.

Parts 2, 3 and 4 in the proposed are all rubbish.
House move is nearer to a new mainstream: might be better, or might not.
There's a new free school which just possibly may be suitable

There's an indie m/s which might be great, but not seen him, and not enough evidence yet to win it at tribunal without a great deal of luck

Nearly right Meir

Indi is ss but DS2 is only 8 and starting year 4 in September.

I know from experience with DS1 what will be required before indi ss is named and don't realistically think that DS2 would win indi at tribunal at this stage (things could get worse, he could be out of school, he could be approaching secondary transition etc).

There is only one HFA school/unit in the county at the moment and it is too far away for most people to access.

The new m/s might be better and if, not we will have jumped through some more hoops and collected more evidence of failure. So write off primary and spend a considerable amount of secondary repairing the damage done by primary - again - after the mother of all battles leading to tribunal. Sure sounds like the Rolls Royce option to me.

Well done with AR TOWIE - I have been fretting about your DS losing the place you fought so hard to win.

sencop 8.57
On receipt of the proposed statement, parents have a right to state a preference for the maintained school their child should attend and to make representations to, and hold meetings with, the LEA. It must also be explained to parents that they have the right to raise any other issues relating to the body of the statement. The LEA must normally issue the final statement within eight weeks of the issue of the proposed statement. Exceptions to the eight-week time limit are set out in the Education (Special Educational Needs) (England) (Consolidation) Regulations 2001 appended at Annex A.

The exceptions are here.
Extract: Regarding the 8 week limit:
(4) The authority need not comply with the time limit referred to in paragraph (3) if it is impractical to do so because

(a)exceptional personal circumstances affect the child or his parent during the 8 week period referred to in paragraph (3);

(b)the child or his parent are absent from the area of the authority for a continuous period of not less than 4 weeks during the 8 week period referred to in paragraph (3);

(c)the childs parent indicates that he wishes to make representations to the authority about the content of the statement under paragraph 4(1) of Schedule 27 after the expiry of the 15 day period for making such representations provided for in paragraph 4(4) of that Schedule;

(d)a meeting between the childs parent and an officer of the authority has been held pursuant to paragraph 4(1) of Schedule 27 and the childs parent under paragraph 4(2) of that Schedule has either required that another such meeting be arranged or has required a meeting with the appropriate person be arranged

The new m/s might be better and if, not we will have jumped through some more hoops and collected more evidence of failure. So write off primary and spend a considerable amount of secondary repairing the damage done by primary - again - after the mother of all battles leading to tribunal. Sure sounds like the Rolls Royce option to me.

This is almost exactly the route we have taken with ds2 only missing out the final tribunal stage as there was sufficient evidence even for the LA to agree there was not an in borough school able to meet needs. With the benefit of hindsight I wished I had fought harder at the stage you are at to get a special school named on part 4. At the time we thought there was just a chance a fresh start might have been sufficient to help, however, it quickly became clear that his anxiety levels were so high that settling down into a new school was beyond him. I don't know if we would have won at tribunal at this stage but I do regret not trying.

Keep - we concentrated on the type of school that would meet his needs in our appeal for DS1 and, specifically, the reasons why LA offerings could not meet his needs (in the case of the provision that hadn't even got off the drawing board yet, never mind being ready to open, a whole bunch of questions about whether it could meet certain needs and how we could possibly know at this point).

The thing that made it clear that his current MS school wasn't meeting need however was a long history of interventions and support, yet still, even on days when he was able to work, that was often done in a corridor. The ed psych recommended things that a state MS school could never provide, such as small group teaching with a qualified and suitably experienced teacher (ie not sitting in the corridor with a TA) as well as a few things which would not be satisfied by a MS/SS dual placement, which tends to be what happens to more able kids with SN in our LA.

Anyhow, at the same time as we did this, we made a formal approach to the Indi school - the offer they made was added to the appeal after it was initially submitted.

Your position is obviously different, though - you would need to demonstrate that his MS school's lack of suitable expertise is demonstrated in their attitudes to his difficulties. I'm wondering if they would even admit that to their paymasters?

Sorry, no help with the practicalities, just a few rambling thoughts regarding the practicalities of getting an offer from the Indi school.

You want the appeal to be 1st Feb 2015 onwards so it won't clash with your PhD? So if that's roughly 5 months from submitting the appeal for parts 2,3 and 4, you'll want to send in your SENDIST request in on 1st October at the very earliest.

"To make an Appeal to the Tribunal you will need to fill in this form and return it to us no later than 2 months after the Local Authority sent you their decision". So in a perfect world, that would mean the LA wouldn't issue the final statement till 1 September.

Given your rights to be consulted, it might not be too hard to drag out the negotiations a little: "Parents may express a preference for the maintained school (not a PRU or hospital special school) they wish their child to attend, or make representations for a placement in any other school. LEAs must consider parental representations and arrange any meeting(s) the parents seek, before issuing the final statement. See Schedule 27, Education Act 1996"

There's one extra point even if the final statement comes along too quickly: I don't think August counts. We sent in one of our (many) appeals after nearly 3 months, and it was ok because the 2 month deadline fell during SENDIST's holiday. But I don't know if that's a whole extra month, or if it has to be in on 1st September.

We tried a new m/s school for DS1 in year 4 and transition still failed and he is now in OOC ss. I hate not having been able to get him help earlier but I know there is no way we would have won ss at that stage so I don't regret not wasting the time, energy and money with no hope of winning. He may not be where he is now if I had lost resoundingly at an earlier stage.

I wonder if it's worth trying to name the free school now. Or at least to go and see it, talk to the LA about it, etc. Once it opens, it'll end up being a tribunal offer before any indie SS for each and every complex DC in your LA. If it's suitable, great.

If not it'll either be a stepping-stone or a blockade to what DS needs, depending on how close a relationship it has to the paymasters. And, if it is unsuitable, the sooner you burst the LA's utiopian 'marvellous local-free-school magically fixes ASD for under 10k pa' bubble, the better

In terms of delay I have asked to take up the offer of an extra week to respond. Then my response will be to write to request a meeting. August won't count and so the LA can't finalise before sept at the earliest.

Hopefully we can improve parts 2 and 3 before it is finalised and avoid tribunal at this point. If they won't budge I would have to appeal at least parts 2 and 3 or I could wait a couple of terms for the new school to realise that the statement is rubbish and request emergency review.

Meir - the free school officially opened last month. The LA officer placing DC in the school is the same person who deals with the tribunal cases. The school will mean it is harder to get Indi and is the LA offer as they only had bog standard m/s with no units prior to this.

Ok - outstanding primary is full for that year. Can they say 'no'? If they want to say no but can't then forcing them to take him wouldn't be good.

It would probably also mean that your DS would be in a large class. Not so good unless he has a statement with lots of 1:1 hours or they're good at providing genuinely general TA support.

Split class covering two year groups. Two other DC in his year have statements. On the other hand the Senco seemed positively enthusiastic about how well other DC with autistic 'traits' learn in the class. She said to come and look around anyway and that she would speak to the head when he gets back from the year 6 residential. Maybe they already have their ASD package of provision and could slot DS2 in - probably using another statemented child's 1:1 . I feel dirty but desperate.

Well done with AR TOWIE - I have been fretting about your DS losing the place you fought so hard to win.

Thanks - I was mega fretting too . It was a bit of a strange AR because she'd obviously been primed - not sure how or why but there was def an undercurrent. But then I went fully armed with indie ss's indie SALT & OT & specialist teacher and all their very recent assessments/reports. So we were very top heavy my side and fully expecting trouble.

But I still don't trust LA to do the right thing. But, if the pen-pushing bureaucrats do try something now, then they will once again be going against their own EP.

I know the feeling - with DS1 all our LA EP reports were useless but with DS2 the LA have gone against their own EP. The same EP that they tried to send in to collect evidence to defend refusal to assess. At the time of SA she said 'I know what I think but the LA will probably ignore me'.

Part of me wants to ask her straight-out, off the record, what she thinks but I am worried that she is implicated in the plan to shunt DC into the shiny new provision and so will say that DS2 needs ss now, because they have provision, whereas last year she would have said m/s was fine.

Trouble is that I don't know what he needs. Before SA the school were willing to admit they were at a loss but are now claiming all is well as punishment has reduced noncompliance and his attainment was average anyway so nothing to do there.

If he doesn't chuck a chair I may have to

To cap it off the end of year production is School Daze. This may be post-modern irony but to me it sounds like the Hitler Youth atm. Check out the lyrics (on phone so can't link) - I particularly like the one about taking SATs.

Being full is irrelevant. Statemented children are admitted regardless of the class size.

Lougle - I thought it was but couldn't they say no for legitimate reasons? Detriment to others? I need to check out whether the catchment class is also full. Oh dear - what if I can't find a m/s school to take him?

They can't use class size as a reason - I sit on appeal panels and at Junior stage we simply have to balance up whether the child needs the place more than the harm it will cause the school/other pupils (paraphrased!!).

If they say that placing your DS would cause detriment to the efficient education of other children, they'd be risking you saying that if that MS school can't take, then none can, so Independent.

Their whole premise is that 'this child is so OK that he's just a regular kid'....

So what if I name this school even if the local catchment school has a place - can't find out until tomorrow? Will the LA name catchment or parental preference in the next village even of the year were full?

Parental Preference.

Using the old (current) SEN CoP:

"1:36 If a child has a statement of special educational needs maintained by the LEA, that LEA is responsible for arranging the special educational provision and, in finalising the statement, considering the school’s suitability. Where a maintained school is named in a statement of
special educational needs, the governing body of the school must admit the child to the school.i Further details on the considerations that apply when LEAs name a school in a child’s statement are given in Chapter 8."

"8:60 Parents may express a preference for any maintained school they wish their child to attend, or make representations for a placement in any other school. LEAs must comply with a parental preference in accordance with the provisions of Schedule 27 of the Education Act 1996. LEAs must consider parental representations and arrange any meeting(s) with LEA officers or advisers parents seek, before issuing the final statement. When considering parental representations for a place at a school or institution which is not a maintained school, LEAs must establish that the school or institution proposed can make the special educational provision necessary to meet the child’s special educational needs, and the provisions of section 9 of the Education Act 1996: that is, they must have regard to the parent’s wishes, so far as that is compatible with the efficient instruction and training of the child and the avoidance of unreasonable public expenditure.

8:61 The LEA must explain to parents the arrangements for expressing a preference for a particular school under paragraph 3 of Schedule 27 and the LEA’s duty to comply with that preference in all but a few cases. Paragraph 4 of the same Schedule gives parents the right to make representations, which the LEA must consider, about the content of the
statement; and the right to request meetings to discuss any aspect of the content of the proposed statement, including the advice obtained during the statutory assessment. Parents should be informed that the parent partnership service is able to provide information about schools, explain the way the law operates and provide support for meetings with the LEA. Parents should also be informed about the availability of disagreement resolution services.

8:62 Where an LEA proposes to issue a statement or amend part 4 of an existing statement they must name the maintained school – mainstream or special – that is preferred by the parents, providing that:
-the school is suitable for the child’s age, ability and aptitude and the special educational needs set out in part 2 of the statement
-the child’s attendance is not incompatible with the efficient education of other children in the school, and the placement is an efficient use of the LEA’s resources."

Having reached 32 in a class is unlikely to meet the threshold of 'incompatible with the efficient education of other children in the school.'

If there were already 35 in the class, with 4 statemented pupils and no other class in that year group, then perhaps they may have more of a case, but a 'full' year group is very different from a full year group, if that makes sense. In an ideal world, all Head Teachers would tell you that class sizes should be 20 pupils and every child after 20 causes detriment to the pupils around them. Tough luck, our class sizes in this country are 30 for Infant classes and more often than not 32-34 for junior classes.

They can and do use detriment to other children to refuse to accept a child with a statement or they certainly did for ds2. In the scenario I am thinking of they felt there would be an almighty clash between ds2 and an existing pupil which would have been no good for either.

Yes, but that is a specific issue and an appropriate use of the exception, OneInEight. They can't use 'class is full' as a reason, to my knowledge. That's the whole reason that the Admissions Code for schools states that a Statemented child must be admitted regardless.

IPSEA say:

"There is no definition in law of what it means for a school to be 'full'. LAs are able to name schools which say they are 'full' in statements and may have no choice when the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal orders them to. In order to convince the Tribunal that the school the parents want simply cannot take another child, the LA have to show that because of the high numbers of pupils in the school, the child's needs won't be met, or that other children's needs would not be met, or that there would be an inefficient use of resources (for example, as a result of them having to appoint another teacher or build another classroom)."

Link

So if this is preferred school I should name it regardless. It is up to them to say no and give a reason that runs the risk, if not specific, of suggesting that m/s would not be suitable even if there are 32 rather than 29 in the class?