Had a few phone calls this week about the LEA refusing to even assess
Amelia for a statement. Spoke to Bob Black of the DSA and he assures
me that we WILL get a statement with about 25 support, just needs to
be fought for.
Then I spoke to our rep from IPSEA who has put us in for full
representation and it seems as if we have been accepted. Feeling a
bit more postiive about the fight ahead, I was all set for a weekend
of reading and form filling.
WELL- yesterday, I was chatting to a friend who son is Y2 and she was
telling me at how short staffed the infants seems to be this year.
The Deputy Head/Senco has been assigned a full class as well as the
Head teacher, who will be teaching in Nursery ( I think their
admissions are down again!) Of course this set alarm bells ringing
and made their lack of help in getting Amelia's statement a bit
clearer.
BUT to top matters I was speaking to another mum this morning- she
has an older boy, who is Autistic and attends our local SN school, as
well as a little girl the same age as Amelia, who was diagnosed as
autistic last year and will be in Reception with Amelia. (This mum is
on the governing committees for both schools.) I was chatting away
about Amelia's situation and she mentioned the staffing levels this
year, she continued to add that the LSA's timetable is already choc-a-
block without knowing of any additional need of the new intake. In
fact it is so choc-a-block that Amelia's 3 x 20 minute, "specialised"
sessions......are actually not going to be 1-2-1 after all they will
be shared with the little autistic girl also in Reception.
This is the only help she is getting, no extra support in classroom-
I wonder whether or not they were actuallty going to tell ME!
What a load of B***OCKS!!!!! I want to shout, scream, cry, kick
someone....what with that, Amelia is poorly today and I have no
energy or motivation to fight any more.
If you are still with me, sorry for the waffle.