What is a valid reason for turning down a school offer. Please help!

[sleepyhorse]

Hi

My child has significant social communication issues (prob ASD). For the last 2 years he's been attending a mainstream school with a speech and language ARP which he was part of and statemented. It's become apparent in the last 9 months or so that his primary need was no longer speech and language but SCD. So school told us to go and look at other schools with ASD/SCD ARPs which we did. We found one we loved and felt would completely meet ds's needs and be the perfect environment for him so we applied for a place there but as you know the paperwork and assessments is a long process and now they are telling us there are no spaces for Sep. The only other school with an ARP that has a space available is one which we also visited and just felt it wouldn't be right for DS as a lot of the kids were either non verbal or have behavioural issues.

So I told our local authorities we won't be accepting an offer from this school and have threatened them that if they don't make arrangements to accommodate ds in our first choice we will be looking at a local private school for kids with special needs (which obviously they are not going to want to fund) - she has asked me to put my thoughts in writing.

Just to say I hate all this fighting and completely goes against my nature but obv not going to put ds in a school which isn't right for him. So I have started the letter and now I need to find valid reasons as to why this particular school can't meet his needs so that I get what I want.

If I can prove this school can't meet his needs them it puts me in a good position to get him into the right school and will be in a much stronger position to negotiate.

Can anyone give me any tips? Is it a valid reason to say I felt the peer group wasn't appropriate?

Ooooh - lack of peer group is perfect; it is one of the reasons that can win you a Tribunal case.

Go through his statement - part two and three and work out step-by-step why the other school cannot meet needs.

Off the top of my head: is there SALT provision? Buying it in is incredibly expensive. What about the curriculum? Is it a match? What are the outcomes of this school? What track record have they got? What does his present provision say about it? Isn't it a legal duty for them to sort this and transition?

Having to fight is adding insult to injury but, hey, it is what we all do. Good luck. Let us know what happens.

Our DD is rigid with her liking of rules and other children breaking the rules upsets her to the point of not being able to focus after the event for several hours, even if the issue did not have any impact on her at the time. We didn't have to oppose the LA as they still wanted mainstream for DD, but our choice of school for DD was an indi specialist school and chosen specifically because they don't have children with significant behavioural issues. It was hard for the LA to argue against this. She is thriving at the indi SS now.

Thank you so much ladies

When ds1's case was taken to panel to argue against an EBD school they used primarily academic rather than behavioural grounds. They told us that because the school in question already had several children with an ASD diagnosis (who coped) that arguing on behavioural grounds was a much weaker case. Mind you ds1 himself has challenging behaviour if he is not supported adequately so maybe different if your child has no behavioural issues themselves.