EHC plan wording

[Tambaboy]

We had our multi-disciplinary meeting a few days ago and we were over the moon when LEA agreed to 18 hrs of top up funding
(plus 12hr from school's own resources resulting in a total of 30 hr ).

A few minor changes we made at the meeting so we have yet to receive the amended copy but now that I have been able to read thoroughly I'm not happy with the wording. I will phone IPSEA on Monday but I'm pretty sure the draft isn't any good.

Just to give you a few examples:

-"In a maintained mainstream setting the equivalent of x hours per week of teaching assistant support will be allocated to facilitate the activities as outlined above".
Equivalent???!!!!

-"DS will be taught in a educational environment with access to professionals with expertise and experience of meeting the needs of children with difficulties on the autistic spectrum".

That means that the people working directly with him don't have to have experience, it's enough if the SENCO has experience , that'll count as him having access to this professional, right?

-"DS will have opportunities to work....", it doesn't really how often or how long for....

I'm no expert but it doesn't sound great, does it?

'Access to professionals' can mean as little as somebody having their phone number. You're right, it needs to be quantified, as does 'opportunities to work'.

I have a copy of the letter that was sent to LAs by DofE, giving guidance on how the EHC plans should be written with regard to format, wording etc. If you message me with an email address I'll send it to you.

DfE, obvs.

Thanks streakybacon, I've just sent you a message.

On its way

No that wording is shite. Who cares about what the school gets. It isn't a statement of their needs it is a statement of your child's needs.

In my ds' ex-school all staff had expertise and experience with ASD, because apparently they'd had a child with ASD before ds which they claimed was a success (his parent claimed something quite different however) And that, alone made them qualified.

Yes, get rid of "equivalent", get it specified that it will be 1:1 TA support (otherwise it will certainly get shared), also get it specified that the TA must be trained and experienced in dealing with children with your dc's difficulties, get rid of "access to" and "opportunities for" and "would benefit from". Get it specified who the professionals are - probably EP, SALT and OT - and how often they will come in to school both to work with DC and liaise with staff, monitor and revise programmes etc.

They won't like it, but remind them about all the emphasis in the CoP on listening to parents and taking their views fully into account.

The letter I've forwarded to OP is VERY clear that vague terminology is not appropriate and all provision should be quantified. The LA should know this (the letter was sent to all) but it may be that the OP needs to enforce it if they're trying to pull a fast one.

No, that's just awful wording I am sorry to say.

Do run it by IPSEA as well, they will tell you what it should say. Provision should always be both specified and quantified.

IPSEA have a callback service these days as well.

Thank you all for your comments, and thank you so much streakybacon for the link.

I've just realised the draft hasn't included two of the most important points their own EP included in the description of his educational needs:

-1."ds needs a relatively high levels of modification to the language of instruction, adaptation, differentiation of the curriculum and individual support to enable him access learning and benefit from social opportunities at school".

1. "ds has difficulty with his attention skills and approach to learning, because he will currently only engage with any activity with 1:1 support".

those are the main reasons why he needs 1:1!!

I hope I get through IPSEA tomorrow.