Questions about looking for new schools.

[xenzani]

When making an appointment to view a new school, would I need to tell them that dd will be statemented?

Would it be okay to ask to talk to the senco and question how they would work with her? What about telling them why she is moving?

New to this and need to start looking!

Thanks!

xen is dd primary or secondary?

SEN in mainstream secondary is trickier for a SENCo to pull off. However lovely the SENCo is, they need to be able to convince 10-12 different teachers to operate in the same way, and to remember which of the 500 or so kids they teach have which SEN

Definitely see the senco and ask what they do/would do. But if you can catch some teachers to find out how they operate whatever SEN structure is in place, that can be quite revealing...

And the question about discipline is always revealing. If they think they can punish your dc out of their SEN then it is time to try the next school, and I wish I wasn't speaking from experience

Good Luck

Yes, good point about discipline and behaviour management. When we visited an 'outstanding', allegedly 'very inclusive' school the comments by the Senco were very telling. She didn't bother even trying to engage with ds and said that she had a child there with similar difficulties so was very experienced . She also said that if the child struggled to cope some days she called the parents to collect them - that school was crossed off early on.

Good grief.
She missed the bit in her SENCo training where they sais 'every child is entitled to full time education that meets their needs.

Good luck with the search. Trust your gut instincts - they tend to be right

Thanks for the replies.

Dd is primary, year four. Currently in a PRU which is working fantastically right now but will possibly be until July, to start new school September. Already worrying about secondary but we still have a little while to go.

Behaviour policy and how they will support her/meet her needs will be quite important as at the moment, her statement is for behavioural needs. Staff need to be experienced and patient.

Had very bad experience with previous school, according to reports for the statement, she was permanently excluded but I haven't been told that. Long story. School were great at saying what they were going to do to help her but never did any of it. All talk and no action. Senco did not have a single clue how to 'handle' dd.

Lots of good advice, so thank you.

PRUs can be so good for behaviour - but they seem to operate on a basis that they can bring about a 'cure' in a term. or whatever the local policy is.

Have you had DC checked by someone independent of the LA? It is just that I helped a family once where the child kept getting excluded, and he did really well in a PRU for a term. They gave him a certificate for doing something good, which his mum framed as he had never had one before. Mainstream hadn't thought of that.

We found that he had a big language delay and his behaviour was caused by those undiagnosed and unmet special needs. Once the language programme was in place, and he was in a special school which treated him with respect, the behaviour was gone.

He is now about 20 and has been employed full time since he was 16 unlike half the youth his age.

Hope this helps