we got the sen officer excluded from the hearing but it was a pointless exercise as the judge called us and the barrister in and made it clear that the LA would have an 'uphill struggle' to prove the case today - the judge was going on the 'Manchester' judgement which someone had posted on here and I had quoted in my case statement.
The Judge was quite clear with the barrister and then the barrister started twittering that if we applied for an EHCP our daughter would have met the criteria for that and they would issue one so after a lot of wrangling the barrister came back and the LA had conceded = we will be issued a statement within 3 weeks BUT then the LA are moving instantly to move to issue an EHCP - the judge has given us an extended time to appeal IF the LA play any further shenanigans.
the judge also made it clear that our DD was making it clear that she would struggle with a noisy secondary school and the LA would need to address that today which of course they couldn't as they only have mainstream schools available. the judge also made comment that dd wants a dyslexia school so we need to discuss that with the LA as the process for secondary placement continues. the judge also fired a warning shot that the autism had to be recognised today and was a legitimate dx and it did change everything despite the LA trying to argue it didn't
so thank you everyone - cost us a fortune in our witness costs and im sure theres another tribunal coming but that 3 -0 to us and 2 - 0 to us against this barrister - the judge and the panel member seemed lovely as well but again different to people Ive had before.