HELP! Urgent request for info and rumour of Sheffield for SEN

[senvet]

Hi
I have a friend who wants any info on Sheffield for meeting needs, quality of experts, quality of statement/EHCPs, and/or tribunal performance.

Feel free to rate 1 to 5 where 1 is Herts (awful) and 5 is somewhere we have never heard of as they do such a good job!

Any info - actual or grapevine - would really help
Thanks

I live near Sheffield but i'm not under that LA however i have heard that tribunal wise they are not too bad. There a quite a few ss in sheffield and there are also a few resource units attached to ms schools (both primary and secondary). The units have a good reputation but most of them are oversubscribed. I was looking at an indie ss in Sheffield for DS and the HT told me that there were about 4 families from Sheffield wanting a place and instead of going down tribunal route the LA were trying to negotiate a deal for all 4 children to attend so that doesn't sound too bad. I don't know what the outcome was in the end though.

I thought Essex was worse than herts? No idea about Sheffield tho sorry!

I think as LA go Sheffield is okay - there seems to be a lot of support for parents up there. I know a few people who live there and they don't seem to be fighting as much as what we do down here. no area of course will be perfect but I don't think Sheffield has a bad reputation which is a good place to start

If Herts is a 1, then Croydon is a 0. Or even a minus.

And my LA which I am not going to name is well into the minuses (sp) Its god damn awful!!

Last year somebody posted a link to a league table which listed each LA and how many appeals were lodged, conceded, withdrawn and won etc. I can't remember who it was but it was really interesting. My LA only had i think 3 appeals in one year compared to the hundreds that some LA's had. Although you never know if that's because the LA is good or whether it's because parents don't generally appeal where i live (probably the latter).

ive got that somewhere - think its actually saved on my computer lol! my LA was misleading in it as we have so few tribunals they don't publish our figures but then we have such a low population here that appeals per 1000 may actually be quite high - all I can say is that my LA are never very successful at tribunal

will have a quick look to see if I have it.....

hmmm Sheffield is 7.1 per 1000 of the population and had 55 appeals in a year........ so that's quite high actually although not the worst.

fairgame - your LA had so few they don't register them (so under 5!)

That might explain why they were so shockingly incompetent throughout my appeal then - lack of practice!

Rotherham on paper seems a better bet than Sheffield......

Rotherham is not really a nice place to live though. Sheffield has some nice areas but Rotherham not so much.

I was born in Sheffield and spent many years working there plus have a lot of family there so holds a lot of good memories for me and there are some lovely parts of sheffield as well. I miss Yorkshire people, I miss the accent and the friendliness. also where you are fairgame also holds lots of memories as I went to college there and its where me and DH met so spent many a night out there. I also worked there at times as well.

bjk if you can tap into any info about provision and appeals from your links to Sheffield that would be great
I know you have a big job just keeping the family going, but anything would be really useful.

Thanks