When do I need to book an indie EP for secondary transfer tribunal appeal? bad annual review

[arieschicke]

Had my ds' annual review yesterday. He is in year 4 of ms primary. Had tribunal last year against parts 2 and 3 of statement. Tribunal ordered specific and quantified slt, OT, dyslexia teaching, full time 1:1. This has been in place and ds is happy and making progress in all areas.

EP wants to cut provision as ds is to reliant on adult support. He needs to have the support watered down to gear him up for ms secondary, as his current support could not work in ms secondary due to staff training etc. no specialist provisions within county.
Now I haven't the money to fight this at the moment. so I have a plan to let them reduce support for yr 5/6 and save to find a fab EP for secondary tribunal for ooc indie specialist school.
I have a professional in mind that I know is tribunal savvy, well respected etc and I want to book soon to secure the assessment. Does anyone know when I need to book for, roughly what time of year for a secondary placement appeal?
I don't want to ask the LA and make them suspicious!
TIA

I think you can appeal this on your own without a new indie EP report. And I really suspect that you should.

I think if you accept this now, it will be harder to get back from a lower level of support up to special secondary school, than from your present higher level of support

The main strength of your by-yourself-now appeal is the completely WRONG basis for reducing provision.

The law is clear, look at difficulties, work out provision, choose school. Absolutely clear that you can't look at school, work out what provision is needed and then decide what the difficulties are. It is 100% clear that this is exactly what the EP has done.

EP wants to cut provision as ds is to reliant on adult support. He needs to have the support watered down to gear him up for ms secondary, as his current support could not work in ms secondary due to staff training etc. no specialist provisions within county.

As you probably know what the EP said is very likely to be untrue,

1. dc probably isn't too dependent on 1 to 1 for any reason that is lawful
2. ms secondary schools accommodate 1 to 1 all the time, and if you ring a few and ask you will be able to confirm this for yourself
3. secondary schools will always claim training and experience even if they had a 1 hour talk on an inset day and have watched Rain Man
4. no provision within county is irrelevant as dc's needs must be met and the county boundaries are irrelevant

If the EP has re-tested dc and found that ds has improved relative to his peers then there are grounds for changing the level of support. But they haven't so therefore no change.

So what to do?
Document the EPs remarks in a nice thank you email (thanks for for your help the other day and your suggestion that ds needs to have the support watered down to gear him up for ms secondary, as his current support could not work in ms secondary due to staff training etc, etc, please let me know if there is anything else you want to add...)

Then if they try to amend the statement to reduce the support appeal

If they try to take the support away without amending the statement, JR.

You can do this - lots of people on these boards have done appeals on their own. The Tribunal are likely to take a dim view of an LA taking the first opportunity to remove provision that they have ordered, especially on a such a flimsy observation.

I am hoping this is actually helping....

Thanks senvet.
I could email the EP however I think he will just respond via a phone call rather than email. But it's worth a try!
Thanks for the idea.

What the absolute f..k!!! ( sorry but)

Your LA are taking the mick! They cant remove provision from a statement just because they cant be bothered to instruct a secondary school of your choice to meet his needs.

Do not under any circumstances except this!! Write to your statementing officer and state that no changes are to be made to your Ds's statement. If any are go straight back to appeal!

You could get an new Indie EP report done straight after you appeal, you will have time to fit everything in.

I agree don't accept it now as it will be harder later to go back and the LA would I suspect start saying that he is now find with the reduced support. the reasons given are not valid and I know you don't want a fight at this stage but sadly you are going to have to.

do the email - doesn't matter if the EP phones you- you then just document the phone call as well. the LA are trying it on and they know they are trying it on

arie - it is even better if he doesn't respond

If he calls back take note as you go through the call/immediately after and do another email after sayig, 'thanks for your call where you said... and [I agreed to think about it or whatever the substance of the cal was]

Just keep making a paper train (or document trail) of everything that happens and giving the LA's team a chance to respond.

Just go on being very nice, and with a bit of luck they will give you enough evidence to win the appeal

sorry - just spotted I have said the same as bj
only I took longer

Thanks for the advice. Shall I wait until the official annual review minutes are sent out or email now?
I don't want to put them in defence mode before the minutes are typed!

do you think what the EP has said will be minuted in the meeting documents?

what I would do now so its fresh in your mind is write a file note to yourself of what was said / done in the meeting.

if the minutes come and they are not minuted as you have wrote down then you can always challenge the minutes. it is a bit of a cloak and dagger game to be honest - you know your LA best and how they are likely to play this

I think there is a possibility that what the EP has said could be written into the minutes. They were taken by the head who is quite dim when it concerns SEN. I'm worried that if I alert the EP now he could potentially proof read delete the important bits from the minutes!
I will type the conversation now so that I don't forget.
Thanks

It might be too late to do this if term has ended for Easter, but I would type up all your recollections of the meeting, especially the conversation re watering down support and the reasons why this was suggested. I would then take this into school and get the head / Senco to sign it to say it is an accurate account of what happened in the meeting. Even if it is too late to send with the AR pack, you can ask the school to hold it with their records of the meeting (make sure you keep a copy). If term hasn't ended for you yet, it maybe that they haven't sent off the minutes, in which case go in first thing on Monday and ask to see them. If they haven't documented this conversation, ask them to put it in.

Definitely appeal this if they try to reduce the support in your DS's statement. This provision was only ordered by the Tribunal last year, so it is unlikely his needs have changed that much. The same thing happened to me in AR last week, but I was expecting dirty tricks from the LA so kind of prepared my defence before going in there (thanks to good advice from this board ). Don't let them get away with it!