Hi I'm looking for some advice about DS' transition back to mainstream. He is 5 and a bit, in year one and has been at a speech and language unit since sept 2014. He has verbal dyspraxia and ASD diagnoses. He's been happy at the speech unit and has made really good progress. We've now been advised by the speech unit that, given the recent improvements in his speech and language, the balance of his needs are now such that he will be better off in mainstream with support. His ASD means he struggles with attention and concentration and although he copes in the speech unit without a 1:1 he will def need one for at least some of the time in mainstream. We can see the logic in this and are supportive of the move.
So now we are focussed on choosing the right school and making sure appropriate support is in place for the transfer. His current school have kicked off the process to get his statement changed to an EHCP. What sort of stuff should we be looking out for in this whole thing? Would it help to get an independent EP at this stage? We are not really sure how many hours our son needs and what support should be set out in the EHCP, how does this get determined?
Also, as DS is a summer born, we want to look at getting him to repeat reception when he goes back to mainstream and staying in that cohort of children indefinitely. We think this will help him given he is behind in most areas of the curriculum ("emerging" for everything except reading on his school report in the summer), socially immature and still struggling with toileting. However this idea has been met with resistance by his current school who say he will be too ahead in that year group and he's tall!
Any ideas or advice will be greatly appreciated.