How to/what to ask for at school

[Sausagepickle123]

Hi - my son has ASD and will be starting reception in Sept. We are in an ongoing battle with LA to get him assessed for EHCP but he won't have one in time for start of school (most professionals privately agree he needs and needs 1:1). The school know about him but we haven't had formal discussions yet about the support they can put in without EHCP. The council ed psych, SLT etc say I should wait and hear what school propose rather than go in and tell them what I think they should do. Would be grateful for any thoughts/experiences on:
(1) what support you've got without EHCP
(2) whether you waited for school to make proposals or tried to be more proactive
Thanks in advance!

Ds (reception) is at a private school and so not sure if my experience is relevant. I told them about his diagnosis early in the academic year. They made a lot if noise saying they would do everything possible to help him. That was encouraging. Not much has materialised. I will have another meeting next week.
I'd list down what are your child's difficulties, how he reacts to certain situations eg any sensory issues, eating, likes, dislikes. So, get a document together whoch gives them a picture of who he is as that's a good starting point to addressing his needs.
We have been unfortunate with his teacher who appeara unmotivated to help him apart from move jim.up and down a bloody reward chart. Sadly he's been at the bottom which is impacting him negatively.
I do hope you get the help your son needs.

sausage I think in your situation I would be getting in touch with the SENCO to ask for a meeting. Take copies of all reports/info you have about DS that might be helpful, and if you have time a quick summary of his needs/areas of difficulty on a page of A4.
At the meeting, ask them what they can do to support your DS and meet his needs. What support have they had in place in the past for similar DC? So give them an opportunity to tell you first. If they don't come up with anything useful, you could then move on to eg DS's salt says X and Y is needed, and tell them.
Provision without an Ehcp seems to vary enormously from school to school, judging from what is posted on here.

Your situation is very similar to ours last year. The school were pretty unprepared, were unable to dedicate him 1:1 support and we had to reduce the timetable to one hour a day because of his challenging behaviour. I could have said, I'm leaving him in full time, deal with it. But because staff and the senco seemed to want to do the best for ds, I was very flexible with timetable and stayed at school to supervise- I also wanted them on side against a shitty LA. The advantage was that I was seen from the start as the expert and the only person who properly has a handle on him. It has definitely paid off, they ended up giving him 1:1 and are very responsive to any input I give - I feel very much in control (at the moment). But if I had got the impression that the senco/leadership was not going to be working in our best interests I would have taken a much harder demanding line.

As said above, I would arrange to meet the senco, clearly set out your son's needs and suss out what sort of approach they will take, then you can take stock and decide your own approach.

Thank you very much. Good advice! I think the main problem I have is that my son's behaviour is (so far and touch wood) generally ok which makes him vulnerable to being overlooked so I need to make his difficulties very clear to them...

When I asked the local councillor to check with our LA whether it was "official policy" that dc with SN got "far fewer nursery hours than all the other non-disabled dc"

... the LA mysteriously and suddenly restored part of the (recently abolished) Early Years Support Budget.