Does anyone please have experience of an ehcp review?

[cer80]

Hi everyone. My son is 5 and has a diagnosis of dyspraxia and autism. He is currently in reception. His ehcp was drawn up last year and is due for review. He has done well with reading and numbers as he is good with concrete concepts but we have experienced a lot of disruption at home with his behaviour and sleeping pattern leading to me finishing work for the time being. He continues to struggle with spatial awareness and abstract concepts. He has sensory difficulties and is very emotional. He seems to now be saving his outbursts for home and we really struggle after school. I have looked through his review and feel that all of it is still relevant and this has been reflected in his daily diaries. My concern is that because he can read and is doing well with numbers is that school may not fully portray his needs at review and I feel that his needs are being looked at too basically. He is awaiting review from ot and salt school teams but this may take a long time. Please could people tell me their experiences of the annual review and how much input parents can have? Thanks

[cer80]

Thank you. We have now had a meeting before the review and I took a lot of notes. I also sent a really long email with the things I felt he needed.

[2boysnamedR]

Any points that the school have ignored - write a new email pointing each thing out. Then say you want a reason why within five working days.

If you don't get a full reply and the review is soon print that email off and raise it at the review. If your still not happy escalate to a formal complaint.

If the meeting is a while off you can wait the five days and then tell them they have another day to reply before you start formal complaint.

Just be careful not to get on their wrong side - just factual "I'm not sure why your not replying, do I need to follow your complaint procedure?"

At the end of the day you have a right to be involved - that was the whole ethos of changing to EHCP from the old statements. If your not being involved you have right to complain. You don't need to apologies for anything, but once you get the schools back up its hard to maintain communication so just tred carefully.

I use the passive aggressive method and my school hate me, I went past the point where what they think matters about three years ago but ds has another three years in that school. It's very uncomfortable. I don't think many parents would want to be in my shoes.

[2boysnamedR]

You shouldn't be blocked out. If you look at the ipsea website there is a section on reviews. You should be able to quote something from there to the school.

Tell IASS this and that if they do come to the meeting if they can say this on your behalf.

I have a TAF meeting soon and IASS are talking my behalf.

[cer80]

Thank you to you both. I'm just struggling a bit as I feel a bit blocked out by school and they don't seem to reply to my contact by email. There have been changes made and we haven't always been told until after the time. IASS are now due to contact me today and I might ask them to go to the review.

[cer80]

Thank you to you both. I'm just struggling a bit as I feel a bit blocked out by school and they don't seem to reply to my contact by email. There have been changes made and we haven't always been told until after the time. IASS are now due to contact me today and I might ask them to go to the review.

[mumsuzz]

Hi there

We got my DD's plan in July last year and just had the annual review at the school. The LA OT came along but no one else from the LA. Is the review taking place at the school?

They just went round saying where she had made progress (her teacher and the SLT and OT) but most of her outcomes hadn't been achieved so no changes to the Plan. We got a form to fill in before hand and were asked to give input through out the meeting. There wasn't a suggestion that the Plan should change.

It is great that your ds is doing well at school but that could in large part be because he has the Plan in place and still needs it.

The school thought that there would be no great changes to the Plan until transition to secondary when the LA would probably have more input.

My dd is at a special school that we part fund so it could be different but I recall that even when she was in mainstream they said that often the LA would not have a lot of input into the Annual Review. Surely the school wont try to reduce what is in the Plan on their own?

I hope that is goes well for you and your ds.

[2boysnamedR]

Iass will be very helpful. Mine is very over streached but they are always very helpful and quick to agree how useless the la is.

If you think about it, it's totally logical that everything needs to come out of well written expert reports.

It should stop the 'Buck passing' too. I hope it goes smoothly for you.

[cer80]

That's great thank you, I will do that. I have also just contacted IASS to help support at the review.

[2boysnamedR]

No review as yet here as not had a statement for a year and we are still working on the draft ehcp.
Talking to my LA you need the experts reports to be specific. The LA can't put things in without concrete reasons. So in your case I would be talking now to the SLT and ot with your concerns to make sure they put this into the reports.
Parents are supposed to be heavily involved with ehcp's ( in law, in theroy) if you look on the ipsea site and follow the links. You can make reasonable requests. Via email for your paper trail.