Assisted move

[millyk]

Hi. My daughter 6 (asc) has been struggling at our catchment primary school since she started really. We don't feel the school have the right provision for her so we have decided this is the best way forward. We don't have an ehcp yet. Her current school have been gathering evidence for months (years!) We have another daughter due to start next September which is a factor as we don't want to have to arrange a move once she's settled. Has anyone done this? Were the original school supportive? It's a hard decision, taking her away from what she knows, but we're trying to think long term. I'd be curious to hear your experiences. Thanks in advance.

What is an assisted move? I've got experience of moving a child from mainstream to special school, as probably lots of posters here might. Just not familiar with that terminology!

Thanks, the school she's at now have offered an assisted move to another mainstream. I googled earlier and it said you get a facilitator who helps find the new school and liaises between the 2. Just interested to hear about moves in general really as it's hard to know what to do for the best.

ds1 had a managed move (not sure if this is the same thing but would be similar I guess).

It was not a good experience for him because:

The new school did not really think they were the right place for him so were very quick to end the placement. So do check the willingness of the new school to meet your dd's needs.

He went in with no more support (infact probably less) than his original school so I guess it was doomed to disaster from the start. Why in your case do you think the new school will be any better than the first. I am assuming it is still a mainstream placement if no EHCP yet.

In hindsight we should have refused the managed move until his EHCP was in place. The placement might just have worked if he had gone in with extra support. Being terribly cynical I can see the advantage to her existing school of encouraging the new placement if she is taking up a lot of resources but you need to think about whether it will be the best thing for her.

The attitude of a school can make a huge difference for children with an ASC so it may well be this is a really good idea. I think you just need to check that the new school has a good chance of succeeding as the move itself can be disruptive & cause more problems than it solves.

(P.S. Our circumstances were different though as ds1 had been permanently excluded and the managed move was between the PRU and the new school rather than between two mainstream schools)

Thanks. The school she's in at the moment is a large mainstream. She has a lot of sensory issues which means she struggles. We don't believe the school have a good sen provision. They don't have many sen children and it seems to us that they just don't really know what they're doing. That's what it feels like anyway. She needs a lot of support there and she is just about coping currently but in the long term we think she'd be better somewhere smaller, but it would definitely need to be somewhere happy to take her you're right. The other option would be to keep her there whilst we do the ehcp but as we have my other daughter due to start we trying to speed things up a bit.

So maybe we ask to explore this but don't agree unless we're completely happy. It's so hard!

I don't think it would do any harm to explore and look around the proposed school. But at the same time push for the EhCP. Has the application actually gone in? You can apply for this yourself if the school are dragging their heels. The last thing you want is to go to a new school and then them have to start collecting evidence all over again as it will just cause further delay.

It hasn't gone in yet. She's been there over 2 years. I'm going to chase this week and apply if they're not doing it.

I'm wondering whether they might be allowed to transfer the evidence and still use it elsewhere. Just so tired of fighting for every little thing. Will see what suggestions come up and what they can offer us I guess!

The danger is they might say new school can provide XYZ that existing school can not (presumably why you are considering the move). Therefore, we want to see if that additional support is sufficient to meet her needs before we agree to the EHCP assessment.

I'd be nervous of this process. This same thing was suggested to us and every school approached refused and spent a lot of time saying how they couldn't support need but the existing school stopped doing any support /ehcp stuff as they felt the new school would do it.

I would literally sit in the office with the SENCo and complete the ehcp paperwork with them as part of the conditions for exploring other schools.

I'd also look at the schools secretly as not party of this process as we found schools wirth spaces refused to book appointments for us to view them once they knew the circumstances.

I've heard it can work though

It's a tricky one because I actually agree that doing an ehcp assessment where she is now wouldn't be a fair assessment on her. She struggles a lot, partly because the environment is wrong, so i do think she would be better somewhere smaller and quieter where her sensory needs are met. But it's whether we need the ehcp to find that?

I'm having a look at lots of schools currently and although some have good features we've not found one that we think would be ok yet. I've emailed the senco to ask about the ehcp. If she can't give us a concrete date example we'll apply ourselves.

Grasspigeons, what happened in the end (If you don't mind me asking)? Did you find somewhere new? Or stay with the original school?

He is currently with no school as the ehcp is not complete and no one can meet his needs

Sorry. I hope that when the ehcp is finally complete they find somewhere you and he are happy with.

Millyk...please have hope! I withdrew my son from school following his first temporary exclusion. The school did not agree with his ASD diagnoses (NHS) as they felt he was too bright and was just emotionally immature! As parents we had meeting after meeting about what support he needed (lots was related to his sensory needs) everything was ignored. Luckily he had great teachers in R and Y1 but when he got to Y2 everything broke down and he was on the verge of being utterly broken himself. I looked around for another school for him myself. I met the Heads and Senco and was very honest about his needs. The one that I loved promised they would try their best and my goodness they are. He has been their nearly a year and I can count the number of meltdowns he has had on one hand. They also learn from these. I had to move his siblings too and all are happier and thriving. I still touch wood every day hat he has a good day but two mainstream school can be very very different.

Thank you. So pleased you had a good outcome. It makes me so cross that schools can be so different. I rang up the local authority to ask sone questions about where we are now and they literally could not give a damn. Feels like the schools are free to provide whatever they choose almost. Feels good to be exploring our options at least!