Ehcp nightmare

[Kayleigh2326]

Hi neither a sen school or a mainstream school will take on my 13 year old the la want to look into non maintained schools but most are residential why would this be the case

Hi op, we are currently looking at non maintained schools (independent) also. A lot of them have residential as an option but i haven't come across any that don't also have day pupils only. Might be worth having a chat to some of them about your sons needs.

That’s unusual. Especially for a Sen school. Have they given a reason why?

My guess is that the schools have looked at the papers, and feel they can’t meet his needs. Non maintained schools tend to be more specialist and can meet the needs of children with more complex SEN and/or challenging behaviour.

For instance, say DC had a severe developmental language disorder and needed specialist teaching, intensive speech therapy, small classes, etc - they might need a specialist speech and language school, although some LAs would put a child like this in a MLD school, where they tend to put all children, who cannot cope in mainstream!

Does DC have challenging behaviour, as that is the most obvious reason why their special schools might say no?

In my LA this could simply be that all the maintained special schools are full. They always try maintained first as they are cheaper but there are not enough places so many children go to non maintained

Hi

My daughter has recently been diagnosed with ASD and DCD (dyspraxia). She has just started in Y7 in a mainstream all girls school. She is doing well but is not getting all the support she needs and is specified in her new EHCP, specially in areas of SLT and social skills. She also has sensory processing challenges and finds it difficult to make and sustain friendships from school outside school. I've sent her reports to Holmewood School in North Finchley for kids with high functioning autism and they are keen to meet us. Few questions 1) Does anyone have first hand experience with Holmewood school and would your recommend it? 2) Would you keep DD in mainstream school and continue to fight the system to get as much support as possible in order to keep her in an environment where she can hopefully learn to interact with neurotypical peers or do you think gains from a specialist school can be huge?