Are independent schools a possibility with ehcp?

[SnoozyBoozy]

I'm starting to look for a secondary place for my son who has ASD and ADHD. His current school have recommended special schools, however I've found a local independent school that, on paper, would fit his needs (it's a mainstream school that focuses on children mainly with dyslexia and other learning delays, but I believe their approach would work very well for my son's learning style). However I don't think we would be able to afford the fees.

He has an ehcp at the moment and has funding at his current school. Is there anyway the LA would consider contributing to the costs? Would this be this typical? Or if it's an independent school, would we be expected to find the fees?

Thanks for any advice, we are just starting to look into this and don't really know where to start!

It is possible to get the LA to fully fund an independent mainstream. If the school is named in section I the LA have to fund it.

Start collecting evidence for the independent school now. If you can show state mainstreams can't meet DS' needs but he would be best placed in mainstream rather than SS you stand a good chance of getting the LA to fund an indie MS. Although you may need to go to appeal to get them to.

By choosing to pay for the independent school yourself the LA will most likely say you are making suitable arrangements to educate DS and they have no further duty to provide anything. Although not commonplace, some LAs will agree to an arrangement where parents pay the fees and they pay for the additional SEN support.

Yes they can / do pay but they won’t want too, unless (in my experience) they don’t have a lot of other choice.

Is the local special school (non independent one) full? Can you find out, give them a ring. If they are, then it gives you a stronger argument.

ie.. well the school you would want to place him in is full and the school I want isn’t. (This is a bit similar to what happened to us) although not always as simple as that sounds, of course.

Ds mainstream couldn’t meet his needs (on maximum funding, 2-1 support, exhausted all other options and have had 3 years of hell with them) but our local special school was / is full to the brim and refused ds a place on consult, la challenged them and they sent load of shit back saying why they couldn’t admit him, so the la told me to look out of borough, I was going to appeal the local ones decision then see the local one had received inadequate ofsted so thought it was a bullet dodged, so we looked at 2 independent specialist schools plus 2 non indie, the 2 non indie were full again but places available at both indie ones, both private were expensive but neither were suitable for ds.

La told me, in fact tried to persuade me to take one of the indie schools with a place, cost started at 40k a year plus transport and 1-1 escort, so god knows what it would of all worked out at annually.

The indie turned out to be not for us, they were utterly clueless on ds and it didn’t fill me with hope so I’ve held tight and we have gone for a maintained school 30 minutes away that have experience with autism, that initially said no as full, although worded in the legal manner (can’t just say no we are full) but that have now finally come back and said they have a place and can meet needs (he starts September)

Are school prepared to back you on specialist etc? Was fairly easy for us as mainstream didn’t want ds and made sure they wrote everything they possibly could to get rid of the kid.

Not sure your LA route, I know they all make their own rules up so it seems! but our LA it has to go through a panel for special school, so his mainstream had to evidence everything why mainstream was no longer suitable (they sent in a tonne of paperwork) la wanted up to date EP assessments and the panel had to meet and decide on whether mainstream could be continued with any additional support / increased ehcp banding or if SS was now needed.

I don’t envy you it’s mentally drained me this past year of all this, good luck with it all x

Ignore about half of my post 🙈 I should read properly and not when I’m half asleep.

I’ve seen it’s a mainstream independent. Sorry I thought you said specialist independent.

Not sure were you would stand with that to be honest. Can you phone the school you are interested in and ask to speak to the head and ask her for advice.

It depends on the child's needs but you'll likely have to appeal to get one. If the current mainstream are recommending special schools then you need to

If the independent is local then you might find the total cost compares favourably with the current cost of the mainstream plus support, and would almost certainly be less than the cost of an LA special school, and similar to the cost of an ASD base in a mainstream. It really depends if he'll need additional support at the independent or if the standard package covers the support he'll need. Sometimes, when costs are similar, the LA will name an independent mainstream as "parental choice" which means they get out of paying transport costs but its worth trying to get it named as the nearest/cheapest suitable school as you 'll get transport as well.

I'd gather evidence that he needs small class sizes as that may be key.

It can be done. Took us 50 weeks from applying, and having to appeal against the LA choice of an ASD base that even the LA EP agreed wasn't suitable!