'banding' for support in school

[Nat1H]

How do I find out what 'band' my son comes under? I have looked on his statement and can't see it anywhere. Currently he is in an extra nursery year and is starting in Reception in September. He is supposed to have an SSA, but the LEA haven't appointed anyone yet - just a great cost cutting exercise me thinks!! I want to make sure that the appropriate support will be ready for september, Both myself and the school think he should have full-time supervision, including lunch and playtime. How do I find out if this is allocated (I strongly suspect that it is nowhere near this level of support)

They don't usually put the band on statements in my LEA; they just specify the hours e.g. 10 hours learning support assistance; 2 hours specialist teaching.

They HAVE to provide what's in the statement, so I'd start making stroppy noises about breaking the law if they don't find someone soon!

should be written on the statement exactly how many hours. DD's is down at 37 hours or however many hours school is (Iforget)

Its on the statement but if he is under 5 then they do not have to provide full time support as they legally do not have to be in school till the term after their 5th birthday.

So my DS who is not 5 till Sept has 20 hours a week 1-1 and only goes to school for that amount. We have just asked for more hours so he can go full time for the summer term, but not holding out much hope. As obviously that would cost more and no LEAs like spending money if they don't need to.

Sorry i didn't mean to dishearten you and your local LEA might be different.

I don't know if it's different in different areas, but once your ds starts school, the school will be given the funding to employ a support assistant.
If (for example)he is on 15 hours a week support through his statement, this would be at the school's discretion how they timetable it. If he needs support for play and lunch times (approx 7 hours a week) this would only leave 8 hours for learning support.

If he needs extra hours, you have to wait until his Annual Review to request it. LEAs like to reduce hours whenever possible, so you will have to have a Very Good Case for requesting them.

Again, my ds3 only attends for the time he ahs allocated- he will be 5 in the summer and there's a statement review called for MArch as school won't have him so the LEA are taking it seriously as 5 approaches: I suspect that the whole MS bit was a simple cop out trial. I don't think they expected it to fail after 2 weeks though!

Did you know that in some areas there is an acute shortage of LSA's? What's happened is that the old LSA training used to be done in teh evenings so students could tach alongside, what ahs happened here is that the college and uni have shifted to a day time course- meaning that no trianee LSA's are avaialble to work. our school had several ined up as possibilities for ds3, only one was still available when he started, and then only beciuase her child is in the school so it was easy for her!

You don't have to wait for the Annual Review if there is a change/ deterioration in circumstances. An Interim Review can be called (we've had about 10 reviews in the 2.5 years J has been at the school...only 3 official Annual Reviews!) and each time the school and I have requested full time hours. Each time (till now!) the LEA have said 'computer says no'. But you can still have the review, provide the evidence, ask and then hope the LEA panel is in human mode that day

DS2(also 5) has been given 'ASD2' status - but I have no idea how this was assessed. We obviously need to try to get him reassessed at ASD3 level as he's only been awarded 20 hours. Again, he'll only go in for this amount until we can get more hours. I've posted on this on Givemesleep's other thread tonight so won't go on about it but aaaaarrrrrrgggghhhhh!