Guess what? i think my LEA are FAB :-)

[dustystar]

I know its unusual to have a thread praising the LEA and i certainly don't really mean all of them. However the LEA rep who is in charge of statement has been really really helpful to us. When things first kicked off with ds 3 1/2 years ago she was great and kept us informed of what was happening with his assessment etc and was really understanding of how much stress we were under.

I've not had much to do with her thelast 3 years as she hasn't come to ds reviews and has gone on the schools advice. Ds is going up to middle school in sept though so she has become nmore involved again to plan for his transition.

I'd never really worried about the exact wording of ds statement bvefore as his current school are so good but with him moving I thought i'd better check it carefully. i came up with a list of things I wanted changed or added in and she has done them all!!!!

She has put in that all the teachers and TAs working with him must have ASD training. He must have a max of 3 TAs (the school he is going to do subject based TAs usually so without this in his statement he could have upwards of 8!) She has also stipulated that he has a min of 4 visits to the school in the summer term plus that he gets to meet his teacher and TAs during this time. She has also put in that he must have a home/school diary that is used daily.

I am so pleased - I can't believe that she was happy to do all this without any reluctance at all. So a BIG round of applause please for my wonderful LEA rep

Well I think its good even if no-one else is interested

I'm interested dusty that sounds great - good for her, and it sounds like what she has done will really be helpful to your ds on a day to day basis. Wow!

Thankyou honoria

It will make a big difference to how he copes with the transition. I don't think his new school are going to be too happy about the TA thing though LEA rep says that its tough if they don't like it - she's going to make them do it.

Yes I imagine the school will have to recruit someone extra in order to fulfil that '3 only' thing - and so they should. How unsettling would it be if your ds had 8 TA's for goodness sake!

She sounds a treasure that LEA rep

FANTASTIC .

Go on dusty....... NAME AND PRAISE EM

lol they aren't known for their good statement writing on the whole. A friend of mine has taken them to court over her ds statement. I think i probably have the best written statement in the borough

Thats exactly what happened with my friend pipinjo and I think bizzarely enough it was the same LEA rep whose praises I am singing. Maybe I have been lucky with her or maybe she has learnt from all the trouble cuased by the court case. I don't know but she's written a fab statement for ds so I'm happy.

I live on the south coast just to the west of Bournemouth but not quite in that borough

It's brilliant and so heartening to hear.
Send her a card saying so.

I will moondog. After the support she gave me when ds first went through the statementing process I wrote to the head of the LEA to say how helpful she and her team had been. The admissions team were a complete nightmare and I fell out with them over not being kept informed of what was happening with decisions they were making about ds future. It made the understanding attitude and support i received from the assessment team even more important.

It's good to hear that there are SOME helpful rep's out there..My representative was lovely too.
I understand it's a bit of lottery as to where you live and with which Local Authority you have to deal with..

I wish anyone having to cope with the "statementing process" all the very best..it's not easy that's for sure!

Glad to hear that