Good morning, long time reader of posts, first time contributor. Just wanted to add my experience uo to now and of calling this morning.
Jan 2nd - called for forms
End of Feb - forms sent back, I had missed a signature
Mar 6th - Scan date
Mar 13th - acknowledgement letter
Apr 23rd - sorry you're waiting letter
After reading these posts I learned about priority due to financial hardship. Last Monday I had to withdraw my son (combined ADHD, suspected Autism - ADHD diagnosed in Dec 2023. Autism in watch and wait period) from mainstream school due to disproportionate punishments and threats of exclusion. I won't go into it in too much detail but not being allowed to participate in golden time, which is TV and being told to stand with his back to the TV, then punished if he turns around (yes, really). Being threatened with exclusion for putting his head on the desk or standing up out of his chair. The list is endless and quite simply unbelievable.
I am currently pregnant so have taken maternity leave early in order to facilitate the home schooling. As we all know we have a plan for our maternity leave, I work term time so my plan was to work right up, so I got the school hols next year packaged up into my mat leave. I have now had to take mat leave from last week at 32 weeks. I have already changed jobs, stepping down from a managerial role to take a term time job (with a subsequentpay cut of approx 8k per year), then had to remove him from wrap around care and pay someone to do it (at a considerably higher cost). Now I've had to take him out altogether. Which will mean July and August will be stat mat instead of 90% pay, and my mat leave will end much sooner than expected next year.
Anyway I called today to discuss priority and thought i'd share what she told me. She said I'm on week 14 (tomorrow) and that claims are being dealt with between 15 and 20 weeks. She said my claim is with a decision maker but not yet dealt with. She did say that she would push my claim forward - I assume this is making it priority but who knows. She said "without pushing it forward you should expect a decision by 20 weeks which is 23rd July so its not too long away now anyway".
But that's 29 weeks from calling so it feels like an age!