Since when did my child become child of the school and not mine!?

[whatreally]

Hi
My DD is in Y2 & after seeing an OT we found out at the beginning of term that she has a sensory processing disorder. This doesn't seem to be good enough for her school who now want to refer her to an Ed Psyh with a view to a referal to CAHMS. Apparantly SALT have spoken to them. (God forbid anyone would actually talk directly to me about it. I'm only her mother so seem to be the last to know anything) . I feel like school are pushing me. They haven't started the sensory diet given to them by the OT because "it's Christmas". After they dropped the bombshell about the Ed psy at a meeting on Weds (which stupidly I arranged to talk about the OT stuff), the teacher then waved the referral form at home time & made me sign it in the playground in front of all the other parents. After all this preamble, my question is....can the ed psy refer to CAHMS without my permission? I need to know that I have a little bit of time to get my head around everything before I'm steamrolled into appointments I never wanted in the first place.

IME SALTs aren't very good at including parents. I thought it was just me because I dared to question her assessment of my DS one time but I have heard other people who have had the same problem. Even his program was given to the school and not to me.

I would be angry at the teacher pushing a referral form on you in the playground - that is not good practice and I think might be worth saying something.

As for the whether the ed psych can make the referral in the first place, no I wouldn't have thought she can but you have signed the form now so in effect you have agreed even though the whole practice was shoddy.

If you really don't want to take your DD, don't take her. The danger is though, that you will end up alienating the school and they will be unwilling to help with anything.

I think you have been backed into a corner which is crap.

Is the OT keen on a referral or has she sorted out a programme to help your DD?

Glad it's not just me & SALTS. The OT never mentioned any kind of referral. The programme was sorted out & I thought school were fine with it all. The Ed psyc / CAHMS stuff has come out of the blue. I will go and have a rant about the playground referral though. It might make me feel better.

Last year my daughter's school tried to stop running all the speech therapy groups beacuse it was xmas and it was about 3 weeks until they broke up. I wrote to the head teacher and they did go ahead in the end so that may be worth a try for the OT sensory stuff. It's not like it's the last week of term.

It isn't what you wanted but could you try and look at it another way and go to the appointments and just see what they have to say, just on the off chance that they might have something useful to add.

I know that still doesn't take anything away from the fact that they have gone over your head and you wanted to be consulted though.

Or have a word with the OT and maybe get her to say something?

Definitely let the school know that you want to be consulted about any suggestion or programme of therapy before they put it into action. Put it in writing as well.