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My sons school say he is not suitable for mainstream education

3 replies

jovigirl1 · 03/11/2009 21:20

Hi all, this is my first time on here and would really appreciate some advice.
My son started year 7 this year, and has a statement for speech and language. He has just started on 20 hours per week help, as part of his statement.
He is really enjoying school now even though he does struggle, but has started to make friends. Hasjust had his schoolreport and the only poor grade that he had was for progress in technology and orginisation in PE and technology.The others were satisfactory, good and outstanding for behaviour!!While i know its not an outstanding report, i didnt think its that bad!! would really appreciate to hear from anyone else who has had the experience of this, or who has any advice. The schoolhas brought forward his review from may to november.Would really appreciate to hear from you people. Thanks very much.

OP posts:
Carrotfly · 04/11/2009 12:24

That sounds like quite a good report to me.

Why did the school say he is not suitable for MS ? doesnt seem right based on his report grades ?

PeachyInCarnivalFeathers · 04/11/2009 12:36

Hi

Firstly ,even if you know something like that it hurts (have experience of it), so if you don't agree that must be ahrd for you.

I would write aletter to the SENCO asking them to formally outline their reasons for the emergency statement review (as it is termed).

It may be that their concersn are not at all academic and related to the sort of thing that can't be easily spotted in a report- we're trying to get ds1 a place in a AS class for Comp as although his grades with a lot of support are average - above average, without that he collapses entirely, and his organisational, social and generalself care skills will place him at risk, could it be something like that?

You need to get every scrap of information togather that you can, then really go through it bullet point by bullet point to outline your take. You ahve to be honest with yourself, and it would be good to get someone else read through (I am the Queen of Denial,me) but as a parent you know your child the very best.

I would start with an action plan of:

ask for written explanantion then arrange pre-review meeting to make sure you have all the facts. Whilst awaiting this, contact IPSEA, SOS!SEN and whatever the organisation for your son's DX is (if he doesn't have one, cerebra or someone more generic).

Ask him how he feels as well, ds1 refused a schoolmove until I cottoned on that he hadnt picked up everyone moved at that age anyhow- at which point the idea of more supportive schooling became attractive to him.

Don't agree to anything until you know what's available in your area.

And be aware if it is aprivate or academic school that soemtimes a few sods will try and get rid of low achieving children to up a grade average. rare I am certain, but something I have heard of anecdotally (and would assume our school did- ds1's SATs were bumped up from 1 to 2 becuase 'Oh we think he could be mroe capable really'- at that satge he couldn't).

HTH, good luck

daisysue2 · 25/11/2009 22:58

I know of a few cases. Basically the school has said that they can't support the child, then send the review into the LEA. The LEA then have the right to pull away all funding unless the child moved to a LEA Special Needs school. So pasically the child was forced out of the school.

Other cases I know are when the child gets to the end of Y6 the primary school or parents say the child needs more help so apply for some extra funding. Part of this is an Ed Psyc report. The senior school sees the Ed Psyc report and says they can't take the child. The LEA quickly finds place in local SEN school and they say only funding available for child is to go to that school.

Often this is due to the lack of foresight by the primary school. Many reasons for this: getting a statment is costly, primary schools often over inflate their grades etc. So parents think their child is doing fine. One boy I know of was predicted OK grades by one school only to be put in a special school. The special school tested him and found his reading was so bad they couldn't actually measure him.

Don't know if this helps or makes it worse but I am at the moment trying to decide on mainstream or special for seniors for my daughter.

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