Special School with Final Statement - How long before they have to act on it?

[yomellamoHelly]

So ds2 has just started at his 2nd special school (not at all happy with 1st). Out of borough in case that's relevant.

In his third week and he's still not getting any of the therapy outlined in the Final Statement (and I'm trying to get more out of the LEA) and he's not getting the full-time 1:1 either. I'm already concerned he's not going to make any progress because they're not working with him and all progress to date has been hard won. He's in school full-time so there's no chance to play catch-up at home (not enough time, plus he's knackered come 4:15 when he gets home).

Asked why not to be told they have a 6-8 week assessment period to understand what he needs and then they'll put a plan in place. 6-8 weeks seems like a loooong time. I feel he'd be better off with me at moment and am feeling stressed about the physio and OT work he's missing out on (SALT less so as they must be talking to each other, but they're not targetting his specific needs).

(Ds2 doesn't walk or talk and I really believe in the whole early intervention thing.)

Obviously not done this with a Statement before so don't know if this is bullshit or really the case. (Last place got fed the same line and then when assessment period got told it wasn't appropriate to give him all I was asking for because it was an unfair distribution of resourses that I was asking for. Thought having a statement would get over this.)

Anyway have asked for meeting with head tomorrow am to discuss.

Can anyone advise whether I am right when I say they should be implementing the statement already. (Have already sent in a draft IEP and a list of the various things I expect them to do over the course of the day to address his needs to try and get them to chivvy along.)

You can tell me I'm overreacting too . Having done this once I'm really depressed about doing it again and may be overreacting.

Thanks

It's bullshit. The Statement tells them his needs and they MUST put the support in place immediately. After that they can take time to develop other strategies, however whatever these are they must be delivered with the resources stated in the Statement..

Take a look at the IPSEA website - it has a sample letter for the situation you find yourself in - i.e. LA / school failing to deliver support stated in Statement.

Best wishes

Thank you both. License to be v stroppy tomorrow then.

So I went and had my stroppy moment today and I need to moan. Cold cry if wasn't all so familiar.

I learnt that actually they've used up all ds's therapy allowance (he doesn't get much) assessing him! He won't be getting any more 'til after the half- term and probably not until the autumn term because they don't have the qualified staff mentioned in the statement to provide that therapy and they've probably used up some of next half-terms allowance too. But the good news is that in the autumn term he'll get more than the 30 minutes in the statement so it'll all balance out.

And "direct therapy" doesn't mean 1:1 as I understood it it means in a group of children so that's what he'll get in the autumn.

Am sure the break in anyone working with him and then not getting any focused attention is bad news. Just left slightly speechless at this turn of events.

Everyone agrees his physical disabilities are what is stopping him accessing an education - it's the first comment in the statement - so why not address them?

What Star said.