Re: OT Ed Psyche/ Vicky/long++

[Guest guest]

Vicky

Difficult to answer this without seeing your Statement.

There is always a problem if the child's needs are not spelt out in

full and provision specified and quantified.

You have to be very clear about what you want and then decide on the

best strategy to get it.

Don't focus on schools closing and places halving etc. If the LEA

end up without school places to meed identified needs, they will have

to go the private/independent/out of borough/home based route to meet

the child's needs. But only as specified in the Statement, if not

specified then they can get away with leaving the child in a

provision that does not meet their needs.

As I see it there are two issues: 1) current placment is not

implementing provison as specified in the Statemnt (is that correct?).

2) The Statement does not specify all 's special education

needs and specify and quantify provison to meet all those needs (is

that correct?).

Point one is a JR consideration, but as has already been said there

would have to be sufficient failing to warrant a JR and legal

funding. How strong is that case?

Point two is a Tribunal issue, and you can only address this by going

through the lengthy process of requesting a reassessment, maybe going

to Tribunal over that if they refuse, and then trying to agree

wording and challenging that at Tribunal if they refuse to agree.

How old is ?

A 'differentiated/modified curriculum' does NOT mean a classroom

assistant and no more! Far from it. The problem is they, schools,

usually keep parents out so it is very difficult to scrutinise the

curriculum that is being delivered. They don't want scrutiny,

evaluation and criticism from parents - partly they are arrogant and

think they are the experts and know best, partly it is to hide their

inadequacies and failings and the 'one-size-fits-all' approach that

they all adopt, even if they are claiming to/ or supposed to/ deliver

an individualized curriculum, differnentiated etc, becasue of cost

resource issues. The cannot fully differentiate a

curricumum/teaching style for each individual child unless they have

very small numbers of children and very huge numbers in terms of

resources. They say they do but it is lip service only in my

experience (even in Adam's last school where fees were £180,000 per

year and classroom of 5 kids to 1 teacher and 2 assistants - they DID

NOT DIFFERENTIATE HIS CURRICULUM TO MEET HIS NEEDS), which is why you

really need a setting where the other children have very similar

needs or your child's needs are not going to be met.

Another tactic is to get the LEA Ed Psych on board, is that

possible? Because they can go into the schools and scrutinise what

the child is getting and provide recommendations which the LEA can

enforce the school implementing. Alternatively if the LEA won't play

ball and/or you have a useless LEA toady of an EP, you could get a

private EP to go in and evaluate, that would enable you to to

determine whether to go the JR route or if you need to tackle the

Statement through the Tribunal process, which as you say is expensive

and can mean lenghty delays.

That's about it really. Except that if you put up another school

which you believe can meet his needs and there are no significant

cost implications to the LEA and you can demonstrate a case to show

why, they may just agree anyway. At the start of my recent

journey,in September 05 I found a school in the Lake District that I

believed could meet Adam's needs and Camden were willing to go that

route and sent his papers etc. I had strong reasons for requesting a

change of school, although the LEA themselves never admitted the

original school could not meet his needs. In the end the new school

said they could not meet his needs and declined, and then the rest is

history. But that is a possibility unless the costs put them off.

HTH

Celia

>

> That's interesting Celia, so how would I go about this whole

process.

> Visited a school today I would like for . Wonder if I could

use JR as

> a bargaining tool, but if they say differentiated/modified

curriculum can

> mean a classroom assistant and no more, then would they be within

the law, and

> how would an independent psyche help us out with that?

> Also would being part school part home affect our legal standing do

you know?

> The thing is having seen this other school I know mainstream can

never meet

> 's needs and a lot of what they are doing there is not

specified in his

> statement in any case.

> I thought the best idea was to challenge school placement, but

ofcourse that

> will mean tribunal again and all the costs that go with it.

> Whilst waiting in reception to see headmaster today there was a

very loud

> conversation going on between school secretary and another parent,

apparently

> County are looking to close one of the special schools, amalgamate

the other 2

> which are SLD and everyone else into mainstream, so even if we were

to go to

> JR what could we achieve with a County hellbent on saving money

and to heck

> with childrens needs.

> They want to do away with autism specific or anything specific and

just have

> one main complex needs school, which is actually a whole lot worse

for the

> children than what they currently have!

> This would be over a time period that may go beyond 's

education so

> I'm really anxious to squeeze him in whilst the school still exists.

> They have been told to drop their intake to meet target of 70, down

from 140!

> Vicky

>