Uncooperative school

[Jeanette and John]

Hi there, we have a 13 year old son who has just been diagnosed with Aspergers. His main difficulties are around socialising and making friends. He has had a couple of 'so-called' friends who have preyed on his vulnerability and taken advantage of him. We have had to stop him having contact with these boys which is heart-breaking because he thought they were his friends. He only has one friend left now and has withdrawn from all of his activities that we encouraged him to do, possibly due to his anxiety around being in crowds. This makes him quite isolated and he spends lots of time on his beloved X-box.

He attends a large mainstream secondary school and last term was experiencing major, almost daily problems there. They see him as badly behaved and don't understand his vulnerability - so we have asked for an urgent review of his statement and may consider moving him to a smaller educational provision. Has anyone had experience of this ?

 

Jeanette

Edited August 24, 2013 by Jeanette and John

[Sally44]

I'm sure lots of people will have experienced similar.

Our son could not cope in mainstream primary, and was out of school for most of year 5. We had an educational tribunal and he moved to our parental choice of school for primary year 6 and will remain there until 19. He goes to an ASD specific independent school [Alderwasley], part of the SENAD group. This school is for children who are more academically capable, but not coping mainstream.

 

The questions you need to answer are: What is his cognitive ability. Is he on the same level as his peers? The cognitive ability gives you the type of school he needs, whether that is LA maintained or independent.

Then his Statement must identify all his needs in part 2 with provision to meet each of those needs in part 3. And that provision must be worded in a legally binding way otherwise it is worthless.

So do you know what the issues are with your son and what elements of mainstream secondary he is not coping with. Can those issues be met within a mainstream environment or do you need to look at another placement.

Does your LA have secondary schools with ASD units attached and if so are they appropriate? We found that many of the children in those units had quite severe autism. And those pupils that did not were still fed across to mainsteam classes to an environment that my son could not cope in. So we needed permanently small class sizes of no more than 8 pupils, with similar peers, with qualified teachers and SALT and OT on site to deliver the therapy he needed for his various diagnoses [including speech disorders, dyspraxia, sensory processing disorder etc].

 

The problem you will have is getting someone employed by the NHS or LA to quantify and specify what provision he needs, or even to identify all his needs. And I doubt a LA Educational Psychologist would state he needed class sizes of no more than 8 pupils, because that would mean mainstream could not meet his needs and the LA would have to pay the fees of an independent school. This is not okay, or even legal. The Statementing process quite clearly states in the Code of Practice [get yourself a copy of it if you don't have one] that each and every need must be identified and provision quantified and specified in terms of hours of support and staffing arrangements - which also includes quantifying therapy time in school]. You can ask these professionals [always in writing as you cannot submit verbal evidence of conversations], and ask the EP "xxxxxx is not coping with class sizes of xxx at xxx school. How can our son receive small group teaching with a suitable peer group and where the teaching is delivered by a suitably qualified teacher and not just a TA." See what she writes back. You can ask them specifically to describe the type of school and school environment he needs.

 

We carried out a Freedom of Information Act search and found that the autism advisory teacher and the EP had advised the LA that my son needed a 'dedicated ASD enviroment' ie. that he was not suitable for mainstream. But that information was never given to us at the time the Statement was being put together. That information was not included in the Statement, and the LA Inclusion Officer told them that he would make the decision about where he should be placed. And he decided mainstream! So the LA ignored their own professionals advice. The AAT did give me a copy of her advice about a year later [without her employers knowing], and that started me on the track of an educational tribunal. But at that time I did not even realise the significance of what she had given me. By law the Statement must be a true reflection of need. The LA had acted illegally in ignoring their own professionals advice. And although an educational tribunal can make decisions on the evidence presented to them - which they did and awarded us everything we were asking for - the Tribunal cannot deliver any kind of punishment to LAs that have acted in this way. Therefore there is every incentive for LAs to do this kind of thing as it saves them money. If you don't identify needs, you don't need to provide the funding to meet those needs. So be under no illusions. Your LA will know what they are doing. They will have a number of children with a similar diagnosis, and they will already be funding a number of places at indpendent schools for those parents who have gone to tribunal and won.

 

You can ask your LA for their list of maintained, non-maintained, approved, independent and special schools for secondary age children. That will show you all the schools they currently use. One of them might be right for your son. But definately not an emotional/behavioural one as those schools are for children who have been neglected or abused or who have specific mental health disorders. Although there maybe similar behaviours, the causes of them are different. You need to look through the list for a school where all the pupils are on the autistic spectrum, but where the children have a similar cognitive ability to your son.

 

Does your son have any other diagnosis such as ADHD, or Dyslexia?

 

Is there a smaller school in your area? And are the class sizes smaller. Don't let the LA to persuade you to allow him to go to a different type of school that has small class sizes, but is not ASD specific ie. a school for children with emotional or behavioural issues, or moderate learning difficulties.

 

I would also suggest you get a referal to Clinical Psychology to a professional that has experience of working with children with Aspergers. You need their advice to be included in the Statement too. And you will need their support if your son does end up refusing school due to anxiety.

 

Websites that are worth looking at are www.ipsea.org.uk [http://www.ipsea.org.uk/]

as they have alot of advice and case law [legal cases that will be similar to yours], and also www.ace-ed.org.uk [http://www.ace-ed.org.uk/advice-about-education-for-parents]

they have a booklet about getting the statement right. I'll find the link and post it.

 

The times when a Statement can be amended is at an Annual Review, or if you ask for a re-assessment or an emergency review of the Statement. You need to know which one will get you the right to appeal quicker. If your AR is coming up soon I would wait for that. After the AR the LA must sent you a letter stating if they are going to amend the Statement or not. Once you have that letter you can appeal that decision. If they amend and you are not happy with the wording you can appeal that too. You just need to make sure that you lodge your appeal within the timescale given after an AR.

 

The only problem you might have after an AR is that there is no legal time limit by which the LA must have informed you if they are going to amend or not. If they drag it out you can ask them to send you their Decision letter and ask them to respond within 14 days. If you hear nothing you can lodge a complaint with the Local Governments Ombudsman about their delay in issuing their Decision letter. That should push the LA to write this letter and sent it to you.

 

On the other hand a re-assessment or an emergency review of a Statement has a legally binding timeframe by which the LA must have issued their finalised Statement, and once that is issued you can lodge an appeal to SEND [special educational needs and disability tribunal] about parts 2, 3 and 4 of the Statement.

 

As your son is becoming more anxious I would recommend that you keep a daily diary of things that happen in school or at home and things he says and does like hurting himself, calling himself stupid/rubbish/wishing he was dead etc. This is all evidence you need.

 

If you do end up finding that only an independent ASD specific school can meet his needs [small class sizes, low arousal environment, suitable peer group, life skills, speech therapy and social communication therapy, occupational therapy etc], then you will almost certainly end up at an educational tribunal. You will need reports that state his needs ie. "xxxxx needs to be in a school where the class sizes are no more than 8 suitable peers". etc for each and every need he has.

 

But going to the tribunal itself does not cost money. You can represent yourself. If you cannot afford independent reports and for them to attend as your expert witnesses, then you just have to put together the best case you can and go to the tribunal yourself. Make sure you have evidence for as much as you can, and also know what your LA/present school can and cannot offer and in what ways they cannot currently meet your son's needs.

 

It is worth talking with ipsea [you can book telephone appointments] and ace-ed advisors.

Edited August 24, 2013 by Sally44

[Shnoing]

 

... he thought they were his friends. He only has one friend left now and has withdrawn ...

About this one: he might gain some insight in how "friends" act by reading Luke Jackson's Freaks, Geeks and Asperger Syndrome.

[Jeanette and John]

Hi Sally,

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply to my post. We are so grateful for your advice and will study it very carefully in perpetration for our son's Annual Review. We asked for this to happen urgently in July, but so far we do not have a date.

Dreading the return to school next week. !!!! Will keep you updated.

Thank you very much,

Jeanette

[Jeanette and John]

Sorry ! That should read 'in preperation for .....'

[Sally44]

The Annual Review of a Statement must happen within a year of the date that the first Statement was issued. So what is the date on the Statement?

 

LA's write to schools and tell them which Statements are due for AR.

 

You should receive any reports two weeks before the AR date. You should be invited to attend, and you should know who else is being invited, and you can ask the Head to invite any professionals you think should attend. You can also ask the school who is going to re-assess your son. More than likely no-one. But that is also something you can get written into the Statement.

 

Our son's Statement now says that updated reports, using standardised assessments, will be produced for the AR. So we get a report from the speech and language therapist, the occupational therapist, the specialist dyslexia teacher, his class teacher, and the child psychologist working with my son.

 

If you have no date yet, you could find out who the school could/should invite. You can write to each of those professionals and state that you are concerned that he is not coping in secondary school. Ask them to assess him using "Standardised Assessments" and to submit their findings and recommendations to the AR, and ask them to attend. If you ask in writing that is additional evidence you can submit at any potential tribunal.

 

The reason that Standardised Assessments are so important is that they give a baseline reading from which to measure progress, and they also identify weaknesses [ie. needs] and also strengths. Without those assessments you have no real idea of his abilities and where his difficulties lie, and you cannot tell whether he makes progress or not.

 

So, as an example, if my son scores a standard score of 3 on a certain sub-test carried out by the speech therapist, that means he has a severe difficulty with that specific skill. If he is assessed a year later and he remains on a level 3 that means he has not made progress, or may indicate he has fallen even further behind his peers. Under the current SEN law that would allow you to seek expert advice on why there has been no progress and to advise on what "additional or different therapy or support is needed to ensure that progress is made." So, as an example, if the speech and language therapy or social communication therapy targets have been devised by a SALT but delivered by a teaching assistant, and no progress has been made, then it is reasonable to ask that a suitably qualified professional delivers the programme in school on a weekly basis to see if that produces progress. The SALT should specify that themselves and state how many hours per term she needs to deliver the programme, and how many additional hours per term she needs to liaise with school/parents/TA, observe, make notes, assess, attend IEPs and AR and write an updated report using standardised assessments to be provided at least 2 weeks before the AR.

 

And knowing what the difficulties are is very important because there could be a number of causes for certain difficulties. For example my son struggles with handwriting. Is that due to dyspraxia, or dyslexia, or sequencing problems, or dysgraphia. And having a better idea of the cause, professionalsto be more specific with the kind of support or therapy a child might need to make improvement.

 

Your child is now 13. Bear in mind that an appeal of his AR is going to be some months in the future. If the AR is in September, an appeal is going to be 4-6 months from the date your lodge your appeal. And you can only lodge an appeal when you have received the Local Authorities Decision letter after the AR - which they could take months to issue.

 

So, IMO, I would play dumb about that. By the SEN Code of Practice the school has to send their report after the AR to the LA within a certain timescale [i think it is about a week]. I have heard of LA's not issuing their Decision letter until the month before the next AR ie. 11 months later! But as I said above, if you don't hear anything after a month, I would recommend you write to the LA asking them to issue their Decision after the AR within the next 14 days [of the date of your letter]. If they do not respond, lodge a complaint with the LGO.

 

But please know now that it is unlikely that anything will change, or be recommended. If they wanted to do something they could do so now, and get it included in the Statement. Remember that it is the LA that makes the final decision. The school sends in all the reports and parental comments, and they make a decision on whether to amend or not. It is the LA that funds the Statement. So it is not really in their interests to acknowledge needs that then cost them money. But a SEND Tribunal is different. Each need identified must be included in part 2 [and they will include it if you send them evidence of that need]. And part 3 must quantify and specify provision for each of those needs in terms of hours of support or therapy and staffing arrangements, professional qualifications, ie. who does what and when and how often.

 

Do you have a school in mind for your son?

 

When you say you "asked", did you put that request in writing to the Local Authority? Remember that anything verbal cannot be proven and cannot be submitted as evidence. From now on make sure that everything is in writing.

 

Do you have a copy of the SEN Code of Practice? This is a link to it http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/files/pdf/s/special%20educational%20needs%20code%20of%20practice.pdf

You can get a copy of it for free. It contains alot of what you need to know. Annual Reviews are covered in chapter 9. But also read chapter 8 about Statements, and what they should contain.

 

This is a booklet by www.ace-ed.org.uk which you might find useful http://www.ace-ed.org.uk/Resources/ACE/Understanding%20Annual%20Reviews%202010.pdf

 

You can now book telephone appointments with ipsea. This is a link to their "Case Law" section. This is very useful because it gives examples of rulings of other Tribunals, and when a decision has been made on a certain aspect of law, all other judges have to follow that same interpretation of the law - unless there is an appeal and that interpetation is overturned. And that may lead to a further appeal and the new interpretation being overturned! But it is worth looking through those examples to see if there is anything pertinent to your own son's Statement and his current difficulties. http://www.ipsea.org.uk/Apps/Content/html/?fid=91

 

As the new school year is approaching, if you find your son refusing to attend, this is one of the case laws that gives useful advice about that situation http://www.ipsea.org.uk/AssetLibrary/How%20we%20can%20help/Taking%20Action/Case34.pdf

 

Our son refused to attend school. I got a letter from the GP, who wrote the letter after having spoken with the CAHMS psychiatrist. The LA still ignored that and threatened us with the EWO. So I also asked Clinical Psychology, who were involved, to write a letter, which they did. They also detailed that I was only to use "gentle encouragement" to get my son into school. That was after I had spoken with them and written to the Psychologist and specifically asked her to detail how much physical force I should use to get my son into school, because I was uncomfortable with the level I was having to use. I felt that the school/La and professionals were not listening to my son or what I was telling them about how he was not coping anymore. By ignoring me and him, and threatening us with the EWO they were forcing me into a situation where I was having to use more and more threats and physical force to get him into school. Once there he just vomitted due to anxiety and had to come home.

 

I am absolutely 100% certain that the school/LA and other professionals knew what they were doing and knew that my son was not coping. But you need to get it all in writing, and once you start writing to people they then become accountable and there is a papertrace to them and they have a Duty of Care towards your child.

 

Read the SEN Code of Practice and read Case Law. Learn the system. The law of the land ie. SEN law trumps any local authority internal criteria, or funding limits. There is no limit on the amount of money needed to fund a Statement. The LA is legally bound to fund the Statement and provide everything it contains. That is why LA's try to get out of issuing Statements and write Statements that are not legally binding on them. That is how they save money.

Edited August 26, 2013 by Sally44