UltraMum

Hi bluejean-genie, Sorry not to have replied sooner - life's a bit fraught and I've now got a stinking summer cold. Hi Waccoe, That's about one for every week of the school year ... No - must have missed that one ... I rang up social services and kicked up a fuss - mainly because I ended up with really bad depression at the end of last summer (my vicar also contacted them - he has a son with autism too) - the CH&D team have given me two playgroup sessions and one trip out for my son this summer and it has definitely helped to have some respite. We've no family in the area and it's difficult to ask friends ... Perhaps we three should arrange a meeting - we may already know each other!

Don't mention Donnygate! My hubby works for the council! Glad to know there's at least two of us in Doncaster!

I know that Flamingoland in North Yorkshire will provide a pass when requested. They also allow both 'disabled' child and parent in at half-price. I went with my friend, her sister, two boys [one ASD] and my son. We arrived at the front of the 'sky rider' and this woman was making all sorts of loud comments about queue jumpers - when the first carriage arrived all three boys hopped in with me leaving my friend and her sister to wait. At the far end the next people to arrive were the woman who was commenting - she looked sheepishly at me as I was trying to corrall the three children! When my friend arrived on the next carriage she explained that the woman had become really bolshy about us going to the front of the queue when she'd been waiting 20 minutes - my friend had said nothing - just offered for her party to go next - then, as they were setting off, she walked up to the woman and said "I'm sorry you were kept waiting. I can understand how you feel. I have a child with a disability who would not be able to go on any rides if he had to queue. I would much prefer to have to queue with a 'normal' child but I have no choice with the situation. You do." No wonder the woman had looked sheepish.

We live in a relatively 'middle class' area in Doncaster - the school has 3% of its children on free school meals, 11% of pupils are 'statemented' and a further 20% at school action plus - the sums don't add up for many schools. The other school in this area has an [unwritten] policy of discouraging applications from parents whose children have special needs ... ... yet they have a similar number of children with free school meals ... what happens to their money?

Hi - been on holiday so sorry for the delay in replying: The report is Inclusion: the impact of LEA support and outreach services from Ofsted - it is available here Key findings Support and outreach services promoted inclusion and improved the life chances of many vulnerable pupils. In the most effective support services, all staff were thoroughly committed to inclusion and it pervaded all aspects of their work. Support service staff were particularly valued where they brought knowledge and skills usually unavailable in a mainstream school. Specialist teachers were most effective when they demonstrated effective strategies for others to observe. Other outreach and support service staff provided important information and a thorough understanding of particular special needs or disabilities, making a major contribution to pupils? progress. Help was not always available when and where it was needed. Services in some LEAs overlapped, resulting in unnecessary tensions between agencies and inefficient use of resources. Insecure funding arrangements made long-term planning difficult for many services. The delegation of funding for support services had a negative effect on the provision for some pupils with SEN. It diminished the capacity of many LEAs to monitor the progress of pupils with SEN and reduced the range and quantity of specialist staff available to provide advice and support. The best services worked in partnership with LEA school improvement services to analyse data and target their resources where the standards achieved by pupils with SEN were too low. In general, LEAs did not measure the impact of support services on pupils? progress and attainment and they lacked agreed standards against which the performance of staff and the service as a whole could be evaluated. Information was seldom gathered about the progress pupils made after support ceased.

I'm from Doncaster, South Yorkshire. My message would have to be edited if I wrote what I really think about the LEA. Don't think of moving here. Our LEA spend �0 on "Therapies and other Health Related Services" last year - due to our refusal to back down over Speech and Language Therapy as an educational need there will be an increased spend this year! You can find out lots of stuff about your LEA's spending via the DfES website - follow the link and then click on "data archive". Then download the Budget Detailed Report Table 1 - 2004-05 (401.60kbs) -it's an Excel file. Find your LEA in column B and then look at section 2.2.1 to 2.2.7 for info on spending on special needs. Smileymab - I used to live in Yateley at the end of the sixties - they've built houses on all the fields I used to play on!

Recently I heard my son leave the downstairs bathroom but there had been no sound of flushing or handwashing - so I said "Have you flushed the toilet or washed your hands?" He returned to the bathroom and began washing his hands. I called out to him to flush the toilet first, before he washed his hands. He called back "I thought I had a choice." When I considered exactly what I had said I did appear to have offered him a choice! ... we've just returned from a holiday in the Lake District - J was continually trying to ring the bell in the B&B which summoned the owners if you had a problem - it was the middle of the week before I realised that he regarded "Please ring" as a command rather than an option!

Jaded - I'd love to read your blog - but where is it?

four hours of respite tomorrow - and counting! I've been at 9 on the crossness scale more times than I care to admit today. I do a lot of shouting and then J gets upset - Still - first week nearly over - Lake District next week.

With regard to the 15 days in which you need to agree or disagree with the proposed statement: as soon as you write to say that there are issues which you wish to clarify the clock stops and you then will have time to marshall together all the stuff you want to address. We've just been through this and spent best part of three months getting the LEA to 'tighten' up the specification in the statement. On going, support and advice from the Service for children with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder. How much and how often? Will Nat be seen or will the advice be given to the staff? There's a recent Ofsted report that says that children who are seen by the ASD service and where activities are modelled for the staff do better than those where the ASD service just supply advice to the staff. The statement says Nat's difficulties are in the following areas; Developing appropriate behavioural and social skills; Recognising the needs, thoughts and feelings of others; making others understand what he needs, thinks and feels; Developing and maintaining peer group relationships; retaining and following a sequence of instruction; Concentrating and remaining on task in full class and small group situations; Organising himself and his work; Maintaining self-confidence and self-esteem. For each of the above there should be provision in the statement detailing how these educational needs are to be met. We had exactly the same wording on our statement for our son (Do they supply proformas for this?). He is to access social skills training from September to address some of these difficulties. Would the Maths problems (scored at 9yrs of age) performance problems (99% of children his age would score better than him) reading comprehension 10.6 years but reading and spelling 17+ years not need to be on the statement in the difficulties but on the IEP instead? Ideally the attainments and the educational needs should be listed in Part 2 - to give a full picture to those who read his statement. Hope this helps

We've had: "All boys/children do that" "My lads just the same" - No he's not! "He's young for his age" (June Birthday) "Give him to me for a week and I'll soon sort him out" - Not on your nelly! - (and try explaining that phrase to your child!) A recent howler from his TA: "He's really good at taking turns now. He knows when it's everyones turn and he's always nagging them to take their turn when they are busy talking." - because the only thing he's thinking about is turn taking whilst the others are interacting as well as playing the game!!!!!!!! My special favourite: "We never have any problems at school ..." implying that it's our problem when he's all over the place relaxing at home.

Just read Maggie's message (back in May) - I have the same problem - I seem to spend half my time separating them or sorting them out - Hubby seems to wind son up.

Hi there You may have guessed my name! I have one son (J - just turned 9) who has been diagnosed with (in order of diagnosis!) ADHD, dyspraxia, HFA and severe pragmatic disorder. I guess the autism diagnosis trumps (and explains) the others. The pragmatic disorder is the hardest to get to grips with. I used to work as a radiographer (pre child!) then as a classroom assistant but working in term time and then coping with J as well proved too much for my mental health and i gave up work last September. I'm 2 years into an online degree which is workplace based - I have redefined my workplace and role and have continued the degree, specialising in studying autism and the impact on our family. This has meant that I can take time to research issues that affect us and look at ways of implementing changes to help - that's the theory anyway! We've (hubby and I) been trying to get a statement for J since he was 6 and a 1/2 - just got a final statement last Friday, which doesn't give J all that we think he needs but is better than the 1-2 hours input into handwriting and motor skills that he has had so far. We had to threaten a trip to SENDIST to get SALT provision written into part 3 of the statement. That's probably enough for now - wish I'd found this site a few years back ...

We had similar problems with an assessment being refused - we've been back again - this time armed with reports from some of the top professionals in the country - assessment took place but it has taken nearly 9 months and the threat of a tribunal to get evne half of what J needs - the LEA have done 'just enough' to make it more of a gamble to go to tribunal to get what we feel he really needs and what was recommened by the experts. I'm tired of fighting ...

Hi Lesley We had an independent SALT report on our son which gave a diagnosis of severe pragmatic disorder but the LEA preferred a report by the NHS SALT who had discharged him from their service as they did not have the resources to run the SULP program that he may have benefitted from. The Parent Partnership officer suggested that we write to the NHS to query their report in light of the report from the independent SULP. Result? A complete about face and a confirmation of the Independent SALT's views. The LEA then had to sit up and take notice.