Aginoth

We have now agreed the Final Statement and seen the Signed Copy

Long time no update... SENDIST Tribunal is in January. All our private reports are in, EP the last one we received today. We have engaged an Educational Specialist Solicitor to streamline our case for the last couple of months. Has inevitably cost us several Thousand Pounds we don't have but hope it will be worth it. FOI/DPA request to council has turned up some interesting and very helpful (for us) internal conversations from LEA. Don't want to post to much more detail at this stage as aware that anything we put here can be read by LEA. We will give all the details though when we have been to Tribunal.

always liked this Manflu sketch

Bed32, We are 99% sure they are just stringing things out to save 6-9 months of fees

DS won't go near any animals, he is terrified of even the smallest most innocuous beastie.

Our local newspaper, The Weston Mercury (http://www.thewestonmercury.co.uk) has picked up on our ongoing fight to get DS the education he needs. There isn't a digital copy yet but I have scanned a copy in and uploaded it to Twitpic at http://twitpic.com/a474h5 where it is possible to zoom in to a readable size. We are trying to get as much coverage as possible so would appreciate it if any of you with a Twitter Account could tweet the twitpic link (http://twitpic.com/a474h5) for us (pls add @aginoth) with suitable hashtags. Full details of our ongoing attempts to get DS into the school he needs to be in are here on the Education Forum http://www.asd-forum.org.uk/forum/index.php?/topic/27785-going-to-look-at-special-school-after-half-term/ Thank you all

Sally, What interventions is a bleeding good question, because we have yet to actually see the EP report that these interventions stem from. We're not convinced such a document actually exists, in which case the panel has made it's decision without the necessary written evidence to back up the decision. I have today asked the SEN Officer to provide me with copies of the EP report the panel based it's decision on and the associated Action Plan detailing the interventions; and as far as we can tell the interventions are currently remove DS from all lessons except for English and Maths...obviously not acceptable.

So as expected really, panel have refused our request for a change n Part 4. Only grounds given for the refusal other than "inefficient use of Local Authority Resources" were "it was felt more time was needed to see what impact the interventions suggested by the Senior Educational Psychologist will have on his continued placement <at current school>" So looks like time to start getting our appeal up and running.

Decision of the Panel... No Decision, not a "No" Decision, not a "Yes" Decision, nor a "Deferred" Decision just no decision; and no inkling given of when a decision will be made. In effect that means we currently have nothing to appeal against, we suspect this is a deliberate delaying tactic (maybe we're paranoid but we've been at this for a few years now) The panel have asked the SEN Officer to investigate "other available suitable local provision", and then to report back to them. This then would be what we have already done over the last 3-4 months and kept them fully informed the whole time...just frustrating that they haven't done some legwork of this kind themselves at it was obvious to all concerned the exercise would need to be carried out. So we have responded, trying to force their hand, asking for a clarification of whether they are officially saying "No" or "Deferred" at this time, as time is already worse than short for us to get an appeal in of necessary and get DS into the Independent School for September 2012. We have also asked them to clarify the time-scale they perceive this investigation of provision will take. More updates as and when we get a response.

SEN Panel Meeting to decide if they will accept the change of named school on Wednesday (20th June). Writing a letter/email right now to send to our SEN officer to make sure he knows our thoughts and views, and to thank him for his efforts on our behalf (never hurts to say nice things to people ), and to remind the SEN team what they have said to us over the last few months - that being everything we put in writing and they didn't reply to to contradict. Have spoken to Supportive Parents today to pre-prepare (made up word) for the inevitable appeal, but sounds like we have most of the evidence we need already; just an up to date Private EP report to get really to back up all the earlier evidence in our favour, and a few supporting professional statements from former teachers of high standing to get.

We lodged our intent to appeal to the LA this afternoon, actual appeal letter to the tribunal service will be sent in next day or so.

UPDATE: DS has been offered a place at North Hill House in Frome. Appeal letter drafted and will be off to SEN Team today asking for change of Part 4. He hasn't been in lessons at his mainstream school now for almost 2 months, they have agreed with us that they cannot, nor will they be able to, meet his needs; so have the SEN team's own Vulnerable Learners Service. Every meeting and phone call for the last few months has been minuted and as yet LA have failed to respond to any of the minutes and records of telephone calls we have sent them. LA EP is reviewing him today, so the school have had to return him to proper lessons for the day for him to be assessed by the EP, all a bit of a faff really. He is in a pretty foul mood this morning about returning to the school following his visit to North Hill House, so should give a good showing of his "Normal" in class behaviour I expect. DS got on really well at North Hill House and enjoyed it a lot, lots of incentive for us to keep on going until he gets the funding to attend there from the LA. The fight continues

Hi all, Quick update of where KezT and I have got to with our DS. We have today officially requested an Independent Specialist School to be named in Part 4 of his Statement...and so begins our latest fight against the LA. Will keep you posted.

Thanks Kazzan, will bear that in mind, nothings ever straight forward is it, it's not just jumping through Hoops, you first have to find the hoops and put the hoops in the right order.

Hi Sally, I'm KezT's Other half, I don't post very often, tend to let this forum be her domain I just wanted to say thanks for the posts so far especially the last couple, from that I think we have our next course of action planned. We've had many a long talk about all this and have decided to start the application/assessment process with Farleigh College near Frome. From previous experience we know we're likely to have a long hard fight with the LA to get DS the education he needs and deserves; with that in mind we are going to kick off a private EP report sooner rather than later especially considering LA haven't carried out an EP assessment of DS for at least 12 months (and that was as part of the statement process). They have not carried out an EP assessment for his AR. If the LA start getting obstructive to the point of tribunal then we'll update the private EP report at that point.