chris54

There are two (?) ways of looking at ways of setting a budget. You can work out how much you want to spent then divide it up as best you can, often having to leave some things out, or you work out how much you need to spend and set you budget to that.(worrying on how to fund it later (TAX)) It seems to me that as far as education spending is concerned the first method seems very much to chosen method. And one of the things being left out is adequate SENs funding. We then spend money monkeying around trying to make cuts look like improvements to the system.

Go on, live dangerously, have a pork sausage. Id wait untill there was 30 minuets to go and then down 4 pints with whiskey chasers, to remind my of my younger days.

Or go hand free.

The latest announcements don't really make it that clear (To me at least) who this "own budget" is aimed at other than a woolly statement "The most sever SENs", Dose that mean all children who have a statement, does it mean children that go to special schools, or What. My thinking is that a lot of the time, those in government thing of "disabled" and "SENs" in terms of if you can walk and talk then your not.

There was a head teacher on the radio talking about this. As far as parent having control over individual budgets, her comment were, for parents who are proactive in their children's education fine, but what worried her were there many parents, even of SEN's children who have no interest, who never turn up for meeting. what will happen to these children. A point she also raised was the possible increased use of "Free School Meals uptake" as a way of fixing schools SEN's budget. She said "My school is well funded", but she had concerns about smaller school in the "Leafy suburb" As I get working tax credit, we are not entitled to free school meals. That does not take away my sons SEN. I just wish the government would come clean and say what it is they are doing. You have two choices, keep spending as it is and put up tax, this will hid the better of most. Or reduce spending, which will hit the poorest most. Or something in the middle, (Three choices)(Had a bit of a Monty Phthon moment then)

The government has announced that to many children are classed as having SENs. That it want to reduce this number. They say it is not to do with cutting cost but to deliver the right support to the right children. Also they talk about children with the severest disabilities having an individual educational budget under the control of parents to be spent on what services they decide. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-18061348

24 hours? If it was the 4 minuet warning Id boil an egg. Those of you as old as me might remember the time when we lived with a 4 minuet warning. A 4 minuet warning of the landing of nuclear missiles. We were all supposed to be ready to go into our home made nuclear bunkers. My parents were in the civil defence and knew that if it did happen there was little chance of survival so basically did not worry to much about it.

The toileting need of ALL children have to be addressed by the school. This is covered by the disability discrimination act. It makes no difference whether it is in a statement or not. To repeat it is ALL children at school. There will/should be a designated person who deals with this, Often the first aider/ often the receptionist. But of course it sounds like your child has more problems than just continence. With my son it was, what seems to be a common problem, not wanting to use the school toilets. Mainly due to the noise. He was quite happy for the teachers etc to deal with the consequences. The school arranged that he would be taken to the staff toilet at regular intervals during the day. He is more or less OK now. At the time he did not have a statement. (Still hate using school/public toilets, Its the noise) Of course your son would need to cooperate with staff, they would not be able to forces him to get cleaned up. The soiling, not changing for PE problem, not undressing for the doctor, I would think are linked. Do you have any idea where it comes from.

I don't think that because someone lives in supported living will be treated any different to any one else. The theory behind the ESA is that people now on IB who are deemed able to work will be supported in getting work. If you are deemed unable to work then you will ESA in place of IB. The worry people have is that the new criteria is more to do with what you can do and not about what you cant. Of course one problem which very little seems to be being done to address, is the lack of suitable work for people who have disabilities. Not knowing anything about the particular housing scheme you are in and what the criteria for a place there is I cant comment on how any change in you benefit status may affect that. Housing benefit will continue to be payable when changing to ESA, I would not think the new benefit cap would affect you. So basically if you are currently on IB and deemed fit to work, you will be treated as unemployed. (There is a half way status were you will receive additional support for 12 months) (At lest that is the way I understand it).

I did not take any offence, been around to long to let it bother me. I was responding to you post, but also high lighting to the unknowing, how dyslexia affects me. Its not just not being unable to read. I came from a family of good readers ( The females at least) My older sister could read from the age of 3, apparently self taught. She can read at a colossal rate. When she reads a book she can remember it almost word for word. When she was young, doing GCE, she never studied, just read the book the day before the exam and passed. She did not do FE as it had no interest to her. So when you are compared to a sister like that, I was realy written of at a fairly young age. I had no, or very little reading ability when I went up to secondary school. It was only the pioneering work of a teacher who persuaded the council to let him/fund him to set up a unit in a derelict disused school that I attended for 2 years that I was able to learn to read. I don't think even then dyslexia was ever mentioned. But we were taught right from basics, up. I think now that many of the children had ASD, as there were classes made up of mixed age, but same problems. The aim was very much to get you to a standard to enable you to make progress in a mainstream school. I'm not sure how people would react now, the building realy was derelict, paint peeling off walls, all second hand equipment, One end of the building was closed of and used as council offices of some sort. And most of the teacher were getting very near to retirement. (Been put out to grass). But now I have gone way off topic, which seems to be something I am good at.

These are worrys I also have.

Having dyslexia does not mean you cant read or writs. I have dyslexia. I was long in learning to read, mainly because of the methods used to teach. When I was a child, dyslexia was not realy known. You were somehow expected to lean the alphabet, and from that be able to read. That aside, my main problem these days is absorbing what it is I am reading, I have to read everything at least twice often three time before it is realy absorbed, also the rate at which I can read is much slower than the norm. I find reading aloud helps, but not always possible/practical. Not to bad with writing (Typing) but do get spelling blocks where I fine I have no idea how a word is spelt, not even enough to get spell checker to work it out for me. I find it easier to remember how to spell when using a key board, I think it may be that I remember the letter pattens on the keyboard, I only us 2 fingers, no point in learning proper tying as my brain would not work out the letter fast enough. I find I absorb information much better from doing/seeing than from reading. If I am reading something it helps if I have first hand knowledge of the subject, then I can visualise what I am reading.

I think that is probably my biggest fear. By the time my son is 20 I will be an OAP.

There are different dynamics between different people on the forum anyway. There are one or two people I would be interested to meet, not sure the feeling would necessarily be mutual, but I would not want to be in a situation were I was just there to meet them, with a planed agenda. 5 minutes might be enough, and then I would want to walk away. The idea of hours of travel for that is not something I would contemplate. So if I was going somewhere anyway and they were going to be there as well and we met up say for coffee, but at the end of coffee I could, if I wanted to, walk away and get on with the rest of my day, fine. But that would be about it for me. But dont let me put anyone off the idea. Its just not for me.

Because we will we able to play with it maybe doing some of the sort of things quoted above. Maybe my son, who is rapadly teaching him self how to use computers, will be interested in it and teach himself a bit more about computers and how the work (Programing).

I couldn't have put it better myself. Taking about cars, my uncle, now well into his 90s, "Arrived one day at our house, sorry I'm a bit late, decided to swoop the engine in my car before I came out this morning." Don't think you could do that with a modern car. LancsLad, Ill be arm wrestling you for that classic car.

Not realy sure this is what you want, But for me the long term outcome I'm hoping for is that my son will grow into an independent adult who has a meaning full life.

You will see that everyone has their own interpretation. I think the most important sort of friend to have is a "True" friend. As I have said before most of us will be luck to have a hand full of these in a life time.

That a bit of a funny one, the DLA my son get is because of the extra care he need, I provide the bulk of that care, so it is in affect to compensate my for that. It offsets the fact that I work fewer hours and in a lower paid job than I other wise would. So the DLA payment is actually spent on things that we would other wise not be able to afford. It does at times build up in the bank, and so become savings. Also I am trying to put some capital aside for his future needs.

As I remember it, with some benefits, the benefits people assume an income from saving which is much more than you would ever hope to get in interest. And any interest you earn is adding to the capital as well. Also when your savings get to a certain point your benefit stops altogether.It is different for different benefits, and dependant on you circumstances, if your are struggling to understand the benefit system, than as Sallys says get some independent advice. With Tax credit it is the actual interest (Income from savings) that they are interested in, with no reference to how much capital you have, But This is likely to change for working tax credit in a few years time, when the new universal benefit will incorporate working tax credit. But I'm not sure if the government have finalised any of this.

When you are asked on a benefit claim form about savings, they mean all the money you have at the time. It does not mater were the money came from. It can be in a bank account, it can be in the form of investments, it can just be the cash you have in the house. So if you save up your benefit's,or part of. (ESA, DLA, Pension, Child benefit etc) they are your savings, just in the same way as if you were saving money out of your wages if your working. So unless you are left with no money or owing money at all each week, you will have some savings. May only be a few pounds, that is partly why you are allowed some savings before it affects you benefit.

When they say savings, that means all the money you have put aside, no matter were it came from. Not to be confused with income.

I would confirm that opting out of mainstream does not mean that your child will not receive a good education. Indeed the reason for opting out of mainstream is so that they can receive the best education possible. Well at least that is the theory. The challenge is to find the best option for your child. It is likely that there will always be some compromises. Unforchantly, LA have challenges of their own, which do not always offer the best outcome for individual children. I would not like to be the person who has to make the decisions.

3 or is it 4 life's ago I live in London. It must be 20+ years since I was last there. I was born in the bit that was part of Essex untill 1965 when Greater London was formed. Much to the disbelief of many Londoners, London is not the center of the universe. There have been meet ups before, only realy viable for people living geographically close to one another (Or with good transport links). But don't let me put anyone off.

I would suggest you go on the councils web site and look up the department you want. For some councils every thing goes through the main switchboard.