babnye1

We are lodging an appeal now against the last AR.

Yes. Things are stable. I haven't seen a SS I think is any good. I know we've exchanged messages about one very close to where I live. I don't know if you've visited it but they won't even let DS do a taster session til next year and there is no way I am naming a school on that basis. I don't know why these schools think its all about them. Anyway, I think there is possibly no fixed long term plan. Flexibility is what is needed and we are going to put together a package which will be in PT4 of the statement. Any tutors will be picked by me. If costed, it won't be much different to his current in school package. It's a case of using the funds in a different way and being more creative and flexible. It may be more acceptable than spending 60k on a school where half the curriculum is art and design.

I agree. Thanks Sally that is good advice and it has prompted me to get my advocate's record of the meeting which I can send to everyone involved. School as completely onside and honest too and we use direct payments for the SLT who we instruct ourselves so there is a fair bit of independent evidence

Thanks but I am not sure what you are suggesting I do when you say "it helps your case for the LA to have tried and failed". The LA is offering nothing. They are not trying anything. They know he is out of school and that he has been signed off. They know we have all met and this has been fedback to them.They were asked to the meeting and did not attend. They are not even complying with their statutory obligation to provide suitable education while he is signed off. They are not suggesting alternative placements or strategies or anything. I can't exactly invent these things for them and try them out just to prove they don't work in case they raise something later The meeting was recorded by my representative who typed it all out on her laptop and I will circulate the notes for agreement.

I think you are misunderstanding me! There is absolute consensus that school has failed. I am not electively home edding. He is on the school roll. The LA have nothing to offer or have tried to offer nothing and so we have cobbled together a short term plan with everyone's agreement. The Ed Pscyh has asked that I investigate tutor options. If we find a school we will ask to go there but I am not grabbing at any old school (Indy SS or not) just for the sake of being in school. Bed the social aspect iof school is a nightmare for him. Socialising in school bears no relation to real life and he is doing fine in real life, he just can't cope with school. Keeping on the roll means he can access school if he wants to and we will put together a package - SLT, OT tutor (off curriculum if needs be). I'm coming to the view that most of the teaching and learning is pointless at primary school anyway, we may as well follow aared down curriculum which interests him and learn that way. Building basic skills too such as numeracy and literacy, When he comes to take exams he can focus on getting through the he doesn't like. I have a friend HE and her 14 year old now has 6 GSCEs. She basically avoided a lot of the KS3 curriculum and went to th stuff that mattered.

The education otherwise package would not be HE. He would be kept on the school roll and we would get the LA to pay for appropriate tutor etc.

Thanks. At the moment, no. I don't want an LA tutor to come to the house. They will just send anyone they can get their hands on and we are doing well at the moment. I wanted time to think about placements, or an education otherwise package - finding a tutor myself.

Thanks. He has been signed off and this is accepted by everyone. I have not been asked to produce a consultant's letter. There is no question of anyone asking him to return. It was agreed at the meeting that he remains on the roll and will be signed off until the summer and I will work with school to continue educating him at home and he will have access to OT and SLT. I will look for suitable tutors and we will look at e-learning etc and try and build up an education otherwise package (whilst still being on the roll) while also looking at indy SS Indy SpLD schools don't want him. AS specific schools seem to be for more behaviourally challenging children. I don't want residential. We will review at the end of term for transition.

Well, that's my view to be honest.

By way of update. My son has been out of school for 5 weeks now. The GP signed him off and the EP and school supported this. I now have a meeting tomorrow with EP, SLT, OT and school to discuss what the plan should be for my son in the immediate term and doubtless for secondary. He has responded really positively to being out of school and has worked well at home . We have done lots of work on social skills and work around his interests. So what to do? One big problem is that we haven't located any school which would be suitable for him at the moment - either for now or secondary. ASD bases are not feasible as they would mean he would have to be in the mainstream of the school most of the time. Other AS specific (and hugely expensive - 60k a year!) provision seems more geared to children with very challenging behaviour and GCSE grades aren't great. We would move but not to an area more expensive so would have to go west. A parental advocate we use has recommended asking for his provision to be delivered at home in the short teem so he still gets his SLt etc but remains on the school roll. She suggests we try and get control of instructing a tutor to work with my son. I'm not sure that my LA will go for that. They are not even going to send anyone to the meeting tomorrow and I suspect they will just suggest he gets the 5 hours a week out of school provision with any old tutor, I really don't know what to do. I don't want to lose control of everything and end up with the LA sending someone /anyone in to start setting work for my son who might not understand AS and who will set him back in terms of confidence etc. I don't want to open up a can of worms. Perhaps I should just HE? What do you think? It is hard to get impartial advice. I think our advocate doesn't like HE and I know it's not ideal but she says things like - you can't be mum and a teacher which I actually disagree with. Meeting tomorrow morning so any advice welcomed

I have met with leading international privacy lawyers who are prepared to act for free in relation to raising the issue of unlawful information sharing between LAs and their NHS colleagues in the SEN process. This will include issues of disclosing reports to Tribunal without consent, passing on information without consent, discussing our children to fix up reports and inaccurate information in reports, etc They have said they will organise a meeting with the ICO and throw their weight behind lobbying for the issue of clear guidelines. The firm are prepared to do all the leg work for this as a pro bono project. They are looking for case examples of these practices so we can compile a dossier. I know some of us have been on the receiving end of some very shoddy practices. Can you message me if you would like to get involved by sharing your story? This would be treated confidentially and used just to lobby the ICO. it could be anonymised if you would prefer

There is a link here to some advice on fixed term exclusions http://educationandrights.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/exclusion.html Make sure you look at the legal requirements that school has to comply with. Have they followed them here? There is possibly a disability discrimination issue here if he was not being appropriately supported. Can you contact the EP directly and ask him/her about their involvement?

The right to request an assessment has not gone. I have just submitted a paper on the Bill to the Public Bills Committee. it is in clause 23. The LA has always been responsible for deciding if a child is to be assessed but parents could request this. As you know, this does not mean the LA will do it. This right to bring a child to the attention of the LA for assessment remains, Who was the lawyer? A certain well-known lawyer mouthed off about this when it was a draft Bill last year but she is wrong and IPSEAs paper does not suggest this either if you look at the responses on their site. There are many things wrong with this legislation - the main thing being it does not alter the power imbalance between LAs and parents at all and does not promote children's rights - and it is best to concentrate on what is actually in the substance of the text. There is also a need to distinguish between the detail of the Act and what will be in accompanying Regulations The Education Act never contained detail such as School action and SA+ or IEPs, they were always set out in the SEN COP and not the Act. There is now a new draft SEN COP - an indicative draft . This can be found here http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/A46D5569-8506-4DC0-A38D-E4429C7DCBE0/0/sencodeofpracticeindicativedraftforcommittee.pdf This time SA and SA+ are no longer in the SEN COP - as it stands. Theybare called 'additional needs' . Equally IEPs which were in the SEN COP and not the Act and no longer in the in the SEN COP. I fear that direct payments are going nowhere. LAs simply don't want them. Recent research by MHP Health Mandate confirmed that by Feb 2013 over half the pathfinders have not got systems up and running and so are simply not trialling them. A get out clause will probably be imposed by way of Regulations reflecting the current SEN Direct Pyments Pilot Order which allows LAs to refuse if it is an inefficient use of resources. In practice this means if they have a block contract they will refuse DPs. LAs do not want to lose control by the back door.

This is now called the Children and Families Bill. There is a parental right to apply for an assessment for what is to be called an Education and Health Care Plan (which replaces a statement) but you are right SA and SA+ appear to have gone in the new draft SEN COP.

Sally - I am not saying he hasn't got anxiety. I am really not. He clearly has. My point was that I think, given his experience his anxiety is actually a very normal response (almost like a traumatic stress response) rather than a clinically abnormal one. But it doesn't mean it isn't anxiety. It was important to take DS to see his response in a different setting too and to be honest - what choice do we have? He is out of schools and we are looking at schools. Everyone we know works during the school day and family are miles away. We have no choice. Mel - we have entirely kept talk of moving away from the children. We visited a house, liked it, put in an offer but have not proceeded as we wanted to keep the children calm and focus on the daily reality until we were sure. We spoke to DS last night and he actually said he would like to move because he thinks he can then get a dog!! But we have decided not to for now. To be honest, I was also partly worried that LA types might also then say, as you have, 'oh you're moving no wonder he is anxious'!! But he really has not had anything to do with the discussion about that until last night. Bed32 - we are in very similar situations. I wish I could just identify what would be best for him as I could then focus on that!!

Well he wouldn't go to school at all yesterday. He always gets up early to get dressed but started wailing about putting his uniform on. I said he could put on something else or just go in for a short spell but he was exhausted. I spoke to head who just wants to do whatever he can to help. I emailed EP who had previously advised him just going in for short spells and said we were waiting for advice. Apparently she had rung head in the week and suggested he take the TA off the other child with autism!! Or that he just get any TA to man mark DS. Head said no to both. They have recutited someone but if he won't go in with me what is the chance he'll go in with someone else. We went to see a special school on Thurs but he wouldn't even go in the classes and an away when he saw another child in the distance. I have tried to get an appointment for GP but none available for 2 weeks so I've emailed to ask for an emergency appointment but he'll need to be referred to someone with significant understanding if Asperger's. I think I will ask GP to sign him off. Meantime, LA have said refusal to amend at AR stands and despite curent problems they will look at transition in summer but that would give rise to a right to appeal. That is in the hands of the lawyers now. God, we were supposed to be buying a house this week after sitting in rented for ages because we didn't know what to do with DS's schooling. I can't cope with moving now,

Anyone any experiences of Grateley school? We are interested in looking at this for our son.

I am thinking of trying to be more creative and having this as part of the statement. I know lawyers/parental advocates who have achieved flexible packages. It is not easy but not impossible.

Thanks. I think he is a little low on confidence academically to think too far ahead about subjects but he is exceptionally good at literacy strangely - not your typical Aspie scientist! I think he sees e process as validating because he is good academically and that is so much easier than the social side. We have HE before and he didn't like the groups of NT children so that was a bit limiting but he may be better now he is older.

Canopus - but my son does want to learn, do exams, go to university. This is where he sees himself. I agree that forcing him to socialise in a mainstream school is not the answer, but, nor is a special school from what I have seen so far. The fact is he is not incapable of life skills, independence, social skills or socialisation. He just cannot cope with this in a mainstream school setting where these skills regress as he withdraws. We are beginning to think that HE might be the answer in the short-term because he does learn skills at home and can be confident out and about. He does not suffer anxiety generally. He just doesn't want to be with 30 peers. I won't pathologise that if he can cope in normal life situations. School is not normal life. I think the added problem is that he does enjoy having friends (and he has some at home) and socialising. So he does feel like he wants to be in a school of some sort. I have yet to find one.

OT came in today and agreed things can't go on the way they are. Currently, she described his as excluded in an inclusive environment. She didn't have any easy answers regarding alternative placements though. I wondered what would happen if I stopped taking him in. It was such a stress today and the younger one has started crying in the mornings as he knows we are going home earlier in the day. My son would refuse to go in without me. The head wasn't sure how this would be treated.

That is exactly how I feel and it would be so much easier to go through the stress of this if I could identify an appropriate school. Even if that meant a huge battle at Tribunal, at least I would have something to aim for. As it is, I am in limbo land - I know he can't cope in mainstream, I know he can't cope with a resource base but I've yet to see a specialsit school that fits the bill either.

You could be right but I also think that, with my son's difficuties, fulfilling his academic potential is one thing that might help him live a decent adult life. I wouldn't sacrifice his happiness for that but I would like to find some balance,

Thank you Canopus - that is very helpful. Obviously, he can't say for definite what he is interested in or what he wants to do now because he is 10. I'm jusdt keen not to reduce his options at this stage!!

Thanks. Finding somewhere for him to go is the hard bit!