PinkSapphire

I took our Lea to tribunal without private reports or legal representation and won! It was against refusal to assess and even though we won hands down the LEA still refused a statement and gave us the ever pointmess note in lieu, we were all set to take them back to tribunal again (had date, sent papers etc when I proved to the LEA they were actually breaking laws and they backed down. Then I had to argue with them through 2 propsed wishy washy statements untill we finally had the statement water tight, we were then refused the school we wanted and the LEA tried to push us into a school we did not want and had to fight to get the school we wanted. We got there in the end and tomorrow is our sons year 9 transisiton (going into year 10 review and I am terrified yet again that we will be facing another battle to keep it as I know we cannot trust the LEA.

Straight away you have a case against this LEA as they legally CANNOT make "blanket policies" ie stating they only give x amount of funding for a child with a particular disability!

I have an autistic son and brother, a son with dyslexia and I work in a mainstream secondary school as an LSA (Can relate to the bottom of the pecking order comment, but still stings) We are not actually assigned to a particular acdemic department, rather we each have a timetable and have the same lessons on a week A week B schedule. We all keep support notes on the boys (all boys school) who are statemented, or school action plus. Obviously statemented are a priority. There are many sapects of my job and the way things are run I disagree with, but even when we try we do not have the power to change much, but still get the blame when there is a problem.

We did not spend anything on going to SENDIST and we won! I represented my son myself, the only time I asked for advice was just before it, from IPSEA. That was for refusal to assess, then when they were forced to assess and still tried to say no to a statement, we were more than ready to go through it again but in the end the LEA were shown where they were in the wrong (in sooooo many ways) and they gave us the statement. Absolutely, get your appeal in ASAP (as here is a time limit!) and go from there, IPSEA are great and there are always te great people on here. If you need any advice, just ask hun!

Hun that is awful! I am a teaching assistant in a secondary school, but we are not on a fixed term contract (thank goodness) we all just support ALL the children including those with a statement (ie No one is individually employed to support an individual child with a statement) You need to get your rights checked out, try talking to ACAS I would also meet with the head to find out exactly what the school's position is on this.

Still hoping to find out HOW on earth I can get assessed, I now work in SEN in secondary school and my difficulties are really becoming an issue as I cannot get much further in my career without a GCSE in Maths and I only scrapred a G at school.

Oooh I can tell you, LEAs and schools CAN and WILL lie to try to win these things. They really will stoop low at times and as for proof/evidence they honestly believe their so called expert/professional opinion is evidence unbelieveable as that is. Good luck JenRose I hope you get a nice suprise hun! You have NOT let your child down, you have had the strength and conviction to do what not every parent has, tribunals are not easy even with the support from your own professionals.

I am an LSA/TA I totally support the teachers as we too are having a lot of the same issues regarding managing behaviour with no real support or training, constant changing goverment schemes and also trying to do our jobs for the children too. My oldest sons school let us know on the last day of term by letter (they are secondary) which was great as that is my son with Autism so I was able to tell him in advance. My younger children's schools only knew this week on Tuesday that they were shutting. The school where I work is a mainstream secondary, they are open to years 9, 10 and 11 as they are building up to exams, but as I have no childcare for my 3 I cannot be at work and I feel so bad about that, I feel I am letting my boys there down (it's an all boys school)

All 3 of my boys schools are shut because of the strikes today, the school where I work is open to GCSE students but as I have no childcare I cannot go to work. I am also looking after another 5 year old today.

This is the first time I have been on the forum for a while and I cannot believe this sad news. He really was a wonderful, caring and intelligent man. He was very supportive to me when I was going through a battle with schools, SENDIST etc. My heart trully goes out to everyone, especially Mrs P and family. I feel honored to have known this gentleman at all.

Today I had an interview for an SEN teaching assistant in an all boys secondary school, they phoned me this afternoon to offer me the post!!! They are phonging back tomorrow to let me know about hours etc

Annie is spot on, hun you need to jump on these issues straight away because the longer you leave it the harder communicating (or trying to) with the school will be. That teacher clearly needs a word too.

I am so pleased, it means so much doesn't it when things go right/well after everything.

There is nothing worse than seeing your child so unhappy. Clearly you need to speak to the school, taking somone like Parent Partnership with you as back up/witnesses. Also it might be an idea to take her to your GP so it is not only on record that she is anxious/stressed out but incase there is anything else the gp can do to get more support. If the school are not supportive I would also look into getting Education Welfare involved as I feel they should be supporting parents/children in these things too. Wish there was more I could say, except that you are not alone, my son is on Risperidone for his anxiety/depression, he has been for 2 years now (He is 12) I really hope things get better fast

I agree do NOT drop the tribunal, the LEA are not actually keepthing their end of the "bargain" as your child is still not actually attending the school agreed and so is also not recieving the support in the statement. I think point this out to them and say you are getting advice on the matter from IPSEA, you could also say you are contacting SENDIST for their advice regarding the tribunal hearing, that might get things moving.

Oh no, what a mess, I hope she does turn out to be more organised today and that J gets on with her.

Hi Curra course we remember you hun. Right I am sitting here totally fuming for you! you need to get onto your LEA ASAP, it is such a fight to get these statements schools cannot and should not be allowed to ever ignore them. I really do not understand how schools thing they can get away with this sort of neglect when there is a legal document telling them what to do and they are given the funding to apy for it so there is NO excuse. I really hope you get this sorted, I am sure you will find the extra fight you need, we always seem to no matter how battle weary we are.

Hi hun, Yes it was on their own website, where they go into details of what happens when they are oversubscribed (which of course is every year lol) It says, 5.3.4 The sibling rule will NOT apply to any applicant who has a brother or sister admitted to the school if the sibling was admitted under exceptional circumstances arising from local agreements to comply with the statutory obligations of the Local Education Authority referred to in 4.3 above, unless the sibling would also have been admitted under one of the other admissions criteria.

Thanks hun, our LEA do not have any clue about anything social lol. I have just been looking at other secondary schools in my borough to see what their criteria are and have NOT found ANY other that says the sibling rule is not applied if an older sibling got in through "special circumstances" Surely they cannot do this, why should it matter that my older son got in because he was statemented? seems like discrimination the more I think about it.

My middle son Daniel is now in Year 6 so I am at the horrible applying for secondary school stage again (My eldest Luke started last year!) Daniel does not have ASD but does have Dyspraxia and also undiagnosed Dyslexia, he is not statemented. I thought/hoped he would follow his older brother into the very good school he goes to, but I have just read the schools admissions criterias in detail and it says ; "The sibling rule will NOT apply to any applicant who has a brother or sister admitted to the school if the sibling was admitted under exceptional circumstances arising from local agreements to comply with the statutory obligations of the Local Education Authority referred to in 4.3 above, unless the sibling would also have been admitted under one of the other admissions criteria." Luke only got in because of his statement so now I am really worried/stressed

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Faireducation/ Scottish primary schools are reducing their class sizes, English schools are not, Scottish schools are thinking of giving younger primary school children free school meals, English schools are not,what makes this even more unfair and nonsensicle is...Westminster are paying for it! Why are children in England not being given the same chances as those in Scotland? _________________

In my experience you CAN get the date brought forward but you need to get a special form from SENDIST and get your LEA to also fill in on the same form that they agree with a new date set between you and them and then return the form to SENDIST.

My son was in the same situation at 11, no secondary school place as the LEA only offered the most unsuitable one in the whole borough for him, even SENDIST, the ASD team and his primary school SENCO said it was unsuitable and also could not meet his needs and still the LEA would do nothing. I ended up home educating him for a term untill statement (which we had fought for) was finalsied and the right school named. Don't give up, you WILL get there!

Hi Mike! I am so pleased you have come on here so we can all tell you how thrilled we are about your new school and wish you luck. Hope you visit us again to tell us all about it when you start. Have a lovely Summer Helen x

Have only just seen this, Jen I am soooooooooo pleased for you