Hi,
Right now I'm trying to write a request for statutory assessment, after being advised to do so by an adviser from Partnership with Parents. I've got a model letter but I'm stumped as to how to present my case. There are two parts I'm supposed to fill in.
The first one is "I believe that my child's needs are:" Isn't that what they are supposed to assess? All I can think of is what the problems are but the needs are much more difficult to pinpoint - or at least I find it difficult to express.
The second part is "My reasons for believing that the school cannot meet his needs on its own resources are:" Should I then go back to each problem and detail why nothing worked?
And also, just in how much detail am I supposed to go? Is it best to be quite short or to give as much information as possible?
The school is willing to make the request, but they talked about it last month and we had a meeting last week where I learned that they hadn't done it and they were trying to convince us that it wouldn't help. So I'd rather make sure it's happening. But I'm struggling!
In a nutshell, my 13 yo AS son doesn't know how to handle problems with other students and very easily resorts to insults and then violence, resulting in him being regularly excluded. He's had similar problems in primary school but they disappeared in Year 5 & 6, only to reappear when he moved to secondary school. Various strategies have been put in place, with intervention from various external people (he's at School Action Plus) but things have gone worse. He has been telling us since November that he doesn't want to go to school. It is also now apparent that he is being bullied though this has only become clear recently and I don't know it was part of the problem last term (and he can't identify the culprits because he can't recognise unfamiliar faces! ) He has been told to talk to an adult when he's got problems but he won't - I guess he doesn't trust them or doesn't feel confident enough, he will only talk to me - but honestly it's difficult to get information as his emotions get in the way.
Intellectually he is very bright, so there are no obvious learning difficulties there. Though I have noticed that he doesn't do well with assignments that require an awareness of emotions and social skills (writing the introduction of a horror story comes to mind). He has come down a level in English in the last term, should I mention it or is it too recent to be considered significant? At the last IEP review meeting I raised the issue of his research skills and his essay planning being terrible, and he is now supposed to work on them in the learning support unit but I don't know if it's happening or if he's making progress.
We agreed with the school that classes that cause him the most stress would be replaced by time in the learning support unit instead. Those are mainly classes with a less structured setting such as art and PE. He has stopped German completely, because he has taken a strong dislike to the language and it was felt that there was no point in forcing him to continue. He is supposed to work on French instead in the learning support unit (we are a French family and he can speak and read the language) but he doesn't know what he's supposed to do so he hasn't done anything.
Now things are so bad that we need to negotiate with the school how to keep him educated during the statementing process. The assistant headteacher for SEN wants him to be started on an a live online teaching programme, from home. The psychologist from CAMHS tells me it's best instead to negotiate in-school provision as he would still be with his friends - maybe coming part-time, or having a learning assistant with him between classes (they won't do that without a statement, I've asked before). It makes sense to me but my son is so anxious now I don't know if it's a good solution anymore. He just wants to stay home and feel safe.
... Sorry if I got a bit carried away. I started the topic wanting advice about writing the request statement. Feel free to give me your thoughts on the rest as well.