yorks

Hello All Happy New Year. DSS will be starting secondary school in Sept. Has been held back by LEA since he came to leave with my husband and I about 1.5 yrs ago. Depsite meeting the SENCAN Locality Manager in Sept 2011 at the Annual Review and agreeing that his hours would not be cut, we have just had the Proposed Statement and 8 hours have been taken out. Tried to speak to said manager today only to be told by a caseworker that a large majority of Statement hours are cut when transferring to secondary. Is that true? Also, am I right in thinking the LEA have a certain time limit to agree this Statement in the year of transition? Many thanks for any guidance Yorks

Well well well done My very best wishes to you and your family Yorks

Must be me but I love that ad at the moment

Thanks so so much ladies. I can't thank you both enough once again for the valuable help you have given me. I know other people are struggling on here with many more problems than us but I am heading very close to a nervous breakdown and I just don't know what to do. I know full well I probably will have to take them to Tribunal because I still can't understand how one authority said in Part 4 of his Statement that he should be in a BESD special school he then moves to us 3 months later and our authority says no can do and gives mainstream and basically tells us to get on with it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The SENCO himself has told me that the Behav Support teacher in our area is useless!!!! and they still have sought no advice from Ed Psych. We've got an IEP meeting July so sorry to be a pest but any ideas how I should prepare for this? Amanda (yorks)

Any advice on this would be very much appreciated. My step son aged 11 yr is in a mainstream primary with a statement of 30hrs per week. Break times and lunchtime are the most difficulty part of the day for him with lots of incidents of aggression etc. The school are now saying that my husband and I need to have him home at lunchtime!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We both work full-time. I'm at a loss with them really because I keep saying that they're getting fulltime funding so why do we need to step in. Any ideas anyone? Many Thanks Yorks

Can I also add my many many thanks to you Kathryn for such a brilliant post. Your description basically summed up the nightmare we have been enduring for nearly 2 yrs. I've been away from the forum for some weeks because I had felt really bullied by two particular forum members during an ongoing thread. However,it's great to see that there's some really good advice still on here and genuine people who know exactly what this hell is like. Yorks

Thanks for the replies. Hi Kathryn thanks for good proposed plan. Stepson at the moment in a mainstream primary YR 5 with 30 hrs support per week. LEA have held him back a year which to be honest is the only sensible thing they have done since we got full custody of him. I'm in such a dilemma because he actually likes the school. Us for instance are very unhappy with the way the school sort out his LSA support. He's now has his second one in 4 months. I don't see see any real improvement academically and his emotional and social problems are acute as ever. I guess some of you have also seen my posts about the Head and SENCO and how they appear to be blocking us at every opportunity. Lol, need to stop myself now thinking of those two I can feel my blood pressure rising Yorks

Hello all and Happy new Year. Any advice on this post would be very appreciated. We had an Annual Review on 13.10.2010. This was held mainly due to the fact that my stepson had moved from Yorkshire to Essex to live with us. Due to this move to a different area we were told by the Locality Casework Manager SENCAN that the Statement would need to re-written. I've attempted to speak to this manager today to ascertain when this document is finally going to arrive. Very vague answer from some admin person that 'it's on it's way'!!!!!!!!! but it could still be some weeks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Do you think I should now be putting this in writing and making a formal request as to when we should be getting this? I strongly suspect that there will be changes to Part 4 of the Statement which is why I am keen to get hold of it. These changes haven't actually been discussed with us I might add, but the last Statement which was ammended in 24.05.2010 said he should be in a special school. I strongly believe that this will have been altered in the new document. Also, how long do you normally have to wait for a Statement to arrive in these circumstances? Many Thanks Yorks

Just wanted to say thanks so very very much for all the replies. Sometimes I just feel so alone with dealing with this school. Don't get me wrong my partner does his best but I think he just gets so overwhelmed by it all he sort of shuts down. I really don't know what I would do without this forum so thanks again guys Yorks Ooh and Merry Christmas to you all

Thanks for your replies guys. Sorry I should have put this earlier. This so called LSA has never worked with special needs children before and there is no previous CRB. My DS has the largest amount of 1:1 support in the entire school and the head is insisting that she should be the person for my DS in the new year and not any of the other existing LSAs. Sorry cant help being paranoid but I firmly believe the Head is attempting to push us to a position where we take him out of the school. In fact the SENCO said to my other half if they can't find cover would we agree to authorized absence!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! yorks

Hi all Just had a very very strange conversation with DS headteacher. As some of you may know he's in mainstream primary school with 30 hrs support per week. We've just been told that his LSA has resigned and is leaving on Friday?????!!!!! No explantion for this rapid departure. Very very cagey head in fact when I tried to push her on this. Anyway the head has just said to me yes we can get in a new LSA in the short term but the enhanced CRB check has not come through for this person. She then said if she writes us a letter can we sign this document to say we agree the new LSA can work with our boy without the enhanced CRB???!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! basically like a disclaimer. I've just said to the head in a very tense 30 minute phone call there is no way she can do this and I've basically been blackmailed that if we don't agree then DS will not have LSA after Christmas. Any thoughts anyone? Thanks Yorks

Well.................. we were both summonsed to the head's office friday evening with may I say less than 24 hours notice, all because we dared to write a letter challenging why my step son was sitting all by himself all day long in the classroom. I tried to make light of it saying to my partner that we were both in detention, but deep deep down I'm furious. I don't think I've really experienced rage like it before. We also made the big mistake of asking why his LSA on a very regular basis is undertaking other tasks within the school and not providing the full support that the LEA has bloomin well paid for them to do. I got to be honest I have never been spoken to in such a demeaning way. Head would not accept any of our points and basically threatened me that if I don't play ball she's going to have to review my stepson's placement. Really, I'm not mistaken on that point. I wasn't rude or demanding but I stood me ground which I could see she really really did not like. I'm really interested how others deal with difficult teachers. Don't even get me started on the SENCO!!!!!!!! For someone who is supposed to advocate for SEN the man really does not have a clue. How do you actually commuinate with a school that do all they can to undermine and manipulate the situation????? yorks

Hi Sally I can only speak from my experience but if I were you I'd stay put. We found that the new LEA did not fulfill the Statement and still won't. Of course they have brought forward the Anuual Review and we are still waiting to see the revised Statement. Despite us trying to address this in the Anuual Review I know for a fact they wil attempt to change Part 4 to which currently says he needs a Special school. Truly, save yourself a total and utter nightmare. Yorks

Doesn't sound much but I just wanted to share one of those moments when your kids kinda amaze you. My beloved step son whom I have to admit has been driving me slightly round the bend in the last few weeks gave me a very precise description of empathy today as I'm losing the plot in a very busy sainsburys Standing back in amazement I thought blimey some of what I say is actually going in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I thought to myself today sometimes it's hard to recognise the progress that our children do make and we've decided in our house tonight that we are indeed in the presence of our very own wise Yoda Yorks

Karen you're a star yorks x