bjkmummy

the school was fab and I could see her there - its a weekly boarding school and costs 38k a year and includes all of the therapy - transport would be fairly expensive as its 100 miles away but the nearest dyslexia school to us. having been chatting to another friend who has two children at your sons school and she thinks I should visit it - its 50 miles from us = 1hr 20 mins = again the transport costs will be expensive and also the cost of the day placement is higher than the boarding school we saw last week and im guessing dyslexia teaching needs to be bought in whereas the other school its all ready in place. what a headache but I need to get the statement first so need to focus on that. the LA have said they want to meet with us but now gone quiet and this has been going on for weeks trying to agree a date so just a stalling process really.

got the indie EP results today - in the last year since she was first dx with dyslexia the gap has widened and she has made no progress at all and is now even further behind her peers than what she was when we went to the refusal to assess appeal so all of the interventions school have had in place hasn't worked and even us funding dyslexia teaching has not been enough to try and close the gap between her and her peers. all this in a school of just 29 kids and in a class of 17 so how on earth she is going to cope and manage at a secondary school with 1000 kids I have no idea - we are visiting a dyslexia specialist school tomorrow with her so will see how that goes

in my case now shes getting 18 hours a week - no SALT or OT which we have specified and quantified in the reports plus we are paying for specialist teaching - we have a report which recommends daily specialist teaching so that helps - had the indie EP today so that will be interesting - school levels given last week and she has fallen behind further - LA still fighting it tooth and nail though - they state that OT is a health need and they are disputing our SALT report and instructed an NHS report but with 5 weeks to final evidence to go no sign of even an appointment

how did the appeal go ?

no ive not had the meeting with the sen officer = head in the sand so to speak but the LA because I complained about what has happened offered me a meeting with the sen officers boss and I guess I should take them up on their offer but im nervous about meeting with them as have had so many meetings with them over the years and they have proved absolutely pointless but guess I need to get my head out of the sand and arrange the meeting and confront them head on. I feel my nervousness is that I reveal too much which is stupid as I have nothing to hide/that they don't already know about but I think my nervousness is that I push about the salt report and that forces them to go and get another one done - that's what they did with her twin brothers tribunal with the OT report although the LA OT report was even worse - its just I guess we have been through so so much but I need to deal with it don't I! school saying she will have a scribe/reader for the SATS - class teacher will do it for 2 children doing their sats so my daughter will be sharing which seems odd as I thought she would need someone herself. her reading words for the term have come home and as school so amazed at her 'nearly' knowing all of her first 200 HFW they have rewarded her by giving her spellings a year 1 child would know and increased the number from 5 to 10 - last year our dyslexia teacher asked the school to drop the number of spelling to 5 only and also her dyslexia action report said she should have reduced spellings - so im slightly miffed that they just upped them back up to 10 with no discussion with me or her dyslexia teacher

okay spoke to the senco - daughter is getting about 18 hours of support a week via 1:1 and small group work - max size of group is 8 children - school have no budget at all for SALT OT or specialist teaching - all of their sen budget is used to provide a TA in each class to support the children and my daughter benefits from that. teacher also said that she has concerns about the OT and salt as it would mean that she would need to be withdrawn from class to have the therapy and she felt this wouldn't be good for her and that probably specialist provision where they had this onsite would be better for her. she went on about her good progress - year 6 and we nearly know the first 200 HFA words!!! school not in my home LA, I askedthe LA to send the NIL to the school and they confirmed earlier this week they had sent it to school - senco today told me the sen officer herself turned up with it which is unusual that she even has the time to do it and also the school not even in the LA county and is in a small village in the middle of nowhere so not like she would have been on her way to somewhere

ive got a meeting later next week with the senco/class teacher so will put all these questions to her and will ask again for the schools sen budget - read the letter from last time and they wont tell me as school so small so the children could be identifiable but in the last hearing she revealed how many children were on the sen register in the hearing. I know its confidential info so im not going to be sharing it around, I don't want it for that purpose

the LA have responded - they are saying each school has delegated funding of 10k per child so the school is expected to spend 10k on her and therefore they feel her needs can be met within this budget. they make no mention of the salt report which has been served on them after the NIL was issued so think they are just going to ignore that. no mention is made of her new asd dx either. they say they don't have to specify or quantify anything as they have issued a NIL. it didn't go to panel as the sen officer can make that decision herself due to her experience. they don't agree that the code states that if a child needs 1:1 that a statement should be issue - the examples used in part 8:13 are just guidance only. they don't accept she needs specialist teaching. they don't mention OT for obvious reasons. spoke to the senco this morning and handed the asd dx report over - also she asked me what had happened and explained the LA had issued a NIL - she then asked me what a NIL was............ will do the letter re the school funding tonight as had my head in the sand about it - cant bare to meet with the LA to talk about it but guess I have to although I have now obviously appealed - the letter today reveals an awful lot and they clearly don't have a clue

well the date came today - January next year. today was also the deadline for the LA to respond to my complaint and of course nothing at all has come so they haven't met that deadline which is no real surprise. gave the teacher/senco the report with the asd dx this morning - she asked me what was happening with the statement - explained that the LA have issued a NIL and she responded by saying 'whats a NIL' so I give up..... I did say we would likely be appealing again to tribunal which she then responded that she hoped the LA wouldn't be calling her again to the next tribunal

as part of the last tribunal we had a SALT report done which in lots of areas place her about 4 - 5 years behind. the tribunal panel referred to that report a lot and asked the school what they were going to do to address her SALT needs. the teacher said she would refer her to the specialist teaching service for advice and to see what extra help they could advise offer - post tribunal she phoned them, I don't think the teacher really understood what she was asking for / meant to be doing so specialist teaching service said they had nothing to offer so teacher then spoke to their LA EP when they came into school and they also had no advice so that was the end of it - the school have put nothing in place for her, they totally do not understand what her needs are at all, the class teacher who is the senco does not know what hypermobility or dyspraxia is.because of this conversation I had with the teacher about all of the above I decided to get a much more detailed salt report done which looked in much more detail as to what her difficulites were

the salt report is specific - I am on more of a sticky wicket re the dyslexia teaching as the teacher is employed by us - she is fully qualified - she was head of the local dyslexia association for over 20 years. when I get the EP report done I will firm up the dyslexia side of things as obviously there is a weakness there - she hasn't seen a NHS salt and doubt a nhs salt would agree to see her. the school spoke to the specialist teaching service post tribunal but they didn't know what to do and neither did the schools EP so the school didn't pursue it further hence why she saw a specialist SALT

yes the schools response was in writing and I put it in my last tribunal bundle as evidence so I guess we could say the LA know but I think they will have long forgotten that piece of evidence as they seem to have forgotten every single thing that the tribunal picked up on in their judgement. the dyslexia background statement came from her dyslexia teacher who is fully qualified - the salt report is more specific and hopefully the indie ep report will cover the gaps as well - she needs 2 hours of salt a week and she needs 90 minutes of OT therapy a week plus about 18 hours a year for the OT to plan the programmes and review etc the other thing that ive realised tonight is that they've issued the NIL and offered to meet with me and the school in sept to discuss how the school are going to meet her needs but from 1st sept when the new code becomes law NIL cease to exist!!!! so its all completely and utterly pointless. I am going to ask that any meeting is with a senior sen officer due to complete shambles that the sen officer has made of all of it. I don't really want to meet with any of them but I guess I have to go through the process and show I have done everything I can.

salt therapy is 2 hours per week plus she needs OT and then specialist teaching but no one is prepared to put in writing yet how much she needs just that whatever school she is in has a dyslexia background. I am getting an indie EP report as well so that should narrow the specifics so to speak. I did write last time asking for the budget - the response I got back was that as it is such a small school they did not have to disclose the budget??!! as it was I was able to get it by the sec 52 budget statement the LA publishes. the other complication is that the school is in another LA and my LA is trying to push their polices on another LA - so the school were told by my sen officer that the LA expected the school to fund up to 15 hours = school responded 'well that's news to us' I guess I will ask the sen officer in writing to ask her the questions about how they are expecting school to meet her needs in the NIL from the school budget she will say she is unaware what the budget is cos the school not in their LA but then they will look ridiculous as they say school can meet her needs from the schools own budget without having a clue even what that budget is!!! so actually the LA don't have a clue if school can meet her needs - the school notional send budget for 2012 - 2013 was £3,200 - and that's to meet all the childrens needs and the school say there are worse children than my daughter I know that for the school to buy in specialist teaching would cost £100 per hour so given their budget they would spend that alone on my daughter for an hours teaching a week the salt report states that she needs to be in a school where there is a SALT there as part of the school

the report has now come from the indie assessment she had and now gives the dx for ASD - heartbreaking reading but incredibly detailed and gives details of what type of schooling she will need and clear she will need a specialist placement as she has huge SALT needs now as well and needs to have a school with salt on site, small class sizes, experience of asd and dyslexia, the list goes on ....... it needs a few amendments so will await that and then will serve it on the LA hopefully by the end of the week

thing is sally I tried to get the sen school budget last time and they refused point blank to tell me. I did some digging and got the figures through the section 52 statement and the schools whole sen budget was ridiculously low I think it was about 10k - there is another statemented child there and at the last tribunal the senco said there was about 4 other children with sen with higher needs. the school is not in my LA and when the sen officer said last time to the senco that they expect school to fund 15 hours the senco told her not her in LA they don't so im caught in the crossfire. I will do above though - now have a fab EP on board and likely a hearing will be January - the appeal was signed for at sendist this morning. the EP is when she goes into school is going to ask the relevant questions as well as to what exactly they are doing and what they can do. I need to name a mainstream secondary by October - both local secondary schools don't want her but that's an argument for another day I guess as I have to get the statement first and that statement will determine I guess that both local schools cannot meet her needs. I have a raft of assessments/appointments now scheduled so I can do no more at the moment but im glad ive got it all organised for now