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

the assessment has been basically the LA EP using my old dyslexia action which was by then over 6 months old and taking the scores of that, he didn't watch her in class and just spoke to her for about 30 minutes. I don't know what delegated funds the school have been using for her - I know that at tribunal it was about 8 hours they were saying she was getting as TA support but again were using the TA for another child to support her - they say she will get 3 interventions a day in sept and other things as well which my friend who has read it says she simply doesn't believe. there is no mention in the LA EP report anything about specialist teaching at all - no surprises there I guess - in fact at no point does the LA EP even use the word dysleixia. my LA has not a single specialist teacher so there is no service as such she can even access. school at tribunal after pressure from the judge said they would refer her to their teaching service but post tribunal that was in fact a phone call and as shes so complex no one knew what to do so the school haven't pursued it any further. she has been dx on the spectrum now- that was in july - we are still awaiting the report so the LA were unaware when the EP saw her but the EP report and the answers my daughter gives are a clear red flag that something is not right - and other reports hinted at it as well. she is also due to see an indie consultant paed who specialises in girls also in sept I don't think the LGO would touch this at the moment - I have lodged the appeal this morning so it is done as I wanted to get it in before we go on holiday on Friday and before the end of August so I will go to tribunal under the old code although if we win it will be an EHCP that is issued

the who made it clear that a mainstream secondary cant provide - that was the last send tribunal panel! their judgement in may specifies exactly what help the school has already put in place and also comments that the school are using a TA to support her who is for another statement child - so I have that in writing from a tribunal judge! the LA EP which makes recommendations is very wishy washy and I doubt he will change it BUT I also have my other sons EP report which is word for word the same except he got a full statement. I have instructed an indie EP and I am also awaiting the other report where she was dx and also that will have lots of recommendations also about what she is going to need. that expert also agreed she will not cope in a mainstream secondary school as she is not coping now in a class of 12 children so I expect that report will also detail all of the extra help she is going to need to have in place. the school also commented and again it is written into the tribunal judgement that she needs the specialist teaching we are paying for. if we were to stop funding it then the school would have to pay to provide it. I will email the LA EP and ask him to specify and quantify his report - the first time I have seen this report has been on Saturday when it came with the NIL so I have had no opportunity to challenge it. the indie OT report recommends she needs OT as she has hypermobility in her hands and cannot write for more than 15 min without being in pain. the nhs ot report also confirms this and recommends she has a laptop and a touch type typing programme. the LA EP recommends a spelling programme, a handwriting programme and on and on it goes and not forgetting that she is between 3 -4 years behind in all core areas of the curriculum and has a working memory on the 2nd centile and then add in her sensory needs its all just one huge big mess. im pretty confident we will be okay by going to appeal as the evidence we have is huge as sadly im a bit of an expert now and I have used all of your valuable advice and made sure I have got everything in writing etc. she goes into year 6 in September so I have still a year to sort this out.

that's the thing though - the school detailed in the tribunal in may what they were doing for and what she needed and it was a lot and the tribunal agreed that the school were doing their best but she still wasn't making progress so ordered the assessment. you could see the chair raise an eyebrow when she realised that her twin had asd and was in an indie asd school. the EP report by the LA runs to 14 pages and is the same as her twins and yet he gets a statement???? the recommendations are so wishy washy and a friend who works in a school looked at it earlier for me and she said that what they are expecting the school to do is way above what they can offer - lots of stuff that a TA will need to do but the only TA the school has in the class is for another statemented child and the school have been using her to help my daughter and the school admitted this in the tribunal. the tribunal were very complimentary of the school and yet agreed she needed to be assessed as her progress was so slow. they also made it clear in writing that no mainstream secondary school could possibly match the help that she currently has! I mentioned secondary to the sen officer when she phoned and it was clear she has not even considered that! my appeal will be in the post tomorrow and I have complained to the director of sen about how this has all been handled

Totally gutted, haven't seen it yet but it's in its way. Whole assessment a farce post tribunal, don't know how they can call it an assessment. So back to tribunal I go for tribunal number 3 in 2 years, totally personal decision it feels like made by a lone sen officer who has made the decision herself, no panel or anything and made the decision in absolute blind panic as she miscalculated the dates she was working to. All the EPs I've contacted are fully booked until march and my tribunal likely to be in January.

oh sally I don't know what to say! you are right and a specialist independent school should be so much better but sometimes they aren't and the placements can break down as they would in a mainstream school. I think looking at the other school would be a good idea just so you know what else is out there and if it can meet your sons needs

that's the plan now - she finishes school on Friday for the summer and I plan to take the summer off - if she is to get a statement we will get it towards the end of august so there is nothing I can do at the moment. I now need to get the full report which will take up to a month to come through so as far as the LA are concerned they have no idea she has been dx. when I get the report I will send it to them then. it was hard to listen to how hard she has covered it all up. I was also told she is unlikely to be able to access a mainstream secondary due to the dyslexia, the asd and also because she has significant sensory difficulties as well . I have now started to look at schools and have some to view in September so im finally getting on with that as well - September going to be a crazy month and I will have no name a mainstream school through the normal admission process in October and then wait and see what happens with the statement or if I get a NIL. both myself and dh are currently in denial about it but I think it will just take time for us to come to terms with it all. according to the specialist its blindingly obvious she is but the school were clueless and as she doesn't cause a fuss she has gone under the radar with them as well. the school are still saying unlikely she will get a statement as she is not more than 6 years behind. my battle now is the right placement - if I can get that right now then she will indeed go far but as we know with my LA whatever happens im on a one way ticket back to tribunal

my daughter was dx with ASD today - bit shell shocked but guess I should have seen this coming a mile.

well the medical for the assessment consisted of a 4 minute phone call - this has to be the biggest farce of an assessment I have seen. they were ordered to look at all of her needs and the assessment so far has done none of that. the specialist salt coming in 10 days now and my daughter is also booked to see another specialist who looks at asd in high functioning girls so that will be interesting as well to see what happens - now we wait to see if the LA will issue a statement and how wishy washy it is - I know that I have at least one more tribunal ahead of me

he didn't do that today - he had said previously to class teacher he was but today went back on that - she is average cognitively - 21st centile I think

the meeting happened today and was kind of surreal really - after all ive been through it came down to a generic chat where he confirmed he was reusing our reports (which is fine in the sense they put her on the 2nd centile) he agreed she has working memory and auditory processing difficulties and they would impact on her but that's about it. after he spoke to me he saw my daughter where he showed her 2 lists of words to grade her reading, he didn't do a handwriting sample but agreed she had poor handwriting from the samples I had provided previously. I tried to press about her difficulties outside of dyslexia but most were dismissed as learnt behaviour from her twin. the class teacher had already expressed to him the amazing progress she has made and she spoke to him again after my daughter. he quizzed me about secondary but I sat on the fence and said no decision had been made as we were awaiting the outcome of these assessments. I just hope now that it doesn't go against us in the sense that he has done no assessments - I think she will get a statement but will be generic and wishy washy and not worth the paper it will be written on. I also had an email today to say one of my indies has contacted the school and set up a date for assessment - she is a specialist SALt but can also dx ASD. she is a specialist in girls. she has caught me out slightly as no idea she would contact the school before speaking to me but there we are. the date means that hopefully the report will be ready in time for the statementing cut off point and we will finally know the answer to the ASD question once and for all so that is positive