LKS

Thanks all <'> I don't know why primary are being like this but I expect its something to do with secondary asking one of dd's LSAs to come along with her on a visit. I did originally ask primary for a timetable of yr 6 events but they 'forgot' to tell me about the visitor coming into school to show some animals, wasn't on any newsletter either. But you are right I shall bypass primary as I suspected I would have to do all along. Funny but in the last primary governers meeting the senco was asked what transition plans had been made for the children with SEN in the minutes she says that all transition plans are in place whatever that means. I feel really bad that I haven't pushed for this more.

I know there have been many threads in the past about transition to secondary and how it can go well with the right input but I am beginning to panic now. Dd will be gong to secondary in Sept. Local mainstream but with a good SEN dept. She has a statement for 25 hours 1:1 support per week. I have been in contact regularly with the senco at secondary school who is more than willing for dd to visit how many times she wants. But the primary are being awkward. First they want dd to go over with a group of 12 pupils who they think will benefit from these visits. Secondary want to see dd by herself at first or at least with a friend she has chosen. (they want to concentrate specifically on dd at first) The specialist teacher for ASD is supposed to liase between the schools and have a transition plan in place, she has asked me too contact secondary directly myself to arrange visits. Well I can do that and did but the time we worked out was then not a good time for primary and dd was due to miss something that she was looking forward to. Obviously yr 6 is a busy time with lots going on but I feel primary are being particulalry awkward because we are saying that dd should visit by herself at first and this has 'spoiled' their plans. I sent an e-mail to primary senco who said she had contacted secondary to arrange visits after half term, forwarded this to secondary who said that she had not been contacted by phone or e-mail. Dd is likely to have problems transferring and I can't believe they have left it this late and I am doing all of the chasing. Secondary have also said they are against large groups of SEN pupils visiting at the same time as then you are presuming they will all have the same problems and they are 'lumped' together from beginning.

Hi BusyLizzie I am also having trouble with the school and optional SATS. Dd is in yr 6 and they decided that she should have a go at the English and Science as she seemed to be working at a secure level 3. Dd seemed quite happy with this and was taken into a room with her L.S.A. no pressure but she had a bit of a meltdown with the English because she has been used to feedback and gentle prompting by staff all the year, this time she was on her own and she struggled. In maths she had been given the 2007 maths papers to try, she got 4 out of 40 on the first and 6 out of 40 on the 2nd which is obviously not enough to give her any level, but to me shows how much she is behind the rest of her peers. So what they did was give her an optional SATS paper from yr 2 which apparently she got a 2b. Now to me this shows she is working at the level of an average 7 year old so seems a bit pointless to me. I much prefer the TA which at least shows me where her difficulties lie

I think a little call/e-mail to the admissions team is called for here and point out to them that the admissions criteria published on the schools website is not the same as the criteria published in the official starting secondary school in ***** 2008. Maybe our local rag would be interested as well he he.

Hi PSA how are you. My dd brought her applying for secondary school package home today, have looked through the criteria for school you are interested in, it says Criterion i children who have a brother or sister as a student at *** at the date of application. Parents are required to provide on the application form sufficient details of the brother or sister (who forms the basis of the application under this criterion) to enable governors to satisfy themselves that a valid qualifying relationship exists. It also goes on to say that you must send the applications officer a full version of the birth certificate of the brother or sister already at the school. I have looked very carefully through the info and can't see anything about siblings of students that got a place because they are statmented being excluded from the sibling rule. (Was the info you saw on their website?) I also saw for their 181 places they had 1154 applications last year. Hope some of this helps and good luck. Haven't got a clue what I'm going to do about my dd yet. The LA as usual have been their usual helpful self.

J's mum. It is interesting to know what the LA actually consider to be independent advice. Is it any advice that doesn't come from someone within the authority, or just advice that parents have been forced into paying for My LA have not included anything from the report for my dd from GOSH, although they said of course they will 'take on board' any advice supplied, they must be guided by the SaLT from our authority! BUT my dd is under the care of GOSH because she was referred there by professionals from our authority who needed their input. Dd is due to go to secondary school 2008. We recently started to 'do the rounds' of some schools. She went to spend a day at a specialist school for language and communication disorder and ASD. Again staff there did some very thorough assessments on her (including head of SaLT). I submitted their report for everyone to see at dd's yr 5 transition annual review. The LA SaLT turned round to me and said 'Oh well they are bound to say those things because they want your dd at their school'. I could have bopped her one I was so so angry. I have complained about her to her line manager, but we are stuck as she is the only SaLT working with children in mainstream schools. So you can imagine what our relationship is like now!

Hi BL, been reading about whats been happening (or not!) with your SaLT with interest. I have much the same problem. Dd's statement says 2 visits termly from LA SaLT. SaLT says she is making great progress and no longer meets the criteria to receive therapy (this despite dd still being on the 1st percentile in several tests) SaLT has so far refused to send me a copy of 'the criteria' for therapy, SaLT is discharging her. Dd has extensive tests and investigations at Great Ormond Street Hospital. They say she has a significant SPLC disorder as well as an ASD and will continue to need SaLT. LA therapist disagrees and says her language is what you would expect with a child with an MLD she says she will not be told by 'outside' people her job. These outside people include a professor with years of experience in dealing with children with dd's condition. The HT writes to the LA expressing the concerns of the school, LA write back and say if the school and parents believe dd still requires SaLT it is up to us to sort it out! So at the moment we have SaLT on the statement, an LA who seems to think it is nothing to do with them, a therapist who is having a hissy fit, cos she don't know what she is doing and L.S.As using a programme of support for dd that is now out of date and the targets of which have been met ages ago. I wish you lots of success with this BL, really hope you sort it out, I am completely worn out with it.

Hi Karen. I had the same problem with my ds when he was in yr 6. As he was academically able the L.S.A. was used elsewhere. (academic things were the least of his problems) I wouldn't have minded so much if the support was still actually in the same class as there is a valid point I suppose of seeing if the child can work more independantly as they get older. However not only was the LSA not even in his class, or outside, or even with another class in his yr, she was in a totally different part of the building. I first wrote to the head asking him to detail exactly when and where the support was for ds. He replied with the classic comment, 'because the statement says 15 hours of LSA support every week, this doesn't mean we have to give 15 hours each and every week'. What he had detailed came to about 8!!! This was in the days where the school got those 15 hours funded directly from the LA. I then spoke to the SN office at the LA and she said amongst other things that 'I should let the school get on with educating my son' I downloaded the letter from the IPSEA site and sent it off straight away recorded delivery to the LA. Quite why I had to go through so much hassle to get the support that was detailed in ds's statement I don't know. The L.S.A. was then back in his class and working with him on social skills and anxieties etc.

Hi PSA how are you. Strange that isn't it the LA pushing THAT school, wonder why. I have a few others to see still. How is your boy getting on, would be really interested to hear.

Hi Loulou so glad to hear he's home he is absolutely smashing <'>

Hi jomica I am currently doing the rounds of secondary schools and to be quite honest it is doing my head in !!! The local SEN secondary school has just undergone redesignation and now takes a huge range of needs up to the age of 19. Plus points small classes and suitably modified curriculum minus points the range of the needs that staff will be dealing with now. I have been to see 4 secondaries all of whom gave a good talk but most of them are huge, possibility that dd will go to one of these with no friends at all. Dd's greatest needs now seem to be language and communication and that she has an MLD. I can't at the moment see how any schools I have visited will deal with this, and even widening my net to adjoining boroughs I seem to have hit the same problem. I have visited a mainstream with a SRP for communication. The unit was OK the rest of the school was dire. Noisy, rude kids with bad attitude! I have another mainstream to visit with a SRP of which annie will no doubt share her joyful experiences with me (thanks annie) Our transition review is at the end of April and I am beginning to get a bit desparate.

Hi Jomica, my ds has used an Alphasmart for about 4 yrs now. He is in yr 8 and currently uses a neo. Have to agree with the others in that only being able to see several lines of your typed work at a time is really frustrating. In fact this was such a problem for ds in yr 6 SATs that he had to do them on a PC. The benefits I suppose of the Alphasmart is that it is light and quite strong and I think it comes with a KAZ typing programme. I have been pushing for a laptop for ds for several years because it is not just his writing but charts, diagrams, and maths that causes him problems and this gets worse and worse the older he gets and the more difficult the work becomes. So far the school are not keen as they say there could be problems with a laptop being stolen

Hi annie guess what school the LA are recommending would be a good one for dd to attend. I'm sure you will be able to give me your thoughts on that They are saying pupils are expected to spend about 20% of their time in the units and the rest in mainstream. But of course all of the teachers have a very good understanding of all of the pupils and their needs. Hope you are O.K.

Hi Karen A my ds is now in yr 8 but used an alpha smart from yr 4 in primary. However he actually used a PC for his yr 6 SATS. The reason for this being, that as you probably know, the alpha smart shows a limited amount of the typed text on the screen and he found this quite time consuming scrolling up and down checking what he had typed. All I remember is that the senco had to apply by a certain time for 'permission' for him to use a PC, and it had to be shown that this was his usual and regular way of completing work. HTH

Hi Loulou congrats to you all well done My eldest son was born 6 weeks early but weighed 5pounds 14oz. God knows how big he would have got if he had gone full term. Its a funny old feeling coming out of a hospital with no baby at first. I remember walking round Sainsburys a couple of days after and thinking no one would know I have just had a baby (Who was I kidding!) Get some rest and take care of yourself and I hope baby Jesse is out very soon. Hope K is feeling more settled now.

Hi Frazzled. I think you are doing the right thing by showing concern for your dds reading at this age. At the age of 9yrs and 6mnths my dd had a reading age of just over 6 yrs. This was despite having 1:1 tuition for all of her 4yrs+ at school. As she has a moderate learning difficulty the experts said that this sort of reading problem would be expected and she would work out stategies for her reading difficulties!! I found this very hard to accept so I started to dig for information. I found a very helpful lady called Fiona Nevola who talked me through why children struggle to read. I found a private tutor for dd, and this involves a round trip after school of over 2 hours. This lady works with phonics and I have seen, by sitting in on the lessons that at some time (prefably at the beginning of learning to read) you have to learn how words are made up from sounds, otherwise you will get to a certain age where you have no picture clues and no way of working out what the words could be. She makes the lesson quite fast paced, and there is lots of playing with letters and timed activities that dd loves. DD now has a reading age of 9yrs 8 months (she is 10 now) and by the time we have finished the course she should have an age appropriate reading age. The tutor said the only child that phonics has not really worked for was one that had a quite severe auditory processing problem. Frazzled your daughter has quite good speech I should think, she has learnt to talk by hearing the sounds that go into words, she now has to learn that these same sounds are transferred to the written word. Sorry to get on my soapbox here but I think unless you are absolutely positive that phonics won't work, you will probably be doing her a favour by letting the teacher continue with the method for a while. Hope I haven't offended

It took me quite a few years to get a home/school link book for my dd. The HT got involved, said staff didn't have the time, it would be a list of negative comments, they prefer face to face communication with parents blah blah blah. I even wrote to the COG who brought it up in a governors meeting and HT stuck to his guns. I wasn't asking for a detailed in depth story of everything that had happened during the day, but I was interested in what she had actually been doing, cos as a parent we are quite interested in that aren't we and my dd was not capable of telling me what had happened When a new senco started she saw no problem in this sort of diary. Either of the LSAs fill in little bits of what she has been doing and useful vocab. I can fill in incidents that have happened at home. Surely something that is useful to the school. This has worked well now for about 2 years until I found out that the LSAa operate their own version which is shall we say a little more negative than the one I see.

Lindy lou. Wonderful new congratulations <'> <'> He is absolutely lovely. My NT son arrived 6 weeks early 18 years ago!!! and I'll never forget how that felt. He spent 3 weeks in the NICU. He is now 6ft 6ins tall!! Wishing you all much happiness and peace

Fiorelli <'> <'> Thinking about you all. Take care

Hello pingu. The call you had from the pp is rubbish We know what is thought of blanket policies and this is a blanket policy, to say that a child will not be assessed unless they are working at a low level. Speak to ipsea and download the letter yourself to apply for a stat ass. You can let school know what you are doing so that they are kept in the picture. I'm sure Ipsea would also love to hear about your authorities criteria for stat. ass. They can probably add it to the huge pile they are already investigating. I don't think you have anything to lose by applying for a stat. ass. yourself but someone with more experience might be able to tell you for certain. Best of luck <'>

Emily so pleased you have managed to sort this out. Fingers crossed for your boyfriend

Hi Claire my dd has epilepsy. She was diagnosed with this before ASD. She is on medication and has rectal diazepam for when the seizures last too long. She has had an MRI scan and a CAT? scan which all proved normal. Her EEGs have shown spike waves and a problem in the front left temporal lobe (I think) long time ago since the diagnosis. They are gradually weaning her off medication as she has not had a seizure for 2 years now touch wood.

We received a letter home yesterday re my ds to say that 'he has met the eligibility criteria for enrolling into NAGTY (The national academy for gifted and talented youth) We presumed it was because of the high standard of his work in History as most of his other subjects he is not so good at. The G&T co-ordinator e-mailed me today to say that he had been put forward because of a very high score he had achieved in some verbal test, she didn't specify what this was. She said that at the moment 10% of each year group are meeting the criteria for NAGTY and this is entirely separate to the Gifted and talented regiter that the school keep

Happy birthday bagpuss hope its a goodun

Hi PSA how are you doing. When my ds's school was inspected us parents received forms to fill in about what we thought of the school All anonymous if course. Don't know if anyone took a blind bit of notice though