Im going to apply for statmenting

[hedders]

I dont feel that my dd school are able to identify her needs, she is nearly 6.

She is on her 2nd IEP its pointless only targets are speech and reading she didnt reach targets and they wont change there teaching style to meet her needs.

She is currently under O.T has suspected Sensory Intergration Disorder and has a review with a new paed next week.

The school have been against me from the beginning and i have been refused 3 times for her to see a Ed psy. She is still on School Action and they refuse to move her to School Action Plus.

Anyway i have decided that i will get nowhere waiting for the school to identify her needs so wondered if any parents have gone down this route without the support from the school.

Her needs are :Sensory, Academic, Expressive speech and communication ,Social Skills, slight co-ordination diffculties and concentration.

I think that it all could be related to ASD and possibly dyslexia.

What sort of questions will i be asked when i contact Lea?

Should i mention an ASD assessment?

I will also approach this subject with the paed next week, supportive parents have said in the past they wont do anything till she is 6 which is feb.

Just need some advice if i go down this route.

Thanks

I

[hedders]

This may be revelent but she is in a support group on a morning but the schools views is that she is just a slow learner, she was placed in the support group in september 06 and is still learning the 1st 7 keywords from start of reception year.

Last yr the head removed her from speech therapy as i contacted the Lea about her lack of support and refusing an assessment from the paed for the class teacher to assess her. She also had a meeting with her SALT and the outcome was the Salt discharged her for just mild speech delay without investigating her speech diffculties .

Luckly my doctors have written to the new paed so she knows what she is up against.

The school is due to have an evulation done on teaching and learning by cahms as they where refused entry by the head to support a boy in my dd class.

[Kathryn]

Hi hedders,

 

You can start the statementing process by writing to the LEA yourself to request a statutory assessment. You'll find a model letter here if you need one. It will take the LEA six weeks to decide whether to agree to your request: during this time, you can send in any professional reports and information to support your request, eg paed and OT reports. You can write something to summarise your child's difficulties, describe the support she is getting now and why this isn't sufficient. Your views will be asked for anyway as part of the process.

 

It helps if the school can write in support of your request, but it isn't essential to get their approval. It could be that starting the statementing process will signal to the school that they need to look more closely at your daughter's needs.

 

K x

[hedders]

All i have is her 1st paed report stating her concerns were

Speech and language delay

Concentration

Co-ordination

Family history of Dyslexia

 

She was asesssed by O.T in Sept 06 who said suspected Sensory Intergration Disorder and ADD, but i didnt recieve a report about her assessment in a clinic setting, and she hasnt assesssed her in school yet.

 

She has an app with a new paed next week.

I have 2 speech and language reports, but she has been discharged by them.

I have her 1st copy of IEP which only has 2 targets for speech sounds and reading the 3rd target for speech from the SALT never arrived so that box is empty.

Her 2nd IEP is the same as first she didnt reach the targets and they havent changed any stratagies just says ongoing, i havent recieved a copy of this one and is due to be reviewed at end of JAN.

 

The school refuse to add any more targets with numeracy and social skills, and the senco wants to take the IEP away.

 

So summery is all i have is the paed report and not sure if this will be enough to apply for stat assessment.

[Karen A]

Hi Hedders.We asked for an assessment for Ben last year.The school were not against us asking however we were ahead of them in that his new teacher had only then picked up his difficulties-despite him having difficulties for over a year.Hence Ben had no record of intervention at school action or school action plus.We asked the Ep about Assessment at our first meeting with her.We felt that Ben was failing to cope to a point where school refusal was a possibility.We felt that the only way we could get Ben's needs identified was via an assessment as we did not have cofidence that the Ht or Senco had the experience to cope without support.

We obtained a statement in August after several months of work.It is worth putting a lot of work into your initial submission to the pre-assessment panel.If the panel do not think there is enough evidence of need or if they feel more help could be provided at school action or action plus they may refuse to assess.In that case you would need to wait 6 months and then decide whether to try again.

Parent partnership provided us with a lot of support.It is worth having a chat with an advisor as they will help with paperwork and will be aware of how things work in your area.

When we asked for a Statutary assessment various professionals were at various points in individual assessments re a Dx Eg Psychiatrist,OT,Salt.As we worked through the assessment process the variuos opinions and reports accumulated.We now have a Statement but not a clear Dx-so don't worry that you have bits from various professionals.However it is worth making a list of all the professionals that have seen your child at any point.Also if you have an appointment with any of them flag up the fact that you are asking for a statutary assessment so that they know they will be asked for reports.Regards Karen

[Karen A]

Hi I also had another thought.We did not have an Asd Dx but there are also suspissions in our case.I did lots of reading.When I did our full submission to the panel I listed all of the things Ben says or does that I felt could be ASD related.Hence it was clear that we were concerned even without a clear Dx.The Salt was the final professional to assess Ben.She did an Ados and documented social communication difficulties.

If a your child is being assessed re possible ASD then I can see no reason why you cannot state that in the letter.Karen

[kelima]

our daugther has dyslexia +visual perception difficulties +her primary said there was nothing wrong- she was on sen register at 6years but they gradually took her off.we had privat assessment at 11 & took report to school but they said ed psychol report wasn't relevant.We applied for a multi disciplinary assessment and was refused by LEA. So we took her case to sendist tribunal who found in her favourand ordered lincs lea to assess her- she was awarded full time statement 32.5 hours (which from being told doesn't need to be on sen register was quite something!)(she was in sec school by now)

So my advice to anyone would be to follow your instincts and fight tooth and nail for what you believe your child needs - you know your child best and often parents become quite expert on their child's condition. I naively thought that the teachers would know best - only later did I realise the teaching staff were telling me there was nothing wrong with my child yet without any experience or knowledge ofher conditions. I have also worked in school as LSA & even known a teacher tell a parent her child is not autistic despite having a report from a leading professional confirming disgnosis

all too often parents have to become their child's champion in order for them to stand any hope of getting their needs met it's wrong but sometimes it's the only way.

[lisa]

In our case applying for assessment was the best thing we did, even though we went to tribunal and didn't win. Although the LEA refused assessment, the school EP came in, previously the school wouldn't call her in, despite me asking on numerous occasions, because they said they didn't feel there was a need!

 

After the LEA refused assessment, a multi agency meeting was set up to explain why they weren't going to assess and for everyone to get together to form an action plan of what they were going to do. Although she remained on SA+ at least we had in writing who was going to do what. Before that no one was doing anything apart from a couple of pointless IEP's. SALT and ASD Outreach agreed to termly visits and it sort of got the ball rolling as far as a paper trail of evidence was concerned. They wouldn't have done this if we hadn't put in the forms for tribunal as a friend was in a similar situation, but didn't go down the tribunal route and to this day, they're still not doing anything at all for her child. They were trying to cover themselves and show that they were supporting her for the tribunal panel. A year later we had enough evidence of IEP's and professional reports to apply again and this time were sucessful. She got her statement in October.

 

So it is worth applying for assessment even if you don't have enough evidence. It can sometimes push them into doing something and if not you can always appeal to SENDIST.

 

Lisa