So frustrated with school!

[Sooze2]

DS has just started year 5 and got his final statement in July and gets 18.5 hours support with a view to increasing it if needed. It states clearly that he needs 1:1 in all lessons involving writing, speeking and listening, 1:1 in PE and help from his TA in organising himself at the end of the school day including making sure he has homework and letters etc I am also supposed to be able to speek to her at the end of the day to see how things are going.

 

Had to go in during the first week of school to collect homework, the teacher said he needs to be more organised - que doubts comming into my mind as to whether he is getting help. DS told me that his TA is in another class for maths and english lessons - not with him. She spent an entire day with another boy with a statement because his TA was away. She is not in class first thing in the morning and leaves class early every day to do a different job in the school which will be why I have to go into school most nights to collect things he has forgotten such as homework and letters. Teacher told me the other day that she doesn't think he needs TA support in PE (PE is the source of a lot of stress for him and once resulted in him throwing a chair in class afterwards!!).

 

Yesterday he did topic work all afternoon, he had to copy a sheet of writing out he and another boy shared the copy sheet and they just got on with it, at one point the TA came over and wrote some of it for him because his writing is poor. Yesterday he received maths homework which the teacher said was a test and he had to get at least 15 right out of 20 to pass - out of 30 questions he understood 2 of them because they were based around comprehention - one of the easy ones was "5 TWOS= FIVES" it took at least 10 minutes of me explaining it in different ways for him to get it and I ended up giving him the answer. We had fun over it but if this is what he is doing in class he is stuffed. His teachers have always said he is doing fine and say his SATS results are good - last term he had over 3 for maths which is on target but I am having a hard time beleiving this if he can't understand basic questions!!!

 

Had meeting with is teacher the week before last to go over things, she said she wasn't happy that his TA is in another class and would speek to SENCO to see what could be done, arranged another meeting for a few days after but she told me when I had to pop in to collect something (again) that it was all sorted and TA would be with him for maths and english now. Also that she would make sure he had everything he needed at the end of the day. Last Monday he told me he didn't bring his maths homework home the Friday before and was panicing - on Tuesday I asked the TA to do is homework with him at lunch time. Then the teacher told me that he was working on a story for literacy and they had worked out what he should write together he went off to work for 1/2 an hour but then came back to the teacher because he had forgotten what he was going to write! Half an hour later!!!!!!!!! She said he should have come and asked before but it states on his Statement that he won't ask for help - duh! Thats why he needs a TA with him!

 

I gave the SENCO a folder containing loads of info about ASD so she could priont it out and show the people who work with him but the teacher hasn't seen it.

 

He has been paired with a boy who he says uses coloured plasic over his work so he can read it so I am assuming he is dyslexic - he's a nice boy (very high energy) and a good freind of DS but surely if the TA isn't around all the time they will be like the blind leading the blind! His parents told me that they were told last term that he will be getting a lot of support from now on - obviousely from DS's TA which I wouldn't mind except for the fact that she isn't supporting them and they seem to be left to get on with it!

 

Parent Support said she would phone me at the beginning of term so we could have a meeting. SENCO was supposed to have his TimeTable sent in to the LEA by 17th September and to have gone through his IEP with me but no one is speeking to me. CHAMS have sent me a letter saying they want to discharge him and they will only see us to get his drugs! (like here are some drugs now ###### off!) Ive told them his statement says that he needs on going support from an OT - who work at CHAMS!

 

Off to make a phone call to the LEA to see if school has sent his TimeTable in yet. And so it starts again. I may as well work in the school. Do all of you need to keep onto them to make sure things are being done or am I high maintainace? Should I just back off and let him drown or am I doing the right thing. I'm just so fed up with it all. Roll opn half term so I don't have to think about school every 5 minutes - we had a lovely chilled summer and now back to this again - so frustrating.

 

 

Sorry this is a rambling rant that probably doesn't make any sence at all.

Edited September 22, 2009 by Sooze2

[Grace]

Hi Sooze,

 

My goodness! I'm banging my head with frustration for you!

 

If it was me, I'd be telephoning the Head to make an urgent appointment with him/her, the class teacher, the TA and the Senco. I'd take someone with me to take thorough notes and act as a witness - is your Parent Partnership any good?

 

I'd take your statement and go through it point by point and get them to state on the record, how they are going to meet their legal obligation to carry out all items in Part 3. In fact, you might want to invite your LEA rep too.

 

I actually used to write in the home/school diary every time that my DS said the TA went off doing other things e.g. 'DS said today that he had no help during Literacy hour. He said he could not do the work. His TA was not with him?' Again, it gets it on the record.

 

One thing is for sure, you are not making a fuss about nothing - as many on here know, it can be very difficult to get a statement; your DS has one because he needs it. It is simply not acceptable for them to use his TA for whatever they like. I had to be very assertive to get that point across - that can very hard if you are naturally polite, but they need to know you are not going to go away!

 

Good Luck!x

 

 

[Sooze2]

Thanks Grace, they should know by now that I am not going to go away. I find it very hard because I am really quite reserved and would never have dreamed I would have to be like this now before I had children, the only reason we have got this far is because I have had to do a lot of the leg work and go in and tell them what is happening and let them know I have chased things up. They kept the LEA waiting for paper work and the whole Statementing process from start to finish took a year! There is no way I am going to just trust them to do what it says, DS is extremely cuddley and tired (he's nearly 10) so I know somethings up and he's finding things hard. School Parent support were very good but I have lost faith since she seemed very surprised when I told her the Head could apply for more funding for the TA if his hours weren't enough, she then put her hand right on the relevent form. Turns out she used to be a SENCO herself. She also told me she would phone me and hasn't and that I shouldn't go to the Head but let her and the SENCO deal with everything.

 

The class set up is the same as last year, a TA for another statemented boy and a class TA although now the class TA is my son's TA. If the other boys TA is away my son's TA sits with him - this used to be ok but now DS has a Statement of his own it isn't ok at all, his TA should be with him the other boy is not more important anymore in my opinion. I asked the teacher if she would usually have a TA in her class she said yes so in my opinion there should be 3 TA's in there - one for the class and one each for the Statemented kids who also help the other ones with problems. It is a class of 37! The LEA told me in July that the school should be recruting a TA for DS over the summer - they haven't done it. The TA he has is lovely so they need to recrute a class TA eh?!

 

Just phoned the LEA to see if his timetable has arrived and they said no but it may be filled somewhere else, the secretary asked if I wanted them to phone the school, I said no but her boss is phoning me tomorrow so we can discuss, they are on our side and the poo poo will hit the fan if this carries on I can tell you. DH is totally on board now and he is coming to all meetings with me, now that he has finally realised that its like banging your head against a brick wall he isn't happy. I had the Statement changed so that the wording could not be interpeted in any other way because I had a feeling this would happen and the LEA were very supportive after I told them what had been going on with the TA situation with the other poor boy who's TA was used as the whole class TA from reception till the end of year 3!!!!!

Edited September 22, 2009 by Sooze2

[Sally44]

This is why 'specific' statements are so important. If your son's statement specifies a dedicated TA or a specific number of TA hours, or support during specific lessons or that he has difficulty understanding 'whole class' instructions and needs his understanding to be checked etc then that is what school have to do and if they don't have the staff numbers or funding for those hours they have to have it topped up by the LEA. Put your concerns in writing and ask for a meeting to go over the Statement item by item. If they don't comply within a set timeframe then you have legal grounds to take things further. Don't know exactly what you do, but the NAS/IPSEA or other parents on these forums should advise you.

It is very frustrating, but the firmer you are and follow things by the book the better the outcome. Don't give an inch. The Statement is there to identify needs and how those needs should be met. That has to be followed otherwise there is no point having a statement at all. Also any changes to the statement have to be assessed on the 'current' provision being provided through the statement. If that is not happening then school/LEA may argue he doesn't need it because he never had it. So you need the identified support in place to see how he progresses and copes emotionally etc to know whether it needs to be increased, remain the same, or be changed in any other way.

 

Some of the other difficulties you mention are typical of being on the spectrum and of having problems with executive functions. Are those difficulties identified in the Statement? Do school understand what those difficulties are? Is the TA being trained? Again a brilliant Statement can sometimes be let down by a school/staff that have no experience of expertise in these areas of difficulty. In some cases this can be the winning argument for a change of placement to an experienced school. Or it can be proof that on-going training and input (into school) from the autism outreach teacher being required. Is that happening?

[JsMum]

 

 

 

Could an outreach Autistic Provider come into school and help structure the TAs support and help other teachers understand his Needs.

 

I would put it all in writing to your councils LEA sepcial needs department if things do not improve, the difficulties you described in the post sounds like processing the input and output, he will require very spersific support for this.

 

His statement is legally binding and if the school do not follow it they are failing to meet his special educational needs.

 

I do advise you to discuss this situation with IPSEA also to get further advise.

 

JsMumxxx

 

[Sooze2]

Some of the other difficulties you mention are typical of being on the spectrum and of having problems with executive functions. Are those difficulties identified in the Statement? Do school understand what those difficulties are? Is the TA being trained? Again a brilliant Statement can sometimes be let down by a school/staff that have no experience of expertise in these areas of difficulty. In some cases this can be the winning argument for a change of placement to an experienced school. Or it can be proof that on-going training and input (into school) from the autism outreach teacher being required. Is that happening?

 

 

Exactly Sally, yes these difficulties are mentioned on the Statement because I asked the CHAMS OT the write to the LEA after I received the first draft because there was no report there from her (she wasn't contacted much to her discust) and she put everything in a report from his lack of understanding, concentration, lack of eye contact, lack of asking for help, expecting nothing less than perfection from himself, sensory difficulties, hating team sports and not understanding team games and the need for give and take etc etc etc. Its all in there. The statement says he needs his TA to check he has understood instructions and needs redirecting to task regularly. The Ed Phyc report that was written in April after observing him in class (a few months after he started meds) stated that he doesn't achieve anything unless he has 1:1 support. How much clearer do these things need to be - nearly swore then!

 

Is the TA being trained? She knows him really well but I don't know about training (she is lovely) and the other TA has been in the same class as him for 5 years! Like I say I went on a course for parents of children with ASD and they gave us all these great printouts about it all. I gave my whole folder to the SENCO in July for her to photo copy and train the staff with if she needed to but the teacher hasn't seen it. She has told me he needs to learn to organise himself and that is when I asked if she had seen the ASD folder!

 

Hey ho, LEA phoning me tomorrow. I will try and see SENCO tonight if she is around. Off to see how many adults are in outside PE in a mo. Feel like a spy!

 

xx

[Sally44]

Then I would speak with the NAS/IPSEA about how you would proceed if a Statement is not being fulfilled. There must be a process (there always is!!). But you sound like you are on the case.

Regarding on-going training, I found out that my own LEA has regular training days which are conducted by professionals from the specialist SEN schools and mainstream schools simply have to let them know how many TAs they are going to send. My son's previous school never sent anyone. At his new school it is a mixed mainstream/SEN school so they have the experience and expertise in every class. But even now his TA 'observes' other professionals working with my son so that she understands how she should 'deliver' the programme in school. She also receives training in specific strategies they are going to use.

Who would cover problems with 'executive functions' within your LEA, would it be the OT or the AAT? Whoever it is, it might be worth speaking with them about what they could provide to school in terms of training. And again put everything in writing and document every incidence and make school absolutely clear about what you are expecting from them, backed up with the educational law you will have been told about via IPSEA or the NAS about how it is their responsibility to fulfil the Statement and what you will be doing if that doesn't start to happen. It is hard to stay detached and unemotional, but you have to be very matter of fact about this. And just tell them that you are going by the book and expect them to do the same. Afterall the Statement gives them the opportunity to actually improve their school and SEN support by getting the extra staff and hours of provision funded by the LEA to meet the support identified in the Statements of the children within that school. Don't be made to feel guilty for securing the provision your child needs by removing it from another child. The school/LEA should feel guilty about that and they should be working with the parents of any other SEN child to ensure that they too are getting the support they need and not trying to use up other children's allocated support.

[Sooze2]

Can you tell me about Executive Functions etc so I am clear on how to ask if this is being considered and allowed for at school, a lot of the things that are spoken about on here have never been explained to me or spoken about re DS. I think his understanding has been totally left behind and his peers are way way ahead of him now despite him seeming like he is fine and coping, the consultant did warn me that this may happen because his ADHD was masking his autism a wee bit.

[Tantaz]

I am having problems with my sons high school too, so please keep strong - it is very frustrating at times, you feel like you have to chase people up to get them to do the right thing. Since the kids have been back at school, I have been on the phone constantly 'telling' them what they must do - and they are the learning base. Don't let them grind you down, you have to be strong for your boy.

 

Tania

[Sally44]

This is a USA site (I think) that I found very useful. http://www.schoolbehavior.com

Executive functions are simply brain functions, but problems with lower basic functions is going to have an effect on higher brain functions. These difficulties can sometimes be subtle, but this website gives some good examples.

But some typical problems are planning, organisation, sequencing, priortisation, memory, understanding time or time management, initiating or inhibiting, attention etc.

 

Depending on what the difficulty is it might be a SALT, OT or EP that gives advice to school. But IMO the more complex the difficulties the more important it is that staff have an understanding of the difficulties. For example a child with poor memory, planning and organisation skills is not going to 'acquire' those skills by being left 'to get on with it'. They will need things presented to them eg. visually, or with a list of items required. They may need tasks breaking down into smaller bits or shown visually or printed out for them. They may need regular prompting to ensure they stay on task and also carry it out in the right order. They may need specific work to be carried out on things like extending short term or working memory, prediciting outcomes, planning what you may need to achieve a certain task, comprehension, giving narrative information to another person etc etc.

 

These difficulties can also impact on the language side of things. For example a child might find it hard to access the words or information he has in his memory, or sequence the words in the right order to make a legible sentence to convey the message to another person in a way that they will understand. And these difficulties might then be classed as a Speech Disorder and not a 'delay'. In our LEA a child that is diagnosed with a speech disorder cannot be discharged from SALT even in secondary school. A child with a delay can be discharged whenever the SALT feels they are up to a certain standard. But those on the spectrum can have greatly varying degrees of speech/language/social use of language abilities. For example my son is considered to have age appropriate expressive language. However he uses delayed echolalia and often repeats whole phrases and sentences from TV/films. So my argument is that this language development is not 'typical' and therefore cannot be assumed to be 'age appropriate', because his speech was not acquired in the usual way. His understanding of receptive speech is very poor. He cannot access whole class learning, he needs to be taught in small groups etc. He has been diagnosed with moderate to severe Semantic Pragmatic Speech Disorder. That is worth looking at to see if those types of language difficulties are present, because a SALT can work on these difficulties and also the social use of language and social interaction.

[Sally44]

The other thing I would add from my experience was that these types of difficulties were not looked at or addressed until I sent a letter into the SALT department stating that I believed he had these types of difficulties (itemised and with examples of them), as well as a speech disorder, and that I wanted a suitably qualified SALT with experience of ASDs and Speech Disorders to assess him and also put together a programme to address his social interaction skills.

This was all prior to getting a Statement, but all became the reason I requested an assessment towards a Statement as well as requesting a different school placement.

As you are finding, the gap between my child and the others in the class/school was widening and I got the impression that everyone thought that 'was to be expected'. But nothing was being done about it. There are good schools that can and do work on these areas of difficulty. There are some mainstream schools that are willing to meet the needs of the SEN children. But you need to get a feeling as to which category your child's current school falls into and start looking at appropriate secondary schools. They may need time to get input and advice, but you are now in year 5 and I presume are starting to get an idea of which secondary school you feel he would do best in. But make sure you keep up the pressure and ensure they do things by the book. That will also help you justify any placement requests you make for secondary school.

[bluefish]

Hi, I agree with all the advice already given.

Have a meeting with the HT and senco but have someone with you ie parent partnership so you have a witness of what is said/promiced. Also contact IPSEA as they will back you up on the legal requirement the school has to adhere to your childs statement so you feel confident when you tell the school that and can quote what they have said if needed. The statement is a legal document and has to be adhered to( although sadly this is often not the case)I would also contact your education officer and explain the money being provided for your child is not being used for them. I had many many problems with ds school,where his 15 hour statement which was very specific was ignored, in the end I told education officer his statement was not worth the paper it was written on and he was wasting his budget!

I ended up moving schools but I wish you luck. They need to do their jobs and look after your child thats why you got a statement!!!

 

best of luck

[av16]

I would also get the local authority statement monitoring officer in on the act, it's their job to make sure the statement is implemented; if they are paying for a TA and the money isn't being spent on that or the TA is not providing support they will take action.

Good luck!

[Daisydot]

Hi Sooze2

 

Sorry to hear you are having a time of it at the moment.

 

I am assuming if your sons statement is for 1-1 for speaking and listening then he has language levels that are on a very low percentile ? If this is the case then no amount of TA support will help him access the curriculum unless he has specialist speech and language support to help him understand the language of each subject. Thats not direct speech and language therapy, thats direct language support within the classroom. I suppose if you had a TA who was highly experienced in the area of speech & language it might work. Do you know if your son's TA is actually aware what his difficulties actually are? I know that sounds a ridiculous question but my son's TA (25 hrs p week) actually HAD NO IDEA HE HAD A SPEECH AND LANGUAGE DISORDER when she started working with him. I also know that said school (to which I am glad to say we have departed) do not tell their 1-1 TAs about the child's special needs or even give them the statement to read prior to working with their allocated child. TAs are often just left to get on with it without appropriate support from the SENCO or class teacher, so it may be worth giving a copy of your sons statement directly to the TA. I dont know whether thats legal but neither is it legal that your son is in a mainstream classroom without the appropriate support to access the curriculum. If your son's statement says 1-1 for speaking and listening then the TA MUST support in Literacy lessons. He very likely struggles with the language of maths also, such as concepts which a Year 5 will be doing at the moment. By the way, if he is on a level 3 in maths at Year 5, thats not bad, my son with severe language disorder is Year 6 and is still on a 2.

 

It always amazes me when mainstream teachers demand that SEN pupils need to be more organised. That tells me straight away that they have not understood the nature of the childs difficulties.

 

Keep phoning, chasing, and questioning everything. When you have finished phoning, chasing and questioning everything, do it again, because you are probably not "high maintenance" as you put it, you are just doing your job as a parent of a child who is clearly not at present getting the support his statement entitles him to.

 

Good luck

[Sooze2]

Thank you all for your replies, they are very helpful because otherwise I think I would go mad.

 

I went in to see the SENCO after school yesterday and told her my concerns about DS not getting the support he's supposed to. She said that it takes a while for THEM to get it organised and SHE is a new teacher so she will take time to settle in and SHE will sort out where she thinks TA is needed. The TA is also needed elsewhere in the school when she isn't doing her .7 with DS, fair enough. I thought the SENCO coodinates the SEN department and told the teacher and TA's what to do with annoying folk like me and my child. I told her about the TA not being in class during Literacy and Numeracy and she didn't know anything about it and she didn't think he needed it in numeracy - the Ed Phyc report that was done in April (after he started meds for ADHD and had calmed down a lot) said that he needs one to one adult support to stay on task in order to produce any work!

 

Went to see Parent Support today (she works in the school) and showed her his class timetable and the fact that once you take off assemblies and break times the remaining hours are a little over 18 hours by the look of it so his TA should be with him for those times. She looked a bit sheepish at that because she knows the TA isn't there all the time. She came up with an idea to solve the problem of her not being there at the end of the day to sort out homework, organise him and speek to me which was giving him a tray that he goes to to collect everything he needs to bring home. She said the teacher is new so will take a while to get sorted out and the SENCO is also a class teacher so has a lot to do. As asked her about the file that I was given when I went on an ASD training course that I gave to the SENCO for her to copy and give to the new teacher and she knew nothing of it. She was lovely but basically said what the senco said - nice but non commital.

 

All in all they both said it will take a while for things to settle down so they can see where he needs the help, the IEP will be written soon etc etc. I thought the Statement told them where he needs the help, all they have to do is get the TA to be with him and help him - am I being a bit thick?

 

Basically things are going to be the same as they were last year before he had a statement, he had more 1:1 then as he says she's not with him as much now but hopefully now the TA will be in the class room with him rather than next door helping someone elses class with literacy and numeracy. That wouldn't have happened if I hadn't forced the teachers hand over it! I darent ask about the individual literacy progam, the teaching staff who understand his diagnosis rather than just telling him to be more organised and to stop fiddling so much (reading the file I gave them) and why they keep going on about whether or not he needs his TA for break and lunch times when he clearly doesn't and it only says that if he needs to have a bit of quiet time he should be allowed to go inside somewhere quiet.

 

To be honest I am now confused and stressed. I feel like a silly little girl who is making a fuss about nothing.

 

Ignore me if I am actually annoying and silly.

Edited September 24, 2009 by Sooze2

[Sooze2]

Hi Sooze2

 

Sorry to hear you are having a time of it at the moment.

 

I am assuming if your sons statement is for 1-1 for speaking and listening then he has language levels that are on a very low percentile ? If this is the case then no amount of TA support will help him access the curriculum unless he has specialist speech and language support to help him understand the language of each subject. Thats not direct speech and language therapy, thats direct language support within the classroom. I suppose if you had a TA who was highly experienced in the area of speech & language it might work. Do you know if your son's TA is actually aware what his difficulties actually are? I know that sounds a ridiculous question but my son's TA (25 hrs p week) actually HAD NO IDEA HE HAD A SPEECH AND LANGUAGE DISORDER when she started working with him. I also know that said school (to which I am glad to say we have departed) do not tell their 1-1 TAs about the child's special needs or even give them the statement to read prior to working with their allocated child. TAs are often just left to get on with it without appropriate support from the SENCO or class teacher, so it may be worth giving a copy of your sons statement directly to the TA. I dont know whether thats legal but neither is it legal that your son is in a mainstream classroom without the appropriate support to access the curriculum. If your son's statement says 1-1 for speaking and listening then the TA MUST support in Literacy lessons. He very likely struggles with the language of maths also, such as concepts which a Year 5 will be doing at the moment. By the way, if he is on a level 3 in maths at Year 5, thats not bad, my son with severe language disorder is Year 6 and is still on a 2.

 

I don't know about speech and language, he had speech therapy in school in Reception and year 1 but they wrote to me to say they had discharged him. On his IEP it says he has on going support from the speech and language team which I questioned last time but she wasn't sure! I don't know what his language levels are in terms of percentile, they say he has pedantic speech but does't nescisarily understand what is being said to him which is true, he gets mixed up. Before the holidays CHAMS said she would see if speech and language had any ideas but ive heard nothing, she gave me the number too but I left a message and heard nothing back. Oh I mentioned his SATs levels to the SENCO and PSO and they said they would check but they must be right, his writing is at 2.8. Its not that he can't do the work as such but he has the concentration span of a gnat and can't remember what he's supposed to be doing a millisecond after he's been told and by the time he's lost his pencil, smelt his paper and forgatten how to write his name he really doesn't know what he's supposed to be doing When the Child Development Centre assessed him when he was 7 they said that his understanding was at age 10 and what he was producing was at age 6 so although he was only a year behind on paper he was very frustrated because his intelegence was 4 years ahead.

 

Seem to have now lost all my confidence and want to stop hassling and let them do what they want now.

 

I will try to get hold of speech and language again and give a copy of the statement to the TA - perhaps I will see her when she is on crossing patrol. Pardon my spelling I can't get the spell check to work and I seem to have forgotten how to spell!!

Edited September 24, 2009 by Sooze2

[Daisydot]

If your son doesnt necessarily understand what is said to him, then it sounds like he has a receptive language problem. I would ask (no insist) on a comprehensive language assessment and report, including percentiles for both receptive and expressive language. I am no expert on speech & language but having gone through it with my son for most of his school lifetime, I know for a fact that language problems have a huge impact on a child in the mainstream classroom. Basically, if your son scores on or less than the first percentile that means severe problems. 2-12 percentile means moderate to severe problems, and anything above 12th percentile means ok. The SALT should be able to fully explain this and the implications for the outcome of your son's assessment results. You may find it useful to look at the websites of ICAN and Afasic, there are useful information sheets on lots of speech & language issues, etc on both.

 

Good luck, and keep nagging !

[Sally44]

Lack of SALT input (due to SALT department staffing issues) is one of my major irritations.

Your son has a diagnosis. As part of that diagnosis he would have fit the criteria. Part of that criteria is to have language and social use of language difficulties. Those difficulties will remain for life. If they don't then surely he doesn't fit the criteria for a diagnosis?? Okay, so if that is the case, then why have SALT discharged him? Probably because they have not assessed him thoroughly in all areas of speech and language and social interaction functioning. If they did that they would find difficulties ie. you have said they state that he sometimes does not understand what is being said to him. So how is he supposed to 'understand' verbal classroom instructions? If SALT have only ever talked about 'language delays' then SALT does not continue into secondary school without a speech disorder diagnosis. But I would recommend you argue for SALT to be involved, and if it states that he should be having input from SALT then I would insist on that as well. I specifically asked my SALT department if they thought he was not autistic, and when they said 'no, of course he is autistic, I asked them why they were not working on his speech/language and social use of language difficulties which are part of his autism diagnosis. And guess what, they started working on it. I did eventually get a private SALT report which diagnosed him with Semantic Pragmatic Speech Disorder (amongst other difficulties as well). Now he cannot be discharged from SALT.

 

The Statement is supposed to be followed to the letter. If school wish to 'change' it then they have to wait for annual review and bring forward their suggestions and again you would hope they would have some evidence to support any changes they recommended. You could be in real danger of losing support because he has not used it because they have not provided it.

 

I would get advice from the NAS and IPSEA and send something in writing to school giving them a reasonable timescale to get into place what the Statement says. The Statement is a legal document that they 'have' to fulfil. And also find what the procedure is if they continue not to fulfil the Statement.

 

If your child is on medication and has improved that is great. But the idea of medication is to help the child cope and not to help the school get out of providing help and support. You should all be working together.

[Tantaz]

Lack of SALT input (due to SALT department staffing issues) is one of my major irritations.

Your son has a diagnosis. As part of that diagnosis he would have fit the criteria. Part of that criteria is to have language and social use of language difficulties. Those difficulties will remain for life. If they don't then surely he doesn't fit the criteria for a diagnosis?? Okay, so if that is the case, then why have SALT discharged him? Probably because they have not assessed him thoroughly in all areas of speech and language and social interaction functioning. If they did that they would find difficulties ie. you have said they state that he sometimes does not understand what is being said to him. So how is he supposed to 'understand' verbal classroom instructions? If SALT have only ever talked about 'language delays' then SALT does not continue into secondary school without a speech disorder diagnosis. But I would recommend you argue for SALT to be involved, and if it states that he should be having input from SALT then I would insist on that as well. I specifically asked my SALT department if they thought he was not autistic, and when they said 'no, of course he is autistic, I asked them why they were not working on his speech/language and social use of language difficulties which are part of his autism diagnosis. And guess what, they started working on it. I did eventually get a private SALT report which diagnosed him with Semantic Pragmatic Speech Disorder (amongst other difficulties as well). Now he cannot be discharged from SALT.

 

The Statement is supposed to be followed to the letter. If school wish to 'change' it then they have to wait for annual review and bring forward their suggestions and again you would hope they would have some evidence to support any changes they recommended. You could be in real danger of losing support because he has not used it because they have not provided it.

 

I would get advice from the NAS and IPSEA and send something in writing to school giving them a reasonable timescale to get into place what the Statement says. The Statement is a legal document that they 'have' to fulfil. And also find what the procedure is if they continue not to fulfil the Statement.

 

If your child is on medication and has improved that is great. But the idea of medication is to help the child cope and not to help the school get out of providing help and support. You should all be working together.

 

I fully support this Sally. Some schools will just sit back and just dawdle along with things as they want it you really have to try and fight for what your child needs. I make a right pain of myself and they must get really fed up with me but who cares - my son is the most important thing in my world who has a statement and if this isn't adhered to, to my satisfaction then I must say something. Every time SALT, the School, ISSS delay in providing the support to your child, they will never get that back and it's gone. My sons high school have said to me recently 'we are worried that we can't meet his needs' which is really hacking me off - if they can't meet his needs then they should be calling an interim review to tell us this and to arrange other provision for my son. There again, is the school saying that we can meet his needs but we can't be bothered putting the extra effort in....I would love to be a fly on the wall in school - it would be an interesting experience I'm sure!

 

Tania xx

[Sally44]

It is awful that parents are put in this situation. But you have to try to remain detached, methodical and go completely by the book.

Schools receive funding for SEN. If a particular child needs more than that funding can provide, or needs input from outside professionals which is over and above what is normally provided then that extra funding is secured through the Statement. If the school is then saying that 'they are not meeting his needs' then support needs to be increased and funding from the LEA increased. If at some point the most economic use of those resources from the LEA's point of view is for a special school, then that placement is usually changed - as long as it fits the child's needs and cognitive ability.

 

Unfortunately mainstream schools are not 'allowed' to say they 'cannot' cope with a SEN child. They have to say 'yes' because it LEA's mantra of 'inclusion' which means they cannot refuse or say they cannot meet the needs. That does leave schools in a very difficult position when sometimes they have no experience or expertise in certain SENs and are left to try to learn on the hoof. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And schools don't always even know what they are entitled to, and LEAs don't always tell the truth and sometimes tell bare faced lies and are more than economical with the truth. But thankfully there are organisations like the NAS and IPSEA who can tell you what the legal positon is. Also a copy of the SEN Code of Practice is enlightening. I remember reading some paragraphs over and over because it was completely the opposite of what the SEN inclusion officer had told me. For example, being told that my son could not have OT input in school because OT is a health need and not an educational one and that the LEA are not responsible for funding OT. Well actually the LEA is responsible for any input a child needs to access education, and the legal definition of education of everything it takes to teach a child to become an independent adult.