I think SALT wants to recommend cutting provision

[Sally44]

Met with the SALT today as she wanted to discuss with me before she finalised her report.

Her comments were as I expected really. He has improved in some areas, but still has significant areas of difficulty elsewhere.

She did keep repeating how much progress he had made, so I want to compare her assessment results with those from last year.

 

She would not comment on whether she was going to recommend a reducation in hours of support and kept saying "we have to discuss this at the annual review". I have a feeling she is going to try to either reduce the hours or ask for an amendment that the SALT does not have to go into school every week.

 

So I'm looking for advice on how I counter that.

I believe he has made progress because of how much intervention he has had this last year.

There are also programmes and approaches that the SALT has not done yet because the LEA had not got access to a social interaction programme called SCERTS. This will take some time to set up and monitor. Therefore I do not agree to any reduction in hours.

I do agree that there maybe occasions when she does not need to go into school every week, especially if the delivery of the programme has not changed. However that flexibility is built into the Statement and does say that it can be altered if the SALT/School and myself are in agreement.

The previous SALT did suggest going in fortnightly because she said it was a long way for her to travel for a 30 min session. So I wrote her a letter stating that any change "is supposed to be for the benefit of the child and not the benefit of the system" (this is case law on the IPSEA website). And that I was not convinced that my son could cope with a 1 hour session delivered fortnightly (as that is what a fortnightly session would have to consist of because she cannot reduce the termly input).

 

Does anyone have any suggestions they would add to the above on what I should look for or how I can prove the input should not be reduced.