We won!

[Getbeading]

Having had J at home since July last year because we refused to send our lovely boy to be further damaged in a mainstream school, we fought to get the statement, then spent £18,000 taking the LEA to tribunal for the school of our choice. BTW there are no AS specific schools in County....And I am thrilled that finally we won!

 

J begins his life on Monday at a super school near Andover, he is so excited and so are we!

 

The school passed the information about this forum to me as another parent helps to run it. Whoever you are I look forward to meeting you because, as a family we have felt so alone. I can't wait to be part of a community.

[justine1]

Welcome to the forum.WOW what a fight you must have had <'>

Congrats on winning,I do hope your son will be happy in his new school

[bensmum2]

Brilliant news, well done i have gone through similar and found the people on here to be a fantastic source of support. I am slightly worried at the fact that you say taking the lEA to tribunal has cost you £18,000 as i have just submitted my own appeal as they are trying to send him back to mainstream and i am appealing for a special independent school.I thought the tribunal was free and the ionly expense woudl eb the private reports if you needed to get them, am i wrong? i am so glad you have won though and i'm sure your son will go on to be happy and do really well x

[NickyB]

Having had J at home since July last year because we refused to send our lovely boy to be further damaged in a mainstream school, we fought to get the statement, then spent £18,000 taking the LEA to tribunal for the school of our choice. BTW there are no AS specific schools in County....And I am thrilled that finally we won!

 

J begins his life on Monday at a super school near Andover, he is so excited and so are we!

 

The school passed the information about this forum to me as another parent helps to run it. Whoever you are I look forward to meeting you because, as a family we have felt so alone. I can't wait to be part of a community.

 

That's brilliant

 

I hope J has a wonderful time at his new school

 

Nicky x

[Carrera74]

Congratulations !!!!

 

I have taken my son out of school as I too do not want him to be further damaged by the school they say meets his needs! We don't have that sort of money though so I hope it doesn't cost that much for us either. I'd hate for my DS not to get the education he should be getting just because we can't afford to pay professionals.

[Getbeading]

Wow, you are all so quick to reply on here! I wish I had been here earlier...

 

We didn't have £18,000 either, we now have a debt...but we did use the most experienced educational solicitors, and therefore the most expensive, and we had 3 independent reports done, and our barrister was present during mediation, so that is probably the most it will cost anyone.

 

Given his age and the need to ensure that I didn't go mad whilst having him at home indefinitely we made the decision to go down the expensive route. The tribunal is free, but please at least get IPSEA involved, they were terrific and will support and even represent you as you get further down the line.

 

I would be happy to chat to anyone who wants to know what to expect, I wish we had known someone...

[wasuup]

<'> Congratulations!!

[emmasmum]

Really pleased for you.

 

Carol

x

[Sally44]

What a relief, but what a hole in your pocket!

We went to tribunal in Jan 2009 and my son was placed at an LEA enhanced resource school with alot of SALT input. However he is not making academic progress and at annual review I challenged this and re-submitted the reports used at tribunal along with further evidence. The LEA have not amended, they have started a re-assessment from the beginning.

 

I'm not quite sure what placement we will be asking for. Because we are looking for specialist teaching and OT input to be added, I've a feeling that the LEA will simply say that they can 'add on' that provision to any enhanced resource school.

 

I would prefer him to move immediately to an independent school that takes children from age 9 onwards.

 

I don't know whether to take a low key approach this time, and see what the LEA proposes and save the big guns for the end of year 5, or whether to do it now and try to get an immediate move.

 

I know that many LEAs are looking at training some teachers to be specialist teachers. However they will still effectively be teachers in mainstream schools having to take lessons. There isn't going to be specialist teachers in school just teaching those children with SPLD. Or there maybe one school that has a SPLD enhanced resource with one teacher that has specialist training who will probably produce the lesson and the TAs will work individually with the children.

 

This year my son is in year 4. I'm going round all the secondary schools and it is all very much the same. Some have autism units, and he is not autistic enough for them. In that case he has to access mainstream classrooms, which he is unable to do because of his sensory and visual/auditory processing difficulties and semantic pragmatic speech disorder. The only other 'areas of learning' that mainstream or enhanced schools have is either 'catch up' areas where a pupil will get more input for a short period of time to catch up and return to the mainstream class, or a 'behavioural unit' where children are taken out if they are disruptive and where they are taught until they can be returned to the classroom. Neither of those is suitable.

 

But then if you take the next step up and look at special LEA maintained schools, then you are looking at moderate learning difficulty, or behavioural issues. And we don't think he has either.

 

My mum has said she will help me if needed. But sometimes I look at the amount of money i'm spending and it is just depressing. If I get to the end and get the placement I think he needs then it is all worth it. But I can't keep repeatedly going back again and again.

 

Can I ask on what grounds you got the independent schools. What were his needs that the LEA could not provide for??

[Kathryn]

Brilliant first post and and welcome to the forum!

 

Now if you can just distill the secret of your success, bottle it and sell it, you'll be a millionaire.

 

I can't think of the parent you're referring to on here but perhaps they'll come forward and identify themselves.

 

Bensmum, going to tribunal doesn't cost anything in itself, but independent reports, if you need them, plus solicitor's fees (if you choose to employ one) all add up. There is no direct correlation between the amount spent and eventual success.

 

K x

[Athena]

Congratulations and welcome to the forum! Well done to you! Look forward to chatting to you on the boards.

[janels]

Having had J at home since July last year because we refused to send our lovely boy to be further damaged in a mainstream school, we fought to get the statement, then spent £18,000 taking the LEA to tribunal for the school of our choice. BTW there are no AS specific schools in County....And I am thrilled that finally we won!

 

J begins his life on Monday at a super school near Andover, he is so excited and so are we!

 

The school passed the information about this forum to me as another parent helps to run it. Whoever you are I look forward to meeting you because, as a family we have felt so alone. I can't wait to be part of a community.

Hi,

Am new on here, my son was diagnosed when he was 7. Well done for getting your son into his school, my son also goes to a boarding school close to Andover. He has come on so much since he started 2 years ago.

Hope all goes well on Monday

[Getbeading]

Hi Sally I have lots to say to you but it is hard to know where to start. When I have got J safely settled I will try to answer you fully.

 

And Janet, how lovely, how old is your son?

 

I will keep you informed.

[Getbeading]

going back again and again.

 

Can I ask on what grounds you got the independent schools. What were his needs that the LEA could not provide for??

 

I have done a summary of our tribunal, I hope it helps....

 

Background

Our son is 12 years old. He was diagnosed with ADHD in 2004 and with Autistic Spectrum Disorder/Asperger’s Syndrome in 2009 (his Asperger’s had been masked by the severity of his ADHD.) He has a specific learning difficulty, emotional and behavioural problems, problems with fine motor skills and communication difficulties and suffers from depression and anxiety.

 

Our son attended a mainstream primary school and was due to transfer to secondary school in September 2009. However, on the advice of Great Ormond Street Hospital, we did not consider a transfer to secondary school appropriate. The LA carried out a statutory assessment in June 2009 and issued a statement in November 2009.

 

The school named in the statement was a maintained mainstream school. The LA named this school contrary to the advice of several professionals who had assessed our son and a response from the school that it was unable to meet our son’s needs.

 

When it came to the Tribunal, the LA named a Boys Grammar School in part 4 of the statement with an individualised support package as the LA had been unable to find a suitable autistic specific placement for our son.

 

 

Our case

Our case was the LA was acting disingenuously by asserting that the proposed provision was autistic specific and appropriate. Our Educational Psychologist (EP) visited the school and stated that the provision was not in place, is not autistic specific, does not have the expertise to meet our son’s needs and would involve a degree of mainstream provision that was totally unsuitable for our son.

 

We also asserted (with support from our EP, a Speech and Language Therapist and an Occupational Therapist) that our son requires a waking day curriculum.

 

 

The Tribunal’s Conclusions

When reaching its conclusions the Tribunal took into consideration that our son has complex special educational needs and that the late diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome has inevitably meant that his needs have not previously been fully understood or met.

 

It was accepted that there is ‘a lot of catch up to do’ with our son and this should be reflected in the intensity, quality and expertise of the provision made for him. The Tribunal concluded that our son does require a low arousal environment.

 

In the context of the late diagnosis and our son’s inability to cope within a mainstream class size the Tribunal also accepted the need for small classes throughout the school day and onsite therapies.

 

The Tribunal agreed that our son’s needs are complex and severe and that he needed a high level of support by a multi disciplinary on site team who were able to liaise with one another and support our son in a small class setting.

 

The Tribunal did not conclude that a waking day curriculum was required as he has not hitherto had specific autistic teaching and therapy delivered by experts and that therefore his response to such a level of appropriate teaching has not been tested.

 

However, as the Tribunal was not satisfied that the provision put forward by the LEA met our son’s needs, it named the school we had put forward.

 

 

 

[Sally44]

I've replied to your PM so am just repeating myself here!

 

My son has had various assessments recently as part of the annual review. He has made significant progress in some areas assessed by the SALT. He is now advanced in some areas (15) where 8-10 is average. In other areas he was 2 (where 3 is severe). In other areas he assessed worse than last time or had made no progress. This indicated to me that he can make very good progress with the right level of input. However if anything he needs more input as progress has not been seen in all areas. Yet the SALT has recommended a reduction in input and a return to termly reviews (which is a programme delivery that we proved failed at tribunal).

He has just been diagnosed with Dyslexia (I raised concerns in 2007), and basically the school/EP have danced around this since then trying to avoid 'naming' it. I specifically requested his teacher to assess his reading age and that came back as 4.7 years. So basically the level a child is at when they first walk through the school door and into reception year. Yet school have been telling me 'good' and 'accelerated' progress.

 

But, I'm not going to know until I get to tribunal whether this is enough to prove he needs to move to an independent school for children with speech and communication disorders, ASD and SPLD.

 

My solicitor did say it would be easier to fight at transfer to secondary stage. But he has not made progress and I cannot just leave him for a further two years - or should I??? I think he may cope during the next two years (bearing in mind he has now developed a vomitting syndrome and we have been referred to clinical psychology about other issues so that may not be the case). But he won't make progress. The gap will be wider than it is now. Isn't a reading age of 4.7 bad enough to prove his current school cannot meet his needs?

 

The EP has now diagnosed dyslexia, but says he does not need any specialist teaching. Infact she hasn't suggested anything in addition to what he already receives. Don't they have to set out HOW they are going to meet this need so that he makes progress. The EP just talks about my son achieving a 'functional' level of skills. And she has not assessed his areas of difficulty ie. auditory processing - or his areas of strength ie. visual processing. My whole point is that his difficulties mean he cannot access and learn by using phonics. I have written to this EP numerous times and even sent in a formal complaint and I just don't get a reply.

 

I sent in a letter to the LEA about non-compliance about his former Statement - and again no reply.

 

What is the point of all these SEN rules and laws if the LEA are just not replying??