advice on statement

[allafluster]

Hello, feel bad that my first post is asking for help. I have been advised by LEA that my proposed statement for my son is just being checked and will be out shortly. I would like him to attend a special school but they are looking at 1:1 supervision at a mainstream. My son is non verbal, has a limited use of PECS, will turn 4 just before September and the doc has diagnosed Autism (autistic symptoms before) . He is still in nappies and my biggest concern is he has hardly any sense of danger with a love of hiding and wandering off and if determined will not come back when called.

My ed psychologist report was very strongly worded saying my son needed a secure environment with access to the curriculum for MLD, I could not of asked for a better report however the LEA have told me as my son is very placid and behaves very well around people and is quite social, he can be educated in a mainstream placement. I have argued that I do not see him as having inclusion in a school whilst he is being chaperoned all day. He will gain no independence and unless the person supervising is fast as he can be very quick he will have no opportunity for running and playing.

What I find strange is that the LEA have contacted me at all and not just waited and sent out the proposed statement. I have a feeling they are testing the water to see my reaction. I attend a small group for ASD children and out of them alone I know of 8 families who want the same special school (the one and only in the large area) and this school has a small intake for all children with MLD. I have been in contact with Parent Partnership and will be in touch again, I just feel I need to be prepared and could benefit from advice and info from others who have been in similar situations.

Sorry wanted the post to be shorter thanks in advance for any advice.

[Sally44]

The LEA should issue the Proposed Statement and then there is a period where the parents/LEA negotiate what is contained in section 2 and 3 and that makes the placement in section 4 much clearer.

 

Please check that every need is identified in section 2 and that provision is quantified in section 3. By quantified that means that the input should specify hours. Eg. if it is 1:1 it should say for how many hours. If he needs SALT the SALT's time in school should be quantified (usually in termly hours equated to weekly input), and the TA's time (where they would practice the SALT programme daily) should be quantified in terms of hours and should be specified in the daily timetable.

 

The same goes for Occupational Therapy and EP input.

 

There should also be quantified hours for admin/liaison/training of staff or parents/attending or contributing towards IEPs/attending Annual Reviews and preparing up to date reports.

 

If you are not happy with the Proposed Statement then you can ask the LEA to finalise it so that you can go to Tribunal. And if he is about to start school and there are limited places at this special school, then you may well need to go to Tribunal. The special school will be overscribed - they all are.

 

The EP report you mention, is that from the LEA? What have they said about the placement in their report? Have you spoken to them and what is their opinion? If they say special school, then go to Tribunal and you can ask the LEA EP to come as your expert witness. You can ask any professional involved to attend as your expert witness - but it obviously depends if they will be helpful to you or the LEA.

 

Do you have any evidence that he gets upset or overloaded in busy/noisy environments. Where does he attend nursery? How will they teach him and differentiate his work in a mainstream school. He will need an approach such as TEACCH, which the mainstream school will not use. Are any of the teachers in the mainstream school qualified to teach children with autism. You can ask the school/LEA all these questions. The Tribunal Panel will want evidence that a suitably qualified person is teaching/providing therapy for your child.

 

LEA's will try to keep children mainstream. But as he is non-verbal - and may well have learning difficulties or specific learning difficulties too, I think it is ridiculous to be suggesting mainstream.

[Grace]

Hi there and welcome!

 

What they are effectively saying is that they think the mainstream school will cope with your son, when in fact their focus should be whether your son will cope with mainstream school.

 

You have a very strong case for specialist provision i.e. a special school. Ideally what you need is an autism-specific school; the Ed Psych might have recommended an MLD school, because (as is often the case) she is recommending what is available and not what he really needs. Does the MLD school have autism-specific approaches? Do they have visual timetables, small classes and lots of structure,routines etc?

 

Most importantly for your son is intensive speech and language input - he is at a critical age, where intensive input could make a huge difference. A child in my son's class was non-verbal at your son's age, but thanks to being in an autism-specific school he speaks freely now. Children differ of course, but it is important to give your son as much help as possible. Early intervention is critical.

 

Go online and google SEN Code of Practice and you can order one for free. You can look at it online too.

 

Check that they are acting within their allowed timescales:click below

 

Timescales

 

Chase them if they are late with the proposed - let them know you are aware of the law!

 

Once you know what you are faced with, come back on for more advice; what you do next depends on what they give you.

 

However, as Sally as already mentioned, do be prepared to fight. Hopefully you won't need to, but money is the over-riding consideration for LA's - you have to be your son's champion and listen to your own instincts and not be fobbed off.

 

It is the LA's duty to ensure that they have adequate schools in their area; it is not your problem if they are short on places. They have by law to provide a school that can meet your son's needs and from what you say, they'd be hard pushed to show a mainstream can do that/x

Edited April 23, 2011 by Grace

[Sally44]

As far as I know, the LEA has to go with the parental choice of LEA maintained school (and I think that includes special school), unless the LEA argue that it could not meet your child's needs, is not a good use of their resources, or that it would be to the detriment of the other pupils. Equally you could argue that placing your son mainstream could be to the detriment of the other mainstream pupils etc.

So stick to your parental choice - but as Grace says, do you know for sure that he has MLD? Currently he is non-verbal and a MLD may be the right placement IF they have an autism unit, or classroom that uses teaching approaches suitable for those with an ASD such as TEACCH. MLD is not ASD, but the two can go together.

As the cost for the LEA increases (with the placement, therapy input etc), the more the LEA will fight because it will cost them money, but by Law the LEA has to provide a suitable educational placement.

[allafluster]

Thank you for your replies I have more questions than answer but that is exactly what I wanted as I need to be prepared. My son is currently at a SEN placement in a local nursery. His learning ability is hindered by not only a lack of language but also a lack of interest. The ed psychologist is from the LEA and although he has not stated he should go to a special school in his report he has stated that very few schools in the whole district would be suitable for his needs. He has also recommended that his curriculum should be based around him and not him being adapted to the current curriculum and that a placement that could offer more preschool style teaching rather than formal learning. He has also stated that he needs higher staff to children ratio and access to new forms of communication techniques. in fairness his report probably made me over confident and the LEA contacting me even though they still have over two weeks to go in the current timescale (the ten weeks stage) has thrown me . My sons age has been the problem so far his first diagnosis was speech delay so the only help he received was when he eventually got into a SEN placement when he was three and the head wanted to see him for two terms before beginning the statement.

 

Thank you all again your input has cleared some of my anxieties, it maybe that the LEA thought that I would be happy with recieving full time 1:1 for my son that I might accept anything they had to offer.

[Sally44]

Places in special schools are limited. If you were prepared to even try mainstream and found it did not work, then all the special school places will be taken. There would be nowhere to move him to, and if things were really going badly you would still find yourself at a tribunal trying to get an independent school placement because the special schools were full, and the LEA would fight even harder against that, and you would have to spend money on private reports etc.

 

If your son goes to a special school now, and he makes really good process during his primary years, then you might be in a position to consider something like an autism unit within a mainstream secondary school. It is much easier to move from special school to mainstream autism unit, because it costs the LEA less and they will have children ready to take up the special school place immediately. But at the moment, they don't really have a good idea of what he is capable of do they. Have any standardised assessments been carried out by the EP or SALT that give age related skills or percentile results?

 

At the top of the education forum, there is a list of publications. Do you have a copy of the SEN Code of Practice and the SEN Toolkit? If not download it and have a read. From the description of your son he sounds like he needs a special school placement - but even in the special school they will not have a speech therapist or occupational therapist on site - so you need their input quantified in terms of hours. How many hours has the SALT said he needs for 1:1 therapy?

 

Don't be fooled. The LEA will know exactly what they are doing.