Having to go for statement No.3

[Elouise]

Having spent this year arguing and trying to find a suitable 52/52 college for Nathan followed by dealing with Sam and his campaign to be allowed into the world of higher math and science resulting in yet another meeting with his long suffering EP to ammend AGAIN his statement....my youngest brings home her IEP all 10 pages of it. I did not make that IEP meeting thanks to Nathans hospital appointments....now I wish I had cancelled his psychiatrist instead

 

*SHRIEKS* Its now set at school action plus high focus with communication interaction cognition and learning; emotional behavioural and social and physical and sensory all picked out as major areas of concern.

 

ITS NOT PIGGING WELL FAIR. I know full well my local council loves to plug School action plus High focus as a 'postive alternative to statementing offering parents less beurocracy' My eye...the statements the legally binding document not this fancy stuff.

To also know how inclusive her school truly is and how hard they have tried and to see they are still struggling like this with all the external help they have bought in for her makes my stomach drop. Its not good. 8 years old and has not got the basics to cope with reception level work.

 

It means that in spetember I will be finalising Nathans college for end of year 11; sorting out Sams statement for year 4 as Gifted and talented...ditto Jo who also needs more input as Gifted and Talented as she is bored at school....now this; yet another formal request for assesment for educational needs from my frankly piggy political correct so far up its own 'retoric' council whilst trying to work out if this is a problem that appaers worse because Annie cannot aquire any academic learning within a school setting OR if I ought to be asking for her to be assesed by the local CDC to check for hidden disabilities. I am now deeply suspicous of her ever growing collection of cuddly fish and teddy bears and bewildered by her imaginative play. Somethings way not right but I am at a loose to say what this is.

 

And I was so hoping to have a nice summer in which I might get six weeks without having to worry about stupid educational anything

[Zemanski]

know just how you feel

 

about six weeks ago we started negotiations with the head to put right all the stupid mistakes they've made in the last two years.

As far as school have been concerned meeting Com's statement is a matter of giving him any old LSA (at least 7 probably more) and half an hour communication group in his lunch time. He has been on mainstream timetable getting detentions for AS related stuff because he has to conform to the same rules and regulations as everyone else regardless of need and disability.

 

and they were surprised how much he's changed in the last year?

 

anyway we got the head, with the help of our wonderful advisor, to agree to lots of wonderful provision and he was taken out of his problem tutor group and LSAs manage his behaviour so teachers can't get their misguided hands on him straight away

 

so much hope

 

today we had two meetings

 

the first was with the Ed psych - he's horrified with what has been going on and is all for tightening up his statement at his next review

 

phew!

 

then this afternoon we went to see the deputy head about confirming Com's provision for next year - all that wonderful stuff we negotiated - so that we could prepare him for when he gets back in Sept.

 

the only thing in place was that he will have just 3 LSAs and she didn't even know who they were

 

no maths teaching, no time off timetable for life skills, social groups ..., no ASD specific teaching after the first 4 weeks, no individual/small group PE, no OT .......

 

nothing

 

in fact she didn't even seem to know about most of it

 

we were very good, we didn't explode.

She did have the grace to say that school really wasn't looking very good!!!

 

She also wasn't too pleased when we told her she couldn't use his PE sessions that he is going to come out of for anything but PE and OT

 

she's suggested a meeting to confirm provision the day before he goes back - transition? planning ahead? preparation?

 

trouble is she was so nice about it all

 

so, what to do? - nasty letter in the morning?

 

Zemanski

[Suze]

I,m filled with dread we have HS transfer 2006 and Iam trying to be positive and trying to look on the bright side but I can,t help thinking.................it,s going to be a miracle if things are smooth.Both your posts are a classic example of the system failing , be it the school or LEA. good luck sorting these problems out.

[phasmid]

An IEP 10 pages long is utterly ridiculous! What the hell do they think they are playing at? An IEP should be:

 

...crisply written and focus on theree or four key targets, IEPs should be discussed with parents and the child.

SEN CoP Chapter 4 paprgraph 27 (p37)

 

There is no way on earth that an IEP should run to more than two pages possibly, in very exceptional circumstances) three! Get onto them and ask for an urgent meeting to discuss this 'document'. You want to be consulted as above.

[Elouise]

Hi,

Sorry i may not have explained the situation too well.

Its NOT the school thats th eproblem its council postive inclusion politics.

 

She is at the same place that took Sam on a slow inclusion from a Special Autistic Primary School. OFSTED rightly praise its inclusive practises and parents of ALL special needs children [that means regisered and statemented not just on the code of practise] beat tracks to its doorway from quite far away.

 

My problem is the dratted wretched b* awful redtape that the local council have concocted to try and bamboozle parents from releasing they can push for a formal assesment for a formal statement simply because their child started at mainstream without any concerns.

 

Her problems fill 10 pages with only one specific target per problem. Poor kid she has the whole frelling heap of stuff stacked so far against her I can think of nothing academic or that matters within a school she has a hope of doing.

She worked her self silly to earn her schools special dyslexic groups certificate for attempting to write a three word sentance with help.

They now have her on BOTH the mildly dyspraxic and obviously dyspraxic and DAMP groups.

It includes simple things like being able to form four letters correctly with a promt;

Learn to spell 'it' and 'am'. To be able to recognise her name written down. To learn to read 'my' and 'the'.

To plan a basic story structure on a tape recorder or seguence pictures into a story.....to understand what + and = mean and all with the aid of TA under guidence of SENCO and PSS.

On top of that its a case of trying to find the correct pen pencil scissors and so on for her to grip.

They are trying assorted colour filters to see if any of the ones available from the local special schools outreach centre help and she gets one to one support and help from a trained LSA who specialises in language difficulties for nearly 12 hours a week Gnnnnggnn.

 

Its so wretchedly lengthy because the SENCO wants to drag in the EP and push for statementing as soon as she begins in September and as promised to help me drag said EP in to a special formal review to present the case the school has pulled out all the stops they can, she has full support of her parents PSS and specialiesed outreach and she STILL has failed.

 

 

Thanks to our local council...*dark mutterings* the school cannot make them formally asses her without presenting three high focus in depth IEPS.....so we are doing the last IEP the first full week of school well they never said we had to do them once a term; Annie is so bad we have been doing them per half term and I shall be nailing said EP to the floor and demanding my rights as a parent to have my child formally assesed under educational law as its painfuly obvious the councils new singing all dancing regime has failed her.

The school want to be able to get her a specialised pute from outreach to record her work on but cannot without a guess what statement.

They want to buy in specialised resources for dyslexic kids and her own specially assesed writing stuff ...you guessed it they need the stement to be able to have that direct or they have to muck about with the school budget and more paperwork and.....if I ever find out whgich councillor dreamt this little fiasco up on a cold dark night I shall make them spend 24 hours with Nathan and Sam at full pelt till they beg for mercy.

They like me would also love to know what is going on in there thats making learning so hard for a child who is able verbally to be above average yet gets lost in her own classroom; who can visualise numbers as things but not associate the quantity of things with numbers; who has to rescued from art work thats being carefully done ; who will not speak unless she is asked to answer a question and then she only will if she thinks she knows the answer and...

 

 

Thanks to the idiot council the school has been forced into producing an minute detailed IEP just so they can prove that High Focus is unable to meet her needs!

 

Thats the bit thats truly annoyed the heck out of me...less beurocracy they said...just wait till I get to fill in the next 'parents views' form!

[Zemanski]

talk to ipsea

 

http://www.ipsea.org.uk/

 

Zemanski