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babnye1

Tuition out of school - medical needs

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Son is out of school. Accepted medical grounds because he has AS and anxiety.

 

As far as I can see this entitles children to access home tuition. LA are trying to make school send TA out.

 

But the statutory guidance suggests he is entitled to an educatiin which is equivalent to the one he would receive in school. This is surely not TA support.

 

http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/files/pdf/s/health%20needs%20guidance%20%20-%20revised%20may%202013%20final.pdf

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Good luck. My son has had no education for 21 months apart from 3 x 1 hour sessions in one week a year ago :ninja: .

What you need to do is to send medical needs letter to LA directly recorded delivery. The medical needs team should then provide education he can access minimum 5 hours a week. When I complained to LGO they found LA had no case to answer as I had not sent medical evidence to LA and GP had written directly to school. No one told me this and my psychic powers were not working. :angry:

I then had a letter from OFSTED saying they were visiting my son's short term stay school (where medical needs team work from). I rang OFSTED who rang school as they do not look at names but only what is provided. The short stay term school said my son was not on roll with them. OFSTED said to complain to LA which I did. They said the school he is on roll at had provided so much and he had not engaged!! :wallbash:

 

Today I have found out that although he is on a one term assessment by an independent Asperger Centre he is still dual registered with the mainstream school who have provided no education and is named on his statement.

 

Hope your son gets the help he needs.

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Thanks. I'm really sorry to hear about your problems too. It's a nightmare.

 

There's no question that they know he is off for medical reasons as they have admitted this in writing.

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With my son the LA tried to get him enrolled with the "hospital school", the co-ordinator for that school came to see me and my son and wrote to the LA that he needed a "fully resourced ASD specific school". The LA then wrote to her superior and said that she was not qualified to make that decision!

 

I would suggest you find out WHO the responsible person is within the LA for children who are ill and unable to attend school. Send them the information about your son being unable to attend school due to medical issues. Send it recorded delivery. Make sure you give them a timescale within which to reply. Remind them what the guidance says about "full-time" and adequate schooling. And say that a TA is not a suitably qualified person to be teaching him [because they are not qualified teachers and the TA also does not have any additional qualification for teaching a chiild with Aspergers, or an Anxiety Disorder], so that he does not fall further behind and the gap between him and his peers widen.

 

The LA may well argue that due to 'anxiety', he is not able to cope with 'full-time' education at home.

 

If you get no satisfaction you can complain firstly to the 'complaints person' within the LA. If you get no satisfaction with that [and again give a timescale] you can go to the local governments ombudsman. The LGO may say this is a case for SEND Tribunal, or they may get involved. If they do follow up your complaint, at least they can put questions to the LA and answers from the LA so that you know what their arguments are. Basically your complaint is going to be asking why the LA are not following the guidance you have.

 

Good luck with it. It won't be easy getting this type of education. And as it is not something that is provided as standard the LA or other professionals involved will be continually trying to reduce and cut the provision as they would do to any support etc provided into a mainstream school. And they will be continually looking at getting him 'reintegrated' into school.

 

Years ago, when my son was first out of school due to anxiety, I informed the LA after 15 days. All the LA did was to threaten me with the EWO! That really set the tone until we won at the Tribunal about a year later. And that was eventhougth the LA had correspondence from the GP, CAHMS Psychiatrist and ClinPsych.

 

I will be interested to see how this pans out. So please keep us posted on what is happening [or not happening].

Edited by Sally44

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Thanks Sally. We have threatened to issue judicial review proceedings if they don't put something in place by the end of the week.

 

The problem has been that they have tried to force school to offer a TA. School doesn't want to so hasn't reached agreement. LA are writing to lawyer and pretending that it is in place.

 

Their cover has been blown now but I think even if they persuade school to offer a TA, this is not enough.

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No a TA is not sufficient for teaching a child with complex SEN at home who also has an Anxiety Disorder. The guidance makes it perfectly clear what the teaching should be such in terms of quantity and quality ie. full time education and that the child does not fall further behind and that the gap between them and their peers does not widen.

 

My LA did arrange for a special needs teacher to come and collect my son for two afternoon sessions of 1.5 hours each a week ie. 3 hours a week. This was not for any kind of 'educational work', but as a way of getting him out the house and into another building. The idea was that they would do things that he enjoyed doing. What actually happened was that they took him back to his old school. He refused to go into the classroom or into the playground. Initially they said he was going into the autism unit. When I pressed them about specifics of that, they confirmed that he was not in a 'class', he was out in the corridor with this teacher.

 

When I said that that was not 'suitable', they found another room in the main school building. When I pressed them about that for specifics, they admitted it was the store room.

 

In any event, he never once stayed for both of the 1.5 hour sessions, and often refused to go at all.

 

We had had confirmation that the hospital school was not suitable as it was for neurologically typical children who were ill, it was not ASD specific and did not have anyone qualified to teach my son with an ASD and also Dyslexia. He would not have been able to access the lessons at all. That is how we managed to get the placement we wanted. However you are looking at him being educated long term at home. The guidance you have makes it clear that that is possible, however the LA are going to be repeatedly assessing whether he is still 'ill'. As it is the 'anxiety' that is making home education the only possible way of him receiving education. The LA may wait until they are forced to provide your child with an education. Unfortunately there is no way of punishing an LA for failing to do their duty [apart from the LGO that can aware compensation as they did for us - however they only do that in cases that cannot be resolved via a SEND Tribunal]. They don't get fined. So from a financial point of view it is worth them stringing it out as long as possible.

Edited by Sally44

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Thanks Sally. I agree, there is nothing to lose for them in just stringing things out.

 

We have not said we want long-term home education, only that, at the moment, tutors at home are working so this should be reflected in a package which is put in the statement.

 

The school placement has broken down and the LA have nothing to offer and we have not found any schools suitable.

 

It seems to us to be not only the best but the only option.

 

I think the guidance is clear. However, it does suggest that LAs can avoid the duty arising for them to provide the education themselves but only if there is suitable education already being offered by school, and they have to be convinced it is suitable after taking the guidance into account.

 

This is not the same as forcing the school to do something that the LA think is suitable against the school's will because the LA has already paid the school for a TA.

 

Interestingly, the statutory guidance obliges the LA to set out a policy on this and have a named person dealing with it and to tell parents about this.

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Interestingly, the statutory guidance obliges the LA to set out a policy on this and have a named person dealing with it and to tell parents about this.

 

That is what I noticed about the guidance. So I would start with that point, and if they don't have anything or anyone complaint to the LGO about that as that is 'administration', which the LGO are able to look at.

 

I know you are not automatically looking at 'long term' illness, but that is what the LA will be thinking about, and the costs of providing this education, which is why I think they will be regularly wanting to look at whether he is still 'ill' and needs this kind of education. But it will be a stop gap for the foreseeable.

 

Regarding who teaches your child, I think your current evidence is that a mainstream environment or teacher is not able to do that. And if that is the case you need someone more specialist, not less. I assume your child is going to be working towards examinations etc, and therefore needs someone with a teaching qualification and a qualification for teaching children with an ASD or specific learning difficulty, and that they should also have experience of working with children with autism and anxiety. It really makes all the difference having the right person.

 

My son has progressed tremendously from years on the P scales to now [age 12 and 2 years at his independent school] at a level 2a literacy, 3c maths and 4c science.

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I think school are trying to get me to refuse the TA so they can say to the LA we were prepared to send the TA but parent stopped it.

 

I think this is a very disappointing attitude as they clearly don't want to send the TA but don't want to say no and will use me.

 

It's not even a school in the same county as the LA

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It is a difficult situation as you need to be seen as being cooperative.

 

When the LA arranged for the special teacher to take my son out I was not happy with it. I felt that she would attempt to get him to do things he could not cope with. I suspected she would attempt to get him into school to prove he could attend. I thought she would not listen to him if he objected.

 

Fortunately my son is verbal. I taught him a british sign language sign that he should use to the teacher IF he felt he had had enough and needed to come home. He told me he used it and she ignored it [eventhough she told me she would not do that]. When I spoke to her about it she agreed she had 'encouraged' my son to stay longer to finish the session. This was contrary to the advice given to me by Clinical Psychology, and I put that in writing to the LA and submitted that as part of my tribunal appeal. Clinical Psychology had specifically said that he should not be encouraged to endure more than he wanted to because he had been under chronic levels of stress and no-one had listened to his objections over all these years. So he did not trust people. He therefore avoided situations because he felt he would be trapped in them. So the whole point of teaching the hand signal was that IF he became stressed and could not communicate that [as he often could not verbalise his need to stop], that he would use the signal and the adult in charge would immediately take him somewhere low arousal and quiet and then bring him home.

 

Do you feel that your son would engage with a TA? If he would not then that would prove your point even further that he needed a suitably qualified teacher and not a TA that did not have the training or skill to get a child with Aspergers to engage. And by them only providing a TA it would prove that that was the level of education that the LA seemed to think was adequate.

 

Remember that it is the LA that fund the Statement. Who has said that a TA is sufficient? The school or the LA. Who within the school? The SENCO? Are they medically trained [to the extent of an Educational Psychologist?], because if they are not then they are not suitably qualified to be saying that a TA is sufficient.

 

So, might it serve your purpose better to leave them to get on with messing it up? Find out who is responsible within the LA for children who are taught otherwise than in school. Get the LAs procedure/guidance for this [as they are supposed to have their own guidance aren't they]. Put in writing to that person that you do not think that a TA is suitable to be providing your child with an education. Who would be planning the lessons? And maybe leave them to get on with it. Do not intervene at home at all. If your son refuses let the inexperienced TA try to deal with it. They won't be able to.

 

When my son was at home, if anyone came and he refused to see them I let them know that that was what he had said and that was what was going to happen. I did not make him see anyone, or make him engage with anyone. Interestingly all the independent professionals that did see him did manage to get him to engage, and when he did refuse they were able to include that in their report because you need a suitable professional with experience to know how to handle and approach a child like this. It is not about them being naughty. It is about years and years of them being let down and trying again, and attempting to trust again and being let down so very very badly that they are damaged. It takes a long time for them to begin to recover.

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I also knew that the LAs attempt to get him to attend the Childrens Hospital School was a joke. But again I let the person come and see him and myself. She was actually appalled at what she saw. My son was in a very bad state at the time, the house was a mess, I could not even get out of the house because he refused to leave the house. He had lots of repetitive behaviours, coughs and tics at that time too. She said to me that it was immediately obvious that the hospital school was not appropriate and she could not understand why the LA had even suggested it. We had a long chat about things and I asked her to put in writing to me what we had discussed. She did that. The LA got in touch with her manager and objected to what she had said in her letter. They even got her manager to write a letter saying that this person was 'not qualified' to make that judgement. Yet it was the LA themselves that had sent her! So I just submitted those letters and said that the LA only appeared to want to listen to anyone that agreed with them.

 

At the Tribunal the LA even lied and said that my son had attended all of the sessions with the special teacher and had stayed until the end of all the sessions. Fortunately I had my advocate with me, and she could confirm that during a telephone conversation with me my son had returned home at least 30 minutes early from one of these sessions. I had also documented each session of when he left, what he did, when he came back, when he refused to go. But I was surprised that the LA Inclusion Officer was prepared to blatantly lie. And I was fortunate that I had been on the phone with my advocate when my son came home early. It must have made the Panel realise that the LA were prepare to lie, and if they were prepared to lie about that [and lots of other things I uncovered via a Freedom of Information Act search], then what could they be trusted with?

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