What does a statement mean for the school?

[streamdreams]

Ok we accept the statement kids can be a challenge and do require more effort on the schools part. However what else does it mean to the school?

 

Does a statement mean that the school is �obliged� to provide the extra resources. Is that obligation paid for out of existing budgets, or does a statement mean that the LEA is obliged to provide the school with extra funding. Another question comes to mind does a statement mean that the LEA has to fun training etc?

 

I ask these questions because we repeatedly see this on this site from the parent?s perspective. Does anyone know how this works from the Head Teachers perspective?

 

To quote Carols signature 'The Key to Understanding is Awareness'

 

Is there any way we in the schools interest ho have /get statements?

 

Julian

[oracle]

I am not the expert on Statements because I took my two sons out of the educational system. But I do know that a Statement is a legally binding document and that the LEA along with the school has to stick to the provision written into the Statement.

 

However a Statement is only any use if thst provision is specified and quantified and is not left open to the school or LEA to decided how much extra provsion and resources are required? Some children have Staments saying things like 'Speech Therapy over and above what a child of his/her age would require' Now what does that mean? It should state how much is required and for how long. Hope that makes sense?

 

As far as I know the money comes from the LEA although it will be added into the school budget. But the school do not find the extra money it comes with the issue of the Statement.

 

As it is legally binding if the school and LEA fail to provide then parents can do something about it. You have no safety net with School Action and School Action Plus as they are not legally binding.

 

I am sure that others can explain this much better than myself.

 

Carole

[LKS]

Sorry speaking from a parents perspective again! In our borough if you are statemented and have a high incidence condition such as aspergers, mld, adhd the school get no extra funding for the childs statement. If you have a low incidence condition then the school get extra funding but depends on the banding(see other post) It is very hard to ensure that everything on the statement happens, how are you supposed to know whether X gets so many hours of support per day. Luckily my son was always able to tell me what support he was given, my daughter on the other hand can't. I don't think there is any benefit to the school to have a statemented pupil with a high incidence condition. Only speaking personally obviously from perspective of our borough

[lil_me]

Speaking from the way our LEA works

 

Does a statement mean that the school is �obliged� to provide the extra resources?

 

No the LEA must provide financial backing for any 'extra' support they ask the school to provide. For exmaple addiotnatal adult support, extra support with SALT etc

 

Another question comes to mind does a statement mean that the LEA has to fund training etc?

 

No that is down to the school.

 

Some LEA's provide statements but do not offer any financial support at all, which is when the school can find it majorly difficult to support a childs needs.

Edited October 1, 2005 by lil_me

[UltraMum]

Sorry speaking from a parents perspective again! In our borough if you are statemented and have a high incidence condition such as aspergers, mld, adhd the school get no extra funding for the childs statement. If you have a low incidence condition then the school get extra funding but depends on the banding

Our LEA works the other way round - our HT's first concern about what was written into the statement was whether it was 'low' incidence ...

[Kazzen161]

Our County is similar to LKS's, low incidence statements come with extra money from LEA, high incidence ones get same as SA or SA+ children (whoses funding is done via an audit and is on step 2 or 3).

 

So there is no incentive to go for a statement for a high incidence disablity - in fact there is a disincentive - they don't have to do loads of paperwork, and are not at risk legally if needs are not met. They could be told to provide full 1:1 and only be getting �1000 for the child's SEN.

 

The school is supposed to provide what the child needs, but we get into the arguments of the LEA saying the schools have the money (via usual SEN funding) and the schools saying they don't have enough money.

 

The school's have a training element to their SEN funding - but I think The junior school's for last year was �800 - so not going to go far.

 

Karen

[LKS]

What worries me as well kazzen is that if there is a disincentive to actually have a child with a high incidence condition statemented are schools going to be even less supportive than they are already. My son has just transferred to secondary school with a high incidence statement , one of the governors told me that if they fulfil everything that is written on these statements they actually have no funds left over to provide support for children on SA and SA+ O.K. school should approach LEA for more funding but we all know that that doesn't usually happen. The LEA are expecting schools to make better use of their SEN resources. For example my son only pupil with high incidence statement out of 90 kids. Answer to take all those who need extra help off to work with L.S.A. This is lumping all children with SEN together and not taking account of their individual needs. My son at the moment is tending to get his support where there is greater need in general. I must admit I'm not looking forward to the annual review. At least when schools had extra funding for statemented pupils you felt they were on your side in trying to keep the statement in place. I just wonder who is going to be on my son's side now. As you said kazzen far more tempting to have the child just on SA+ , no legal document for parents to keep waving under your nose. When I asked our LEA why they were ceasing to individually fund high incidence statements they told me that they thought it was very important to get money into schools as quickly as possible so that children didn't have to wait for lengthy assessments and dx to get help. When I pointed out that these children were already statemented and weren't waiting for ass. etc. He said we firmly believe this is the most satisfactory solution. For satisfactory please replace with the word cheap ,

[Kazzen161]

We were told that for high incidence needs, it is presumed that all schools will have some of these children, therefore it is easier to give the schools money direct in their budget. Not all schools are expected to have a child with a low incidence need (eg: deaf), so this money is just given to the schools that do have such a child.

 

This sounds good in theory, in practice the amount of money given for high incidence needs is very small. It should be about how much it costs to meet these needs, not about how many such children there are around.

 

Karen