At last a school telling an LEA the truth

[Tez]

A's school applied for his statutory assessment. Their words to me were, "we don't have to take it all too literally, we need to be flexible, but it will give us some extra money."

 

Thanks to this forum this set off warning bells so I was very careful to make sure that my parental advice explicitly stated all of A's difficulties and was backed by evidence. The result was that we have a proposed statement with alot of detail and alot of expectations. IPSEA's comment was, "I should think the school nearly died when they saw the statement, it would be a hard call for any school to meet that kind of provision."

 

Well, they weren't happy, especially when I told them it wasn't explicit enough in its quantification. The end result was they wrote to the LEA stating, "There are a number of issues that lead us to believe that x school would not be a suitable placement." I have edited out the provision in the statement that they are referring to so it does appear a little disjointed.

 

Reasons given :-

It is obvious that A is sensitive to the type of multi-sensory environment that is promoted for learning to take place as recommended by research into learning. Teachers can not be ordered to change the way they are to suit each individual child in their classroom, and cannot be stopped from talking and walking and writing. In order for the majority of pupils to learn it is imperative that there is discussion and practical activities in a class. All pupils who attend mainstream schools have to follow the national curriculum and sometimes this includes modules that may not be as interesting to a particular individual as another.

 

x School has a school uniform, which for boys is a white shirt, school tie, blazer and black trousers, with school shoes. It would be inappropriate to disapply school uniform as it is an important part of maintaining an identity within the school environment for most mainsteam schools. (They weren't asked to but the EP's report showed how it caused A sensory problems which caused him to cease functioning.)

 

Mainstream schools are very busy places, and all children are asked to take an active part in 24 lessons per week. They are part of a group of children, a class, of between 25 ? 35 pupils. These classes are set to allow for children of like ability to work at a rate appropriate to that ability. We cannot maintain very small groups of children working at a high level, with specialist teachers or LSAs. We are unable to do this because we do not have a specialist unit on site.

 

x School is a large site, with a large number of different buildings. We do not have a room, or suite of rooms where we can maintain a quiet calm environment. There will, in all parts of the school, be a constant amount of general noise. Movement at change of lesson time is also difficult to control, and is similar in most mainstream schools -?regardless of size ? children are generally boisterous and do bump into each other on a regular basis.

 

As far as specialist LSAs are concerned, while we have a staff of a very high calibre, none of the LSAs would have the ability to work at the level required to work with someone with A?s possible potential. It would also be difficult with the restrictions placed on a school day to meet with A and explain everything before or after a lesson on a regular basis.

 

The school environment as far as building structure is concerned is not under our control, and we have to make the most of what we have for the most part. Lessons are structured to be, as far as possible interesting and interactive. Children learn best by using all their senses ? it would be unfair on the majority of children to go back to using only one sense to learn with and to have completely quiet classrooms to learn in with no resources to stimulate the imagination on the wall or around the classroom.

 

The remuneration that they receive and the type of person that is prepared to work with secondary age pupils in mainstream schools restrict staffing of LSAs. I have to say that the staff I do employ do have a good general level of education, and any that come with high level qualifications tend to use the role as a stepping stone to other careers.

 

We are also unable to match teacher characteristics to individual classes, allowing pupils to pick and choose who teaches them is not an option.

 

 

I wonder how many other letters like this are floating around LEAs. For the most part I think it is a truthful and fair response.

Edited December 2, 2005 by Tez

[Tensing]

Sounds interesting, wish my LEA would open their eyes to Henry's problems.