nix Report post Posted January 30, 2006 Hi there, I have my meeting tomorrow with head of LEA SEN and officer who wrote statement. I have been waiting since the first statement came in November for the statement to be finalised with my ammendments. They have just amended the statement with details of the salt but have quoted in the letter that they have another eight weeks to finalise it. Does this sound right and if not what do I say to them tomorrow? Also I am concerned about the amount of input in school from the Autism and communication dissorder teaching service at present it says regular visits but how much should it be ? The salt report says his comprehention and speech is 12-18 months. He has no friends but will tolerate them next to him now. He does not understand the time to talk social stories and the gap between the other children is now getting loads bigger. He cannot count or understand letters and he can only draw circles. He seems to be happy at school but of course he cannot tell me this. I am stressed out that he will be ok in mainstream even with 121 but this again is going to be a nightmare to try and get them to specify and quantify. They have quoted amount of ten thousand one hundred pounds is this enough for full time 121? Any advice at all would be very much appreciated. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tez Report post Posted January 30, 2006 (edited) I am in exactly the same position, originally proposed statement issued in mid November, LEA wouldn't agree to ammendments which we wanted without the permission of the EP and this counts as additional advice and therefore means that this is an exception to the time limit. They have only just actioned some of those anmmendments and are still quibbling about others. I have taken advice from IPSEA on this. They have told me that I have 15 days to respond to the alterations but each time I correspond with them they have to reply and could use this as an excuse to extend the time limit and claim it as an exception to the rules. In practice they have 8 weeks from the issue of the first proposed statement to finalise but if they have sought any further advice this provides an exception to the time limit but they should be mindful of the overall 26 week time limit and whether the child is getting an appropriate education without the statement in place. Under these circumstances there is no set guidance on how quickly the statement should be finalised but the 8 weeks does not start again when the ammended draft is issued, they do however, have however a reasonable amount of time to put in place the provision and then finalise. Technically, it could be argued that it is not reasonable to extend another 8 weeks to finalise if the overall 26 week time limit has been exceeded and the LEA may be guilty of maladministration. This is IPSEA's advice. In my situation, the LEA have asked me to meet with them to discuss the disputed areas. This will occur on Friday. Ipsea have told me that I am to tell them to finalise on Friday whether I am in agreement or not and take it to tribunal if there is a problem. Hope this helps clarify the first part of your question. If in any doubt give IPSEA a ring for advice yourself. Edited January 31, 2006 by Tez Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jen Report post Posted January 30, 2006 once you have the proposed statement they have eight weeks to complete you should have got a letter saying you can meet with an LEA officer if you are not happy with the statement. part 2 should describe your childs difficulties (this can be taken from diagnosis, reports, annual review, or your childs past history. If part 2 does not describe your childs difficulties correctly then part 3 will not be correct. The support needs to be specified in hours e.g. Sam will receive a funding of 25 hours of learning support assistant. Tell the LEA officer according to law your statement will be ready by..................and either you will collect it or they can post it. I always go to collect it. If you are not happy you can appeal to SENDIST. Ask SENDIST for the appeal form while you are waiting and photocopy all the important documents ready for posting when you get you final statement. Also ask for a full copy of the appendixes used in the statement as you will need to send these. LEA like to delay things to reduce there budget. Some parents will not challenge them so they save money other parents challenge them but they still save money (in a stupid way for 6 months) while going to appeal. Its costs our LEA 16,000 in legal costs to go to the appeal that does not include the costs of the appeal on the day. Jen Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nix Report post Posted January 31, 2006 Thankyou so much for your kind replies. I can't beleive it they actually said in our lea we do not specify provision in statements to which I refered to the letter from Ian Cotes, head of special educational needs and disability division, sent to all officers on Nov 15. She just could not justify her argument. I said if an amount of xx was enough to fund a 1to 1 then why would they not specify it in the statement and she just could not answer me and said she would have to go back to her chief officer. I also said I wanted the hours specified to which she said I hadn't asked for that in my email. They agreed to the salt and everything else though which is great I have minutes of the meeting made by my p p lady. How long would you give them do you think ? It is great idea about going to collect it thankyou. <'> Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
UltraMum Report post Posted February 1, 2006 Ours kept issuing another statement each time we queried something - we got fed up and sent them a letter along the lines of .... Although there are still areas of the statement that we disagree with, as noted in our letters of ..., .... and ....., we feel that J needs the support in place that has been found necessary for his SEN. we are requesting that you finalise the statment so that this support can be put in place. This will also enable us to exercise our right of appeal to SENDIST regarding the provision in the statement that we feel does not accurately reflect J's needs. We would be happy to continue to meet with yourselves to mediate on the areas of disagreement and are aware that the statement can be amended to reflect any agreed changes but we do feel that J needs the support in place ASAP and finalising the statement is the best route forward at this time. Thank you. We look forward to receiving the finalised astatement ASAP. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
UltraMum Report post Posted February 1, 2006 BTW - regular could mean once every five years - it's still regular! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
