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Mother in Need

The right to choose our own schools?

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I tried to visit a special school the other day, but was told that only people who had permission from their LEA were allowed to come and have a look.

 

Mentioning this to another parent, she said that she thought this was normal. When she wanted to visit another special school, she too was told to get permission from her LEA first. so she wrote to them. The LEA then wrote to the school in question, telling them that she was now allowed to come and visit, BUT THAT UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WOULD THE LEA FUND A PLACEMENT THERE. So when she rang up, the Head told her it wasn't any use her coming round as she wasn't going to get a place anyway.

 

Has this happened to other people? And is this legal? I thought we had a right to look at our own schools and choose ourselves. I know it was mentioned somewhere, that we had a freedom of choice. Well, it seems that this Freedom does not extend to our SEN children who are in need of special schools...

it's a joke, like the whole of the All Children Matters Campaign.

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Sounds odd to me.

 

I live in west yorskhire so maybe its different.But when i looked at special schools i didnt need permission from the LEA.All i did was phone the schools up myself ask what the criteria for entery was and went and had a look around.This was for every school i looiked at and i viewed 4.

 

The head teacher then said he was willing to offer a place but id to have the school named on the statement for education.All i then did was inform the head teacher at the mainstream school my son was attending saying i wanted him to go to such and such a place and that he could start in september.Hey presto he started.

 

Granted this is 6 years ago perhaps its changed.

 

Good luck with it.

 

If you have no luck id get in touch with youre local and hopefully not uselss MP or the local papers.

Edited by Paula

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I agree with Paula that it sounds very odd. We definitely didn't need LEA permission when we went to view the special nursery Logan is going to, but we're in Scotland so may be different up here.

 

Lynne

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when we moved to Devon I was told by one special school I was not allowed to visit unless we had EP referral from the LEA ... it does seem that some special schools are run on a closed door policy! Access denied unless those in the higher echelons of the LEA ivory tower deemed it necessary ...

 

Freedom of choice my ar*s!

 

Even when we found an appropriate school in the m/stream my preference was restricted by use of the LEA transport policy ... but I got round that little beauty and got T his place and the transport.

 

God they make hard for us, we might have to be fully paid members of the awkward squad but the LEA seem to have been the school of ###### mindedness.

 

HHxx

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You have a right to name your preferred school at statement time, and you have the right to take the LEA to Tribunal if they do not agree with that placement, so it seems pervverse for tham not to allow you to visit a school that you may wish to name when asked to do so.

 

The LEA are not actually able to say that under no circumstances will they fund a place there. The only way they could say that is if the school was a private one abnd they could demonstrate to a Tribunal that there was Nothing that the special school provided that couldn't be met from in-house provision.

 

I suspect the LEA are simply throwing theor weight around and trying to get you to back off.

 

I would get back in touch twith the school and say that if they are the most appropppriate place for your daughter you intend to name them as your preferred choice and will be taking the LEA to Tribunal if you need to. With that in mind you would still like to visit so yopu can determine whether or not to name them as the preferred school for your daughter.

 

 

Simon

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I heard only last week that the MLD school for our borough doesn't allow parents to visit at all until they have been named in the statement.

 

This is all part of a larger issue I have regarding the Y6/Y7 transition which I experienced last year and am STILL fuming about. Another mother and I are taking it further once she has got her statement sorted out. In comparision to what information is offered for mainstream transisition at this age, the entire process is discriminatory.

 

We plan to force the special schools to hold Open Evenings in the exact same way as the mainstream ones do.

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So it seems that in some areas you're allowed to just visit and in other areas you aren't. As Call me Jaded put it, this whole process is very discriminatory!

 

Mossgrove, yes I did get around it and visited the school, and the Head told me about tribunal himself (unofficially ofcourse!). It's not the school that's stopping people, it's the LEA. And yes, I would soooooooo like ds to go there, just right now have no clue as to how to convince the LEA to fund this. So if anyone has any ideas, I'd be very grateful!

 

Oh yes HH, transport policies, might start another thread on that one...

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I heard only last week that the MLD school for our borough doesn't allow parents to visit at all until they have been named in the statement.

 

This is all part of a larger issue I have regarding the Y6/Y7 transition which I experienced last year and am STILL fuming about. Another mother and I are taking it further once she has got her statement sorted out. In comparision to what information is offered for mainstream transisition at this age, the entire process is discriminatory.

 

We plan to force the special schools to hold Open Evenings in the exact same way as the mainstream ones do.

 

That is ourageous. You have the right to name the school you would like your child to go to, but no right to visit the school and decide if youwould like to name it or not!

 

I wonder who is driving this? We visited several school in our area and they were all more than happy to show us round, I would be wary of any school that isn't happy to do the same.

 

Simon

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When I was concerned last year I looked around special schools in my area, I just rang up and made appointment. I think the school is spinning a bit of a yarn hear too. At meetings I am told leas cant tell schools what to do they can check advice etc but professionasl etc ed psychs need to be asked into school.

I can see the lea might have put a bit of pressure on them but at the end of the day its the heads and governors decision.

I would consider putting my request to visit school inwriting with a copy to the chair of governors - it would be interesting to see if the position changes/ The if you still have a negative response you have evidence, if you need to use it.

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I didn't have any problems with LEA special schools - but the LEA woudl have been greatful if I had chosen one of them!

 

I managed to visit many independent special schools, but I know some will now only offer a visit if the LEA have first sent the child's papers to the school. This is partly because they end up showing so many parents around that it disrupts the school.

 

I could not have done what I did and got my child into the school he is in, if I hadn't been able to visit all schools suggested by the LEA or investigated by myself.

 

I also cannot see why any parent should be expected to name a school that they have not visited.

 

Karen

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I also cannot see why any parent should be expected to name a school that they have not visited.

Absolutely, I had no idea prior to visiting the school what it would be like, and whether or not it would be suitable, especially as it is officially an EBD school (half of the students are AS/ASD though). Having seen it now has given me the hope that we might eventually manage a life of some sort, for my ds, his brothers and myself. We certainly won't have that reassurance with mainstream, esp not if statements are going to be withdrawn. No, this school is definitely our salvation, if we can only get him there! But I had to have seen it first!

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seems to be one of the few things we can't complain about in this authority, you just ring the head and off you go.

 

I have attended parent workshops at a special school and then been given a tour when I expressed an interest in their work with autistic children and that was without contacting the head, I just asked the secretary if it was OK to go to the workshop if I had an autistic kid who wasn't at the school - no problem.

 

Z

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We just phoned the special school and were invited for a visit.

Actually we visited twice and the second visit we were there for an hour and a half.

It must be certain LEA's making this ridiculous rule!!!!

 

Brook

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