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Statements !!

valley girl

I am sure that many of you out there have been through the nightmare of refusals to assess,refusals to issue statements and trying to deal with Sendist. We took 3 years to get my nine year old sons statement and we were over the moon when it arrived in July. Great we thought - things will be much easier now. Not so !! Even though he has a statement for 23 hours a week I am still having to chase up everything, go and see the teacher everyweek and generally check everything is being provided. My relationship with the school is getting worse rather than better.

My son is in Year 5 now and we need to start considering secondary schools. We try to be positive but I cant see him surviving there let alone making progress.

Is anyone else feeling this way or had the same problems  or have any advice !!

Are Statements worth the paper they are printed on !!

xxx

 

Parents

  • Hi Valleygirl

    My son was out of school for 3.5 years during the primary stage because there were no local schools that could meet his needs.  The one school that we thought we wanted ended up rejecting him and told our Pupil Services Officer he needed to go to a residential school. They also questioned his diagnosis and suggested he had PDA.  Utter hogwash.  So much for 'experts'.  And these are the people who are supposed to understand autism.  In actual fact, they just didnt like us (parents) - it was nothing to do with our son.  We were too assertive.

    Anyway, they did us a big favour as we have now set up our own school

    www.brightfuturesschool.co.uk

    That was a big challenge but we opened in Sept with 1 pupil and now have 3 more in various stages of officially seeking a placement.  So if you're anywhere near......?

    Otherwise, you might want to look at all the options that are available in your area.  There is some info on this on the NAS's Autism Services Directory

    http://www.autism.org.uk/en-gb/directory.aspx

    and your Parent Partnership Service should also be able to give you information on the range of placements that are open to you.  I agree with SheffieldMum that getting all the info is really crucial.  If you can get reports from people like an independent Educational Psychologist and Speech and Language Therapist to say what your son's needs are and what kind of placement he needs, that would also help - but its expensive :(

    Someone else has already mentioned the NAS Education Advocacy helpline - definitely worth getting support from them.

    Hope that helps - good luck

    Zoe

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  • Hi Valleygirl

    My son was out of school for 3.5 years during the primary stage because there were no local schools that could meet his needs.  The one school that we thought we wanted ended up rejecting him and told our Pupil Services Officer he needed to go to a residential school. They also questioned his diagnosis and suggested he had PDA.  Utter hogwash.  So much for 'experts'.  And these are the people who are supposed to understand autism.  In actual fact, they just didnt like us (parents) - it was nothing to do with our son.  We were too assertive.

    Anyway, they did us a big favour as we have now set up our own school

    www.brightfuturesschool.co.uk

    That was a big challenge but we opened in Sept with 1 pupil and now have 3 more in various stages of officially seeking a placement.  So if you're anywhere near......?

    Otherwise, you might want to look at all the options that are available in your area.  There is some info on this on the NAS's Autism Services Directory

    http://www.autism.org.uk/en-gb/directory.aspx

    and your Parent Partnership Service should also be able to give you information on the range of placements that are open to you.  I agree with SheffieldMum that getting all the info is really crucial.  If you can get reports from people like an independent Educational Psychologist and Speech and Language Therapist to say what your son's needs are and what kind of placement he needs, that would also help - but its expensive :(

    Someone else has already mentioned the NAS Education Advocacy helpline - definitely worth getting support from them.

    Hope that helps - good luck

    Zoe

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