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What should I ask?

annamaloo

Hello

I have a 5 year old daughter who is currently in year 1 in mainstream school.  She has recently been diagnosed as having ASD and we are waiting to hear from the local authority as to whether she is going to be given a SEN statement.

We are hopefully going to be looking at a school that has an Autism provision, but was just wondering what questions I should be asking when we go.

Any help would be gratefully received.


Ann

  • Hi There 

    If you are in England then the statement of special educational needs is one thing and the diagnosis is another.  The two can exist completely separately.  The NICE Guidelines (which are the guidelines for the National Insititute of Clinical Excellence) say that wherever possible if a child has ASD they should be included into a mainstream setting.  With the cut backs with all of the Local Authorities more and more pressure is being applied to Head Teachers to take on children with an ASD condition to include them into a mainstream school.  If the child does not have a statement then automatically the admissions team at your local authority will not even consider placing your child into an SEN setting, despite having a diagnosis.  The assessment process is determined by the SEN Team at your local authority who often also work with the local CAMHS (Child and Adult/Adolescent Mental Health Teams) and are supposed to talk to one another and share information.  The problem seems to me at the moment to be that if the child is given a statement then with it comes a range of financial packages which dependent now on the category they fall into, depends on whether they are classed as needing the support of an SEN provision or not.  The formulae for my Local Authority which shall remain nameless has recently been changed, so it seems that if a child falls into cat a support then they will not be needing an SEN school and the funding the school gets is for around 5 hours per week.  If the child needs more than say 15 hours per week then authomatically our Head Teacher said he would now - because of the formulae changes need to say, sorry - I cannot accept your child into my school. Also the Head Teachers have to ridiculously agree budgets for support a year in advance!  This means that as in my case, when half way through the year my child then appears at his school he does not have the budget to pay for the extra support!  I have been waiting to simply get my child into any blooming school since 1st March and we are nearly at the end of April now, so that should tell you how long it may take to even begin to get your situation looked at - the statement can take even longer, though most Local Authorities make a commitment to get a statement say in 12 weeks from the onset of the assessment process!  I think the whole "system" needs to get realistic with parents instead of just passing people from pillar to post until they arrive at their end point.  I am pushing things all the way, sending emails straight to the top as I feel this is such a lengthy process.  Of course the other issue I am now encountering is that with the huge numbers of kids being diagnosed with ASD lately there is a complete shortage of places - therefore even if my child needed to go to an SEN provision I have been told currently there are no places for him anyway!  So much fo Every Child Matters.  I will be getting this system changed for the better I assure you.  The children of our future deserve better. Best of luck. xxx