Please help me, i'm not sure what to do!!!!!!!

Please see my earlier post re 'I'm so angry' on the general chat thread.

Longman I'm in need of some urgent support and advice.

Following yesterdays poor meeting at the College to try and resolve the issues raised, my son went into College today to hand in the completed elements of his work and was asked by a member of staff to sign 7 or so pages stating he'd recieved SEN support. This included 40 or so signatures next to dates he's meant to have recieved the support, but hadn't. Only 4 genuine signatures were present on the page he signed, which were all he had recieved for one years alledged support.

He was also asked to plagiarize another students work today, in order to complete his final module for distinction submission.

I suspect that this is because he admitted in the meeting he had had no onging SEN support and had notified staff, but was essentially ignored and was relying on a fellow student to help him complete assignments because he couldn't manage as the college had denied him the softeware necessary to demonstarte his ability.

This issue is obviously very serious as it indicates a deliberate act on the part of the College to cover up their failings with my sons provision.

I'm agast and very angry, but my son is completely crushed that he agreed to sign something he could neither read nor understand fully. He asked staff what it meant, but was told it didn't matter and just to sign it!' naturally he complied, but later realized it was the SEN support register

A serious issue and one that im not sure what to do about, Please help me someone!!!!

Parents
  • The Government ought to be supporting this but colleges if they come under the Local Education Authority may be down to a Local Government intervention.

    I looked for the Government pages and found www.ndirect.gov.uk/disability-support-at-college which only seems to apply to Northern Ireland!?!? What a muddle....

    A less directly helpful option seems to be www.gov.uk/.../education-rights seems to be just school related. This is the trouble - the present government has meddled and fiddled with everything in the four years it has been supposedly directing recovery, and now nothing works properly. I suppose putting things back together again was not on the curriculum at Eton.

    But then the NAS guidelines on FE colleges just parrot a standard format with nothing specific to what actually happens in colleges.

    Another option might be National Union of Students http://www.nus.org.uk/, but while they talk about rights to financial support there's not much about day to day practicality.

    The Children and Families Bill (is it law yet? - February it was to be) is supposed to take effect from next September, so not much help in the current situation. www.gov.uk/.../further-education-learning-difficulties-and-disabilities-reforms

    That might be why colleges are being lazy about things, they'll have to improve soon but can be rubbish for now.

    The Association of Colleges http://www.aoc.co.uk might be one way to voice a complaint, as they represent the Governors of colleges 14-19 age group. But this is one of those hilariously secret non-transparent organisations - almost everything on the site is "Access Denied" unless you have a password, so I wouldn't expect much. Such organisations are almost invariably totally useless to the public. But they were supposed to have had a conference 5th December on Learning Difficulties and Disabilities. If you know anyone who has the password.........

    However something possibly related to this is posted on a pdf file at Council for Disabled Children website www.councilfordisabledchildren.org.uk/.../countdown-to-change-fe-final.pdf  You might have to go via the main website.

    It does look like they are going to have to consult more, but looking at the slow progress over the Autism Act implementatiomn, this might take years!

Reply
  • The Government ought to be supporting this but colleges if they come under the Local Education Authority may be down to a Local Government intervention.

    I looked for the Government pages and found www.ndirect.gov.uk/disability-support-at-college which only seems to apply to Northern Ireland!?!? What a muddle....

    A less directly helpful option seems to be www.gov.uk/.../education-rights seems to be just school related. This is the trouble - the present government has meddled and fiddled with everything in the four years it has been supposedly directing recovery, and now nothing works properly. I suppose putting things back together again was not on the curriculum at Eton.

    But then the NAS guidelines on FE colleges just parrot a standard format with nothing specific to what actually happens in colleges.

    Another option might be National Union of Students http://www.nus.org.uk/, but while they talk about rights to financial support there's not much about day to day practicality.

    The Children and Families Bill (is it law yet? - February it was to be) is supposed to take effect from next September, so not much help in the current situation. www.gov.uk/.../further-education-learning-difficulties-and-disabilities-reforms

    That might be why colleges are being lazy about things, they'll have to improve soon but can be rubbish for now.

    The Association of Colleges http://www.aoc.co.uk might be one way to voice a complaint, as they represent the Governors of colleges 14-19 age group. But this is one of those hilariously secret non-transparent organisations - almost everything on the site is "Access Denied" unless you have a password, so I wouldn't expect much. Such organisations are almost invariably totally useless to the public. But they were supposed to have had a conference 5th December on Learning Difficulties and Disabilities. If you know anyone who has the password.........

    However something possibly related to this is posted on a pdf file at Council for Disabled Children website www.councilfordisabledchildren.org.uk/.../countdown-to-change-fe-final.pdf  You might have to go via the main website.

    It does look like they are going to have to consult more, but looking at the slow progress over the Autism Act implementatiomn, this might take years!

Children
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