My son is 13yrs old has high functioning aspergers, hypermobility, and is urine incontinent day & night and is currently recieving TENS treatment and attends a mainstream secondary school, I have battled with them for the 2yrs he has been there to get him the support he needs to remain there but to no avail. In Oct 2014 he had an O.T assesment which I organised and he was seen at school, she was very good and recognised problems my son has, she wrote an extensive report and in it were recommendations for the school for equipment and provisions to enable the school to support my son. In Nov 2014 we had a child in need meeting which I had to ask the social worker to arrange after many failed attemps by the school at arranging TAC & CAF meetings.
From the beginning of this year I was in communication with the school in many ways, phone, email and in person asking where the equipment was as suggested by my sons O.T and for the minutes of the CIN meeting, none of which to this date has been supplied.
In June this year I decided to request an EHC plan, I provided details of all professionals involved in my sons care incl medical, and provided a chronology of everything that has gone on since my son started in Sept 2013, I was dealt with the devastating blow that the council had rejected my request based on the provision map and evidence which had been provided by the school.
The SEN officer at the council contacted me to inform me of the decision and what my options were one of them was to request from the school my sons provision map which sets out all support that has been tried & failed or tried and on-going using the £6k the school recieve per yr, so my sons provision map states he recieves 4 1hr sessions of 1-1 support, it then states that he recieves shared TA support in 15 lessons per wk, it then states that my son is given the opportunity of Quality First Teaching throughout all of his lessons taking the total spent to £6589. Never has he had 1-1, the shared TA spends more time ensuring the class is well behaved and doing the work set then asking if my son is ok, and quality first teaching! you mean to tell me that if my son didn't have an SEN status he would not be entitled to this?
I am currently home schooling my son as the school cannot safeguard his well being, and clearly do not know what they are doing, I have been advised to approach an independent mediation company in trying to resolve this as well as putting in a formal complaint to the school regarding his provision map, there is not much point in appealing the EHC plan as nothing has been put in place as being tried and tested.
Has anyone been through similar and gone through with mediation, did it work? should I appeal against the councils decision anyway? I'm very keen to hear anyones advice.
Thank you in advance
Diane