Re: Help !

[Anonymous]

#5175

Hi Debs,

it is difficult to give advice as counties vary in the way they manage statements but i would try to insist that your daughter has a completely new statement. This is what some of the families i work with do – especially since the orginal one is 10 years old and won’t take into account how she has changed and her different needs.

This would mean that you would be able to get new assessments for her and reports and advice about how she is now.

In order to be able to access a school that specialises in ASD i think your daughter would probably need to have ASD on her statement.
Having the diagnosis on the statement, i think, is essential as it gives you evidence to ask what the school are doing to meet her needs. It is also good as it makes LEA, Ed Phyc etc focus on autism specific targets and interventions to help achieve the targets.

It must be really difficult for you having to be available to collect her if she needs to come home – it certainly sounds as if they don’t know how to manage your daughter when she is anxious or distressed.

We work with a number of families who have had their children ‘unofficially excluded’ and this is sometimes a bit of a cop out for the school. If they have to come home school should register it as an official exclusion – this won’t be a reflection on your daughter but will highlight the fact that school are not coping with her and therefore not providing her with a stress free education that she is entitled to.
This will also be good ‘evidence’ to have if you do want to move your daughter to another school.

At the end of the day the school take the money that your daughter’s statement provides and have, therefore, made the contract that they can meet her needs.

I don’t know if this helps at all.
I think it is most iportant to push for her statement to be completely re-written or substancially reviewed at least.