General Chat

fingers crossed for you all

Hope things start to get moving now for you. Germaine x

Hi All Just a quick note.... Have phoned my local SEN Centre as I have waited long enough for the school to start things rolling again. The SENCO for my sons school is going to phone me to arrange a meeting/discussion regarding Josh's needs. I think it is the lady who gave me tons of help previously and am so pleased. She is an absolute angel and helped me no end last time. She moved to another part of the country for a while and im pretty sure she has moved back - but higher up in the SENCO chain. Wish me luck peeps. Will keep you up to date as I know more. Thank you for your support and feedback - it helps immensely, especially when I feel at the end of my tether, you help me see the way forward. Vikki xx

Hi Again Have pm you webster. Thanks for that. Val, have done the doctors thing 2 years ago. He was absolutely brilliant. And he made sure things got sorted then. Will let you know what happens peeps. Thanks again. May take a while inbetween postings as im busy with the house n stuff, so please bear with me. Vikki xx

Make sure you phone the Education Department and keep on at them about your sons problems get your GP to get you an appointment at the hospital with the childrens doctor and keep on at them till they do something

having similar probs with my sons school, only he is in year 11 and only has 6mths left..! if he has a statement of educational needs you do not have to wait for him to be re-assessed, i have 2 pieces of advice that worked for me 1. forget form tutor, heads of year etc, telephone the head teacher everyday until her/she is so fed up he makes something happen 2. telephone the educational phsychologist dierct, if you dont have the number, phone count council and they can put you through. good luck webster

Hi Vikki - please let us know how things go and loads of luck for you both. Take care. jude sarf wales x

Hi A BIG THANK YOU TO EVERYONE xxxx For all your comments and stories. Sorry it took a while to read the last few postings - been ripping me kitchen out and as you can guess the house is a mess! Ohh well, will be nice when its done. My son Josh doesnt have half the problems that others have ( and im thankful for that.) I wish everyone luck in all they set out to do. It wasnt the teacher that told me he wont get statemented in secondary school - it was the senco! (or one of the people that work there.) I dont give in where educating my kids is concerned - and a friends dad is Chairman of the Board of Governers!!! A likkle word in the right ear will be happening very soon - im giving them another week. I wont be fobbed off - ever. Josh did have a scribe for his sats during year 7 but I dont want him falling further and further behind. He is is struggling to keep up with the basics, so as it gets harder and harder as the years go on, I realise things have to get sorted now. Wish me luck and I give my good thoughts to you all. Cheers for listening (so to speak) Vikki xx

Deb I saw that too - it was a special programme through a certain organisation, wasn't it all about balance? Might be worth Googling Dyslexia and see if it comes up with this programme - it worked wonders for that little girl. Kaye x

HI Vikki. Keep ranting, better out than in. I hope im not telling you something you already know or how to suck eggs but, on'this morning' programme yesterday, they had a little girl on who HAD the same problem as your son. She does balancing excercises and juggling type excercises every day and she no longer has problems. Her writing alone had improved soooo much, it eas great to see. If you are not aware of this treatment, perhaps if you contact the prograame and they could give you the contact details. Sorry if you already know this, im not being rude. deb :-)

Vikki - I can understand what you are going through. I was diagnosed with Dyslexia when I was 17 and we had to go private to get me statmented because BDA warned my mother that the LEA might put it off because I was in my last year at school. I was lucky that as soon as the school knew I was dyslexic they arranged for extra time in exams and sorted out help for my spellings. When I got to collage at 20 they reassesed my dislexia so they could organise help that would benifit best. The school should accept the statement that was done in primary but they are entitled to ask for another assessment to be done so they have an upto date statement or report to work from. Keep fighting for your son to have what he is entitled to. If they still refuse to help him because he doe not have a physical difficulty, then bear in mind that they are discriminating against him and breaking the law so you could seek leagle advice. A last resort would be to move him to another school that will give him all the support he needs, but it is drastic as it means he will have to make new friends. Best of luck with everything

Hi Vikki, being in Canada our reg's are a little different. I have a niece who has a learning disability, she was diagnosed end of grade 5 and then for 6 they did total assessments. In grade 7 & 8 she was enrolled in a special needs school where they teach learning skills to adapt to the disability. When she was returned to the secondary school system her records went with her and the school receives funds for special equipment, tutors etc. What I wanted to mention that my sister was warned by the special needs people to keep on top of it while she is in the SS system. They are given the funds for her special needs and to make sure they use it for that. Apparently sometimes the schools use the funds for things other than what it's intended (if that makes sense). Also, once a month the teachers, principal and parents have a meeting and have to sign a legal document that goes to the education ministers office, ie: progress, fund usage are all needs being met etc. Sis has refused to sign this document twice now and if the ministers office doesn't get it in time they want to know why. School could get in mega trouble if they forge etc. Should see if your education programs have things like this in place. Deb

My son was statmented in middle school and when he was due to go to high school they sent the special needs teacher down to the school to see him and the school and we also had a meeting with them as the statment went with him to the high school so I would get on to the education dept and kick up

All schools have children on their special needs register and get funding for them. Most of them will be on a “ band” of a particular number and will have some kind of learning target, which is to be met within a certain time span. A few of the children on the SEN register will have been assessed by an ed pysch and will actually have a statement of SEN, and the funding for these children is higher. There will have to be regular reviews, and you as a parent should have been advised of the review date so that you could attend, and you should also have seen the paperwork completed as a result, so that you are aware of new targets and time allocations/additional support. The funding is awarded to the child, NOT the school, so if a child transfers to a different school, the funding goes with him/her. When a child with a statement is coming to the end of primary education, there should be a review and the child either still has a statement or is, possibly, no longer deemed to be in need of the statement. Either way the parents are to be informed. If your child has a statement, all the information is passed on to the Secondary school and the funding is allocated to that school. The funding is in the name of the child, so schools cannot just receive the money and be unaware of whom it is to support. Hope this clarifies things a bit. Jay

Vicki, The teacher is wrong. Children ARE statemented in secondary school. My nephew is. If you don't feel you are getting a positive and helpful response from the teacher, go to consult the headmaster. If you do not get satisaction from the head, you are entitled to contact the Chairman of the Governors to investigate on your behalf why you are not receiving the service you require. Big implications for OFSTED. Be clear about what you would like to see before you go to the teacher and be very specific in your questions. Ask the same questions of each of the teachers as you go up the ladder. Keep a record of the questions and the answers you receive from each person. Set a time limit for each person to achieve goals, meetings or answer questions. Stick to it and move up the ladder if they fail to achieve any of them within the time limit. Children have a very limited amount of school life - every day is precious and in a good school with a well developed support system they can achieve their own maximum potential. It is so much harder for them later. Good luck Abigail

I sympathise with you. My daughter has similar problems. They diagnosed as ADHD eventually but it is much more far reaching than that. All through primary we were up and down the school meetings with all different people. No one would do the job and statement her. Eventually we got her into the secondary we wanted that had a good special needs unit,. The teacher in charge realised immediately the problems we worked together to get the statement done. She then was awarded the top level of funding for her problems and the school employed a person to help her on a one to one basis in school, keep her on track of what she should be doing etc., wasn't totally the answer to her problems but a great help. After a year we moved here. We assumed the same help etc., what a shock we were in for. The funding transferred straightaway. All she got additional helpwise was a session on a computer programme!! We couldn't get over it. We managed to get a lovely psychiatrist from the child and family consultation service. He implemented some tests for her, when the results came back the report said she was in the bottom 1% of all the children who had taken these tests before. We had a major meeting up the school armed with this and blew the senco (who was an absolute cow) out of the water. She was saying she didn't need the help and everything. Well where was the money going they were getting. Well the educational pyschologist agreed with what we were saying and she had to go along with more help. Well we put up with another couple of months things were not really any better so we applied to a special school for her. We got her in unfortunately we never knew about this school earlier, she could have gone there from when she was 5, 9 years wasted!! Anyway she spent the last 18 months school time there. Things weren't perfect but much better. She then went onto a gateway course at college which she finished last term. Mencap took her on and got her Christmas work in Argos last christmas and since september she has been working part time in Woolworths. We really didn't think that she would be able to hold a job down, as she also has a lot of learning difficulties. But to be honest the only help we have had is from Charities like Mencap or what we have had to fight for ourselves. It's the pits having a child who needs help. It's hard enough with 'normal' kids who don't. I wish you all the luck in the world. Dianex

Hi Helen, Kaye, Jim and Mandy Thank you for your comments. Ive known Josh had problems since he was a tot - he couldnt sort the three basic shapes and/or colours into the right slots (square, circle, triangle). With Dad having Dyslexia he knew the signs - but I was told that because my older son (3 years apart) was 'gifted', I was expecting my younger son to be the same! I thought about and discussed this with hubby at length and confimed what we already knew - we didnt think that because we treat them as two individuals. Yes I was a newish mum, but i wasnt stupid or overprotective either. Anyways, battle on I did, and thought it was finished. Then this. My youngest doesnt have any other learning problems - hes quite intelligent and very good at practical subjects like, ICT, science, music and PE. Its the writing and memory that he has a hard time with. He has been diagnosed with Dyslexia and poor short term memory skills. I will slodier on. Thank you to all for listening to me, I wish you all good luck in your own challenges. Your a good bunch of people. Vikki xx

Hi Susie My hubby has Dyslexia and my youngest son. The eldest doesnt. We asked to have even 1 or 2 of his 3 french/german lessons dropped for a while but no they cant do that. UNTIL, we met them face to face and they discovered that he was statemented, then they offered to try that! We have a school a bus ride away that is a specialist dyslexia school. But, its only available on referal and my son doesnt want to go to a different school, even though he dislikes this one. They virtually said - if we get extra money to teach him, then he can have the help, but if we dont then he cant. How daft is that. I understand that they need to find him a teacher when taken out of his foreign language classes - but they have a special needs section at his school (for both physical and educational needs). All it comes down to really is they want/need money! Vikki xx

Are you in touch with a locla British Dyslexia Association group? With my son I always found that once you had a 'professional' on board on your side, things started to speed up. Do have a look to see if you have a local parent befriender to help you with this because I found the school and LEA wanted to get away with as little as possible up to that point. We had a statement that the headmistress said was impossible for her to meet so the LEA had to pay for him to go to an independent school with specialist facilities.

Vikki, you have every right to be furious, what an awful mess! I'm not a teacher but I've been a school secretary for 12 years at a primary school and this is what happened there. We averaged about one child per year with a statement, and quite a few more on the SEN register. A few months before the children were due to transfer up, there would be a *great* deal of liaison between our school and the middle school regarding children with SEN/statemented. I'm aware that it's more difficult to obtain a statement during secondary education than primary education, but secondary children do have statements! Did your son's primary school actually liaise with the secondary school at all? I know it's too late, but I'd want to find out from them for my own peace of mind. I'm sorry your son has had to go through this (and you of course), and I do hope that you can get him the help he needs and is entitled to. Love Mandy :) xx