senior school and allocated hours

sazzle

My daughter is 11 has sox2 anopthalmia, cerebral palsey (uses a wheelchair), has a learning disability and mental health issues.. In primary school she was assessed and allocated 26 hours by the local authority. She is now in her first year at mainstream senior school and it would appear she is only been given 13 hours support out of the 26. I've queried this  and they said that they are monitoring how much support she needs. My daughter tells me they don't have the staff and she is often coming home distressed and is effecting her eating. I'm not sure what the way forward is other than me going in again but I'm concerned that as I'm seen probably as just the parent i'm going to get fobbed off. I'm going to ask them what they are doing with her other hours but other than that i'm not sure where i stand from a legal point. Any suggestions?

MrsLogic

Hi

It's worth a check on the CAB site to see whether they have any answers: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/resources-and-tools/search-navigation-tools/Search/?q=disability+

thanks

Ten

Hi

You can few try few things as below:

Contact your SENCO in the school to discuss about this.

Also you try to the Head Teacher about this.

with best wishes

TAN

sazzle

thanks for your advice been into school and they've explained they no longer allocate hours (as stated on her EHC) but allocated budgets. So as it turns out she is getting the support she needs. Was useful going in as we were able to clear up some other ongoing issues.

will22

Hi sazzle,

I hope you got some good answers from the school. One thing I would add is that if the impact of the level or lack of support is that your daughter is in distress and her health is suffering ,then this should be documented and handed over to the school and SENCO. It may not be the case that the 2 are linked, but if they are and you wish to make a request for more funding/support it's good to have the paper trail of raising concerns early and trying to link the needs of your daughter to the level of support that she is receiving. If nothing else then the fact that she is in distress when she is coming home needs to be discussed with the school to try and establish why this is and what needs to be done. 

sazzle

thanks will22 for your advice, not thought about that