Our son is nearly 8 and still has no SEN

[blueplain]

I have recently read an article on the bbc news which highlights issues around special needs and education. Here is the link to the article

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-26439576

As such I have begun reflecting on our own sons issues which he has struggled with since he was 4 years old.

At the age of 4 our sons school started to voice concerns about his educational level and his behaviour. They got the educational phychologist to see him and make out what his issues could be. The educational phychologist could not determin at the time what the cause was for our sons difficulty.

When our son was 5 we moved our son to a better school, this new school started the statement process. Also at the time a new Educational phychologist was suggesting that our son had missed out on key early learning experience and felt that enviromental issues had caused his dramatic delay.

We now know however that our son has DAMP and this is the cause of his severe educational delay.

Unfortunatly at the time the school had not gathered enough information for the statement to be successfull and the educations phychologists interpretation did not help much, especially with children services.

Fast forward to 6 years old and at a new school in a new region, the school was given the years of evidence from the previouse schools to go forward with a SEN. However his school has still not put in a SEN request and they are still collecting evidence. Our son is 8 years old in April.

So I feel that 4 years is a rediculous amount of time to still be trying for an SEN and our son has struggled greatly to keep up with the flow of the class. The school has implimented stratergies to help him cope. I have made certain suggestions like giving him orange items, awarding him coins to spend on computer time. These have helped him to settle. However his educational delay is still a concern.

I know I am able to start the SEN process myself, however to start the ball rolling without the school being prepared with the evidence would not be proactive to the outcome.

Furthmore, before the school implimented stratergies I suggested to keep down his anxiety levels, our son lashed out at his teacher after she invaded his personal space while he was upset.

The school then expelled him for 1 day due to his actions. I am very upset about this because he has anxiety with his DAMP and it was a dsifficult he had that caused him to lash out

Has my sons learning been managed poorly?

[charmed1]

Dear blueplain. Yes you are right. This is a ridiculous length of time. We were very fortunate that our daughter's assessment for SEN statement was started when she was in nursery. About the same age as your son when concerns were first noticed, around 3.5/4 years. We had children's services involvement and I thought that maybe that had something to do with it. However the then social worker never submitted any report to support our daughter when it was presented to the panel. I did a lot of work pushing for the statement as well as which school we wanted our daughter to attend. I know now that the social services regard children with special needs as the result of poor parenting. We know this as we've been blamed the whole way through and the social worker at court said it front of the Judge. Needless to say the barristers and guardian were shocked and looked at each other in disbelief!

Our daughter is currently in an infants school with SEN unit. As she is technically in year 1 at the moment amidst all the other worry about long term foster care or adoption her teacher has to already seek a placement for September 2015 to move her to a junior school with appropriate resourced unit. She has global development delay, learning disability/speech and language delay. All of which we have been blamed for. Only now in the January LAC review are they talking about disability living allowance. It's a joke. A sly admission that she does indeed need continued support as things haven't improved since being in care since May last year.

I wish you all the best. I did most of the leg work to get our daughter's statement agreed so you may well have to do the same. Good luck!

[ange301126]

Dear blueplain,I advise you to get the ball rolling yourself or the school will never get any reports or assessments ready.