The official version of this document can be found via the PDF button.
The below content has been automatically generated from the original PDF and some formatting may have been lost, therefore it should not be relied upon to extract citations or propose amendments.
Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel Anonymised Evidence Submission
(1)
Background:
Severely disabled child due to botched operation at age 7yrs.
Went to St Johns, OK.
Went to Les Quennevais and felt excluded.
School promised but did not deliver.
Homework requested but refused by school as child does it during school time.
Asked for scheme of work through year but refused.
Key workers did not understand how to teach child.
Privately employed expert to help.
Teachers cancelled all appointments with parents.
Catalogue of problems.
Attitude in meeting last year –
"Why are we bothering to do this, the child will not pass any exams."
School refused to benchmark and measure.
School refused to send parents reports but sent them to parents lawyers.
Culture exists that school will make decisions. Other parents known to have similar problems.
Parent considers:
School do not take parental wishes into account.
No improvement noticed in last year.
Parent no longer engages with school.
Picks the fights there is some chance of winning.
School refused repeatedly to allow iPad in school claiming policy. No policy was produced and no policy existed when spoke to ESC.
Scott Douglass of the Blind Society got the school to accept use of iPad in school. Parents are fighting the culture of the school. Regularly challenge Policies.
Record of needs is presented to parents with no explanation.
Consequences of RoN may be difficult to grasp.
Can be very intimidating for parents at meetings with large amount of professionals. Nobody listens to parents so ESC never gets to hear of parents concerns.
Problems
The SENCO at Les Quennevais needs help. Regularly complains of having unrealistic workload. Clearly overwhelmed.
School needs to be more open to things they haven't done before.
More creativity in use of IT for SEN children to create access to learning. (Safe Harbour) Meetings at school between 0900 and 1530hrs is not good for working parents.
ESC help stops during holidays.
Meetings where Cliff Chipperfield attend are very different – much more positive. But he does not stay to the end and things change once he has gone, resistance creeps in.
Current Issues:
Highlands has only one course suitable for SEN children and this is not suitable for this child. May have to go to Haulier for History A level and that is not appropriate.
No decisions made yet and child moves in September.