How we accessed mainstream SEN provision to get an education for our children
I have two children who have special educational needs (SEN): William is 12 years old and was diagnosed with severe verbal dyspraxia when he was four, and Peter is now 14 and has Asperger’s syndrome, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and dyspraxia. They both attend a mainstream secondary school and Peter is a pupil in the school’s specialist Asperger’s support unit.
When I look back to when my children were small, I am struck by how utterly complex they were, and how indescribably difficult it was to carve out a path for them through the education system.
On the one hand we had Peter, who appeared to be terribly intelligent, but had very limited social skills and was socially excluded by his classmates and their parents. He was bullied to within an inch of his sanity in primary school and when he joined the Asperger’s unit at secondary school, it was a crisis placement. There was simply no other school in our county that could have met his needs. Without this school, he would have had to have gone to a residential school that specialised in Asperger’s syndrome and we would have all found this extremely difficult.
Then we had William, who was diagnosed with severe verbal dyspraxia and motor dyspraxia when he was four years old. He also suffered from bullying. All of these things impacted greatly on his childhood development and on his progress at nursery and school. William got his statement when he was four, and Peter when he was nine years old.
A statement of SEN is the document issued by the local authority after it has carried out a statutory assessment of a child’s special educational needs. It details the child’s SEN and sets out the provision necessary to meet them. For more information on statements, read this useful Ö÷²¥´óÐã article.
It was not easy to get statements for our children. We were fortunate enough to have a very good health visitor but once the children started school, we were pretty much on our own, in terms of finding out about help they could access. Many hours were spent on the phone as I tried to track down things that could help. I chased placements in specialist speech and language and Asperger’s support units like a mad woman! ÌýI stalked teachers after school for ‘a quick five minutes’ to talk about education concerns or, much more frequently, bullying incidents.Ìý
We wrote what seemed like mountains of letters and stacked reports in boxes as they came through the letter box. We challenged education officials and threatened them with legal action and with the press. We appealed to the Ìýon behalf of our children on more than one occasion. These parent support organisations were extremely helpful to us during this time: the (IPSEA), the , the , and the (ACE). At last in 2006, I was able to say that both of my children had the statements they needed.
Was it worth it? Did we get it right? William is now integrated into his school with support from teaching assistants to help him with organisation, getting his work down in class and to help him manage other learning needs. He is doing well in school, is musical, and has friends. Peter is now doing eight GCSEs and one AS level. After years of academic failure and not being able to get his work done without a scribe (someone to write for him), he has succeeded at secondary school and can now type enough words to do his own essays. He has to date completed six essays on his own, with no intervention or help from anyone else and is getting A grades for them, even though his own handwriting is still very rudimentary.
He is also musical, artistic (despite severe fine motor difficulties) and is planning to go to university. He has friends, which for children with Asperger’s is a significant achievement. None of this would have been possible without the right therapies and help in school. My message to parents is this: if you are concerned that your child may have SEN and you believe they need more help in school, don’t wait to see how things will turn out. Start to look at your options now and keep on pushing for the support your child needs.
Ellen Power is an author and writes the .
Listen to aÌýpodcast of Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio 4 Woman's HourÌýwhich features Ellen Power.
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