[senco-forum] Assessment

June -- a familiar story. I remember one SEN officer in the West Midlands, who advised parents to move house to a County area -- if they wanted the support for their child they were requesting -- as the funds were not available in his area. Thay actually did this and got the full support required in a m/stream school (a Downs Syndrome child). But I remain shocked, that such blatant unlawful and unreasonable advice, could be given to any parent by an officer, supposedly there to ensure their child's needs are met! Ring IPSEA if you need further advice -- google IPSEA all details are on theier website. Brendan King  

-----Original Message-----
From: june_marriott at yahoo.co.uk
To: senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
Sent: Sat, 28 Apr 2007 10.17AM
Subject: [senco-forum] Assessment

  As previously posted, our son was placed on the special need register of his 
primary school in Wallasey, Wirral, at the age of four, without our knowledge. 
When we found out - nine months later - the school flatly refused to explain why 
this had been done. He had received no actual directed assistance for problems 
that were later inflated to "serious" by the head teacher when he needed to 
justify himself to a school governor. We contacted just about everyone we could 
think of, in pursuit of an explanation, so that we could get the right help for 
our child. To cut a very, very long story short, we were not successful. In the 
end, we moved to another county.

  Our son has just been properly assessed by an educational psychologist and we 
are reeling. Her detailed observations could have been written by us, they are 
so accurate - note, I do not mean that they are entirely what we want to hear, 
but they are accurate and honest and are backed up by solid examples. The 
strengths and weaknesses identified have always been apparent and we have been 
horribly let down by numerous "professionals" who have all acted in the 
interests of following one line, rather than assisting our child. Particularly 
horrible is the fact that our son has been identified as being signicantly above 
average in some areas - we were previously made to feel like people in denial 
for daring to defend this fact. I'm not sure which was worse, the lack of 
encouragement for his intelligence or the lack of support for his weaker areas.

  I don't believe I have ever been so angry as I am right this moment. Our only 
comfort is the intense relief of knowing our son is already receiving 
appropriate assistance at his new school.

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