[senco-forum] Advice Please- use of EP service

Dear All,

Hi Mary,
I can share my experiences, but they may be different in other LAs. I work 
in a primary school in Suffolk.
In principle, you can only consult EPs about children with parental 
permission. However, depending on the EP, they may be willing to listen to a 
description of  a child and to make a general recommendation along the lines 
of 'Have you thought about...?' Beyond that, and quite understandably,  they 
are generally reticent about giving advice when they haven't worked with the 
child.
I have never met an EP who was willing to go into a classroom for a 'general 
observation'- they have only ever gone in to observe a named child. 
Although I work with some very good EPs, their report is generally a mixture 
of their observations and assessments together with the information that the 
school gives- and often puts more emphasis on information from school since 
we know the children so much better than an EP who spends a day with them. 
I'm not clear what useful advice they would necessarily give you after a 
short 'general' observation in a classroom.
I entirely understand what you mean by not wanting to alarm parents by 
asking for their permission, but I think that if you want useful advice from 
your EP, then it's worth having a conversation with the parents beforehand.

The only 'do' I can offer you is that it's worth spending time (and money) 
investing in some assessments that you can carry out yourself in school. 
That way you can give the results of your tests to the EP, then they can 
spend their time working on more specialist assessments with the child. 
Given that some of our children have a fairly limited attention span, I feel 
that it's a poor use of the EP time with the child's full attention for the 
EP to do, for example, a BPVS which I can do just as easily.

Beyond that- congratulations for negotiating this arrangement with your 
local EP service. I hope it's successful for you and your children.

I hope that's helpful to you.

Kate

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mary Kelly" <mary.kelly4 at ntlworld.com>
To: <senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk>
Sent: Friday, April 04, 2008 4:19 PM
Subject: [senco-forum] Advice Please- use of EP service

> Dear All,
>
> We have just successfully negotiated an arrangement with our local EP
> service so that I can have access to advice by email and telephone, and 
> one
> half-day visit per term. This is brand new to me (and to the LA) because 
> we
> are an independent school.
>
> My questions are to those of you who have had such an arrangement for 
> years,
> and they are:
>
> 1. To what extent can I ask the EP's advice about a child without the
> parents' knowledge? For example, is it OK for the EP to be in a class
> observing generally, but at the same time, give me an opinion about child 
> X
> or Y? Is it OK for me to describe child X or Y and ask advice? Am I right 
> in
> my belief that it would not be OK to perform any assessments without
> parents' knowledge? I should perhaps emphasise that I do not seek to avoid
> parents - far from it - we have excellent relationships with our parents,
> but there are some occasions when I'd like a second opinion before causing
> any possible stress or alarm to parents, or some advice about what to
> suggest to parents when we do talk to them.
>
> 2. Do you have any "dos" and "don'ts" that you have learned from 
> experience,
> that would help me to make the best possible use of this facility?
>
> With thanks as always,
>
> Mary
>
>
>
>
>
>
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