A series of SEND funding cuts has swept across the country and, in particular, Surrey. At the beginning of October it was reported that several parents took the campaign against these cuts to the High Court, and the struggles that all families with a special-needs member have been put through for years began to receive some publicity.
Throughout October and November awareness about this has increased, with reports in the newspapers and ‘phone-ins on the radio taking place.
I have direct experience of this, not just in my stepfather’s case some years ago, when a Home tried to charge an excessive (and illegal) rent for his room; I am now attempting to maintain momentum – between burn-outs – in insisting that my son, Daniel, receive the education to which he is legally entitled.
When the majority of Primary School children began a new academic year this September, the sting of our own Local Authority’s failure to find my son a place began all the more to rage. I had spent the Summer in a halcyon half-denial (looking back) that a more specialist school, as recommended at my son’s EHCP review in May and being sought, I felt assured, by the case worker, would make the offer of a place. This did not happen. I left voice messages for the case worker and sent emails to express my growing concerns. There was no reply. My son’s father sent emails and left voice messages and, in a short time, the case worker deigned to make contact and to tell me that most of the specialist settings that he had approached could not “meet need”. I was not aware of what this jargon really means until I pressed the case worker earlier this month, following a response to my complaint to the Department for Education giving me more clarity. The jargon continued on the case worker’s part and it began to dawn on me that the DfE’s legal position about children with SEND contains two get-out clauses:
The local authority must name the school of your choice in the plan, unless it would not be suitable for Daniel’s special educational needs or his attendance there would not be compatible with the efficient education of others or the efficient use of resources. Schools cannot refuse the admission of children with EHC plans purely on the grounds they are full. (DfE email to me 17th October 2018)
One school said that Daniel was “too volatile” for their present cohort – this is a school specifically for children on the Autism spectrum and with related conditions. And it is pretty easy, I suspect, in light of recent funding cuts, for any school to argue that placement of a new pupil would compromise “efficient use of resources” as these are already financially jeopardised.
In light, therefore, of cuts to funding for SEND pupils, let me expose an absolute scandal: the school who let my son leave in the summer without a school to move on to still has him on its roll, which means that it continues to receive funding, from the Local Authority, for my son, without him being there. When questioned, the Local Authority SEND team told me that this funding, released by them and accepted by the school, pays for something called Access2Education. This is an entitlement, for my son, of up to 6 hours per week of entirely non-curricular activities – such as baking – delivered by qualified teachers. These teachers, however, aren’t actually teaching and if they are, the next time I do some baking with my son, I shall apply to the LEA for payment. Ditto the babysitters who play games and devise activities for my son to do: ought they not be on the LEA payroll rather than me having to pay them?
I shall just restate here the point that I made, by email, to my LA SEND team: I wondered why they were releasing funding to a school who let my son go, irresponsibly, in the summer when:
I have, meanwhile, been footing the bill for babysitters out of all of my Disability Living Allowance and Child Benefit, not to mention other costs associated with having a child at home full time. I therefore demand recompense, not only for monies laid out by me to cater for my son’s needs and my own, but for the tremendous stress and distress under which my son and I have been placed.
The reply that I received mentioned Access2Education: this woefully inadequate set-up when my son has, like every child in the country, a legal right to a full-time education.
Six hours of activities, non-curricular, with no other children present, does not equate to 22+ hours of ‘bum-on-seat’ learning in an educational setting with peers and with teachers and a trained Learning Support Assistant. Six hours – two hours on three days of the week – for which I am expected to transport my son, thereby incurring additional costs in petrol and in time. This is time in which I could be seeking proper educational provision for my son, managing my moods, and doing household chores et cetera.
Unless I get to the gym, I do not get respite and I cannot make endorphins; in which case my mood sinks, despite my medication, and renders me incapable of being adequately available – emotionally and physically – to my son. This, in turn, places pressure on my mother, who already provides tremendous support, and scares my already-anxious son. It also deepens my depression, since I have to add to the list of difficulties the fact that I can’t look after my own child.
I lay this situation at the door of the Local Authority. I am not the only one affected; even two-parent families are in great difficulty. It is not the first time that I encounter the treatment, in this country, of people of all ages who, through mere circumstance, need additional support. I have already had skirmishes with the Department for Work and Pensions, and with a Care Home manager, in the past. Now, it seems, a fresh eugenic wave is released in an attempt to wash away the dross.
Only we are not the dross; we are the differently-abled walking wounded who, despite the circumstantial hand we have been dealt, continue to campaign for change, sometimes quietly, sometimes with great clamour. And we will be heard. We will have our day.
ASD: on being a special-needs single parent 