Guerrilla Mum: Surviving the Special Educational Needs Jungle

162 Pages·2010·0.626 MB·English

by  Ellen Power

G U E R R I L L A
M U M
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G U E R R I L L A
M U M
Surviving the Special Educational Needs Jungle
E L L E N P O W E R
Jessica Kingsley Publishers
London and Philadelphia
First published in 2010
by Jessica Kingsley Publishers
73 Collier Street
London N1 9BE, UK
and
400 Market Street, Suite 400
Philadelphia, PA 19106, USA
www.jkp.com
Copyright © Ellen Power 2010
Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller
of the HMSO and the Queen’s Printer for Scotland.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any
material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by
electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some
other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright
owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright
Licensing Agency Ltd, Saff ron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.
Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any
part of this publication should be addressed to the publisher.
Warning: The doing of an unauthorised act in relation to a copyright work
may result in both a civil claim for damages and criminal prosecution.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 84310 999 0
eISBN 978 0 85700 392 8
For my husband and my children, Peter and William.
Also for JY and AJ, without whom we
would have achieved nothing.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to my family for supporting me in the writing of this book
and for understanding why it was so important to me to do it. Thank
you also to the teachers, teaching assistants, health professionals and
others who have helped us to meet the needs of our children. Thank
you to the staff at JKP.
CONTENTS
List of Abbreviations 8
Preface 9
The Law Covered in this Book 11
1 Identifying Special Needs 13
2 Assessment and Provision for
Special Educational Needs: Getting
an Appropriate mainstream Education for Your Child 40
3 The Statutory Assessment Process 63
4 When Things Go Wrong 87
5 How to Complain Effectively 101
6 How to Ensure Your Child is Happy
and Safe at School, and Deal with Bullying 108
7 Support for Carers 130
8 The Disability Discrimination Act:
How is it Relevant to Your Child at School? 138
Conclusion 145
Useful Organisations and Web Resources 146
References 152
Index 154
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
CDC Child Development Centre
DCSF Department for Children, Schools and Families
DED Disability Equality Duty
EHRC Equality and Human Rights Commission
HESC Health, Education and Social Care
IEP Individual Education Plan
IPSEA Independent Panel for Special Educational Advice
KS1/KS2 Key Stage 1/Key Stage 2
LEA Local Education Authority (at present these are
known simply as Local Authorities, or LAs)
PTA Parent–Teacher Association
SEN Special Educational Needs
SENDIST Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal (now
First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability))
SENCO Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator
SENR Special Educational Needs Register
SNO Special Needs Officer
TA Teaching Assistant
8