Over the last few months, I’ve been helping another mum try to secure a specialist secondary school for her autistic daughter next September. Sadly it has not turned out as hoped. She did everything right – got the phase transition review done promptly, did her own research with schools, and understands the legal rights her daughter has. The school she wanted has said it’s the right place for her daughter, but they have no spaces left for next year.
It’s a cruel system that leaves parents pitted against one another for limited spaces and having to work with a local authority that seems hell bent on making the process as laborious and demoralising as possible.
Against all odds, we were astoundingly lucky.
Back when my youngest was in Year 5, we started to re-consider his options for high school. We’d always assumed he would attend the same one as his brother, but it was becoming clearer to us that he would not cope in a mainstream setting – the gap between him and his peers became more obvious as time passed.
We visited some special schools for children with social communication disorders. They were incredible! Quiet, flexible in their approach, small classes and staff who understood autism. We knew this is what he needed.
Two large obstacles stood in our way. Limited places – typically just 8-10 a year – and getting the local authority to agree to funding. It was time to prepare for a battle ahead.
I spent the next few months liaising with local mainstream schools, ensuring they understood our son’s needs, and all of them agreed he needed specialist. We knew the local authority would consult with these schools, so I prepared a questionnaire for them to use as evidence that we’d done our homework.
In September last year, he started Year 6, the final year of primary school. It was time for the critical annual review, where we would request any changes to his EHCP to support his transition to high school. We had a lot of support from his existing school, even the CEO came to the meeting to advocate for him. Our caseworker from the local authority attended too – apparently quite a rare thing to happen. The meeting went well, and lasted nearly two hours!
We then waited a stressful 6 weeks for the revised EHCP to be done and the draft copy sent to us for approval. At this point, another key event happened – we were allowed to request a consult to our choice of school and state this as our parental preference.
We asked for 3 specialist schools to be consulted and named 1 as our overall preference. The local authority also issued consults of their choice – 6 mainstreams, all the ones we’d been engaging with already. They added in a specialist unit attached to a high school too.
More waiting. Two consults came back within a couple of days. One of them was one of our specialist schools and they said yes! The other was our local high school, which to our horror also said yes!
If you’re unaware of why this was bad, basically the local authority will always choose the cheapest school that says it can meet the needs stated in the EHCP. Mainstream is ALWAYS cheaper than specialist, and this one being local as well meant that school transport would be cheaper too.
This is the one part of the process I almost lost it. I got straight on the phone to the local high school and spoke to the SENDCo – she had previously agreed with us that our son needed specialist, but it seems she had forgotten. Not realising we were not the ones requesting the consult, she thought we wanted her school and was trying to be helpful. To her credit, she pushed through an amendment to the consultation to say her school could only meet our son’s needs if we made substantial changes to his EHCP.
At this point however, we were still feeling deflated. Local authorities are notorious for choosing inappropriate schools and forcing families to go to tribunal. Even though the yes from our local school now had conditions attached, we feared this would be the one we’d get.
I decided to be proactive and contacted all the other mainstream schools consulted to let them know we wanted specialist and hoped they would refuse. Every single one (including the specialist unit) was on our side.
It was early December when the local authority shared the results of the remaining consultations, but it was good news. All the mainstreams and the unit had said they couldn’t meet need, several of them gave some VERY strongly worded responses that told the local authority in no uncertain terms it would be a breach of their duty of care to send him to their school.
To top it off, the school we really wanted had said yes and they had a space! I cried with joy! Even the 3rd specialist we consulted with said yes, though they couldn’t offer a place.
We had passed the first major hurdle. Now we had to convince the local authority that the specialist school was the one they should name in his EHCP. I decided to be proactive again and wrote a lengthy letter addressed to the decision panel to state our son’s case. It took me 3 weeks to put together. I detailed why he shouldn’t go to the local mainstream and I argued for why they should spend the money on specialist. I included all the questionnaires we’d sent out and included some of the statements made in the consult responses. I quoted the specific legislation to support our son’s legal rights and the local authorities’ obligations.
A sickness bug tore through our family just before Christmas, but I was determined to get that letter out by the beginning of January – the decision panels meet from mid-January every Wednesday. Then there was nothing to do but wait.
According to other parents, what usually happens next is an email with a copy of the final EHCP naming the school the local authority have chosen. This can be appealed to the SEND Tribunal if the family does not agree with the choice, and it seems to happen in the majority of cases (at least if you read the groups on social media). I had noticed, from looking at old posts, that when a family successfully get the school they want named in the EHCP, they tend to get a phone call rather than an email.
Late afternoon on the 23rd of January (a Wednesday!), I was home alone with my youngest. My husband had taken our eldest to a school event and wouldn’t be back until late evening. I was dishing up dinner when my son ran into the kitchen to say my phone had rung twice in quick succession – I legged it back into the living room just in time. It was our caseworker calling to confirm he would be finalising the EHCP that evening…..
I’d never spoken to him before, everything had been done via email. He asked me if I had 10-15 minutes to go through the decision and to explain our right to appeal if we were unhappy. Then he told me the school the local authority would be naming.
It was our preference. The specialist school we had wanted so badly. The school we fell in love with the moment we looked around. The school that once told us there were 15 consults on their desk and only 6 spaces left and our son was somewhere in that pile. The school where my son will actually thrive and be able to do his GCSEs and dare I hope – have a real chance at being a happy, independent adult one day.
Once off the phone, I screamed in relief and ran to tell my son the good news. He looked at me and said “I know” with all the certainty it was always in the bag.
Then I called my husband, who was fortunately sitting in the car and able to take the call. Then I called a friend. Then I posted on facebook. I wanted to run into the street and shout it out to all the neighbours (thankfully I resisted that!).
I don’t know how this came to be. Was it one of the many things I did? Was it just pure luck? I’ll honestly never know.
My son started at the school last month. It’s everything I hoped it would be and more. He’s so damn happy and it makes me want to cry with joy. I want every SEND parent to know this feeling. Heck, I want every parent full stop to know this feeling.
But they won’t. Because the way the system works right now and with the painfully limited resources for SEND, it’s just impossible. It’s not fair.
New SEND reforms are supposedly coming early next year, but understandably parents (myself included) are worried. There’s been no real reassurance that these reforms will improve things, more likely it will be a money-saving exercise – and everyone knows that will not make anything better for families.
The goalposts are about to move again. We’d best be ready.