This is a story about how a family gets treated by Local Authorities and school when they ask for support for a Sen child who ends up with a diagnosis during the events explained. All the events are true, and fact and emotion has been left out to ensure it’s a factual account.
Child x started at School A In 2018 in Reception class. Child X started school being 2 years beyond in all areas, still in nappies and on what the LA considered as Wave 3 sen support and had a sen support plan. At this point the parents had already tried to secure a EHCP for his transition to school however they were unsuccessful as the LA were not willing to do any assessments and stated that he would be fine him his mum did not have anxiety. Child x had a problem with anxiety and already at this point in his life it was obvious that anxiety was a big issue to child x. He would often refuse to leave the house. If the family went on days out, he would often cling to one of the parents the whole time and then thank them for taking him back home after the trip.
Child x attended 2 nurseries, the first one was a horrible experience from the day he started he often wanted to leave as soon as he got there, and he would cry for most of the time he was there. The second nursery although Child x was still very anxious but as he was only doing 9 hours a week, he was able to manage this.
In September of 2018 child x started in school A reception class. He never fully settled in and would cling to mum going in. The parents continued to express concerns over how he was reacting. He would cry and hide in the coat room but hide his tears when getting to class as only babies would cry when he was asked why he said this he said that is what the teachers said. At this point there was a TAF open, and the school maintained it was because he was still in nappies. The school believed he could come out of nappies and fully toilet trained. No support was ever really put into place and the school recorded massive progress which was often not seen anywhere else. Also, this massive progress that was reported was only after April 2019 until then the school maintained he was delayed.
In April of 2019 child X had some small bruises on the inner thigh, so the parents approached a EYFS teacher and asked If he had been playing on a bike or toy that you sit on and explained we just found the bruises to be in an unusual area. The parents were then called into school 1 hour later and the Senco and deputy head started to say that we were accusing the Class teachers and TAs of abuse as he was still wearing nappies. This came as surprise as this was not the case, we just were trying to figure out how they had happened. As any parent would do. The senco then proceeded to tell us that the staff were not obliged to change child x and we were incredibly lucky that the staff were changing him. His mum then pointed out that the school have a duty and that his needs must be meet and if the staff wouldn’t do it then the school would have to find someone that would be able to do so. This was the turning point in how the school was with the family.
Not long after this Child x had a school trip coming up and he senco in a planning meeting about it was very angry and told the parents that child x was costing the school way too much money as because of his needs 2 extra members of staff had to be found to go on the trip. They were also mad that we were not happy that they expected him to carry his changing bag which consisted of nappies, wet wipes, nappy sacks and change of clothing and sunscreen.
Another thing we had issues with at this point is Child x has photosensitivity and was covered with long sleeves clothing as much as possible, but he also needed to be applied regular with factor 50 sunscreen and even though he had this written in a health plan that it was needed to handle his photosensitivity the school would not support him to apply the sunscreen.
After the situation with the bruises and the school trip the class teachers started putting pressure on child x and parents to get rid of his nappies even though child x was still not showing signs of bladder and bowel control and was still awaiting input from the incontinence services.
By middle of June the teacher had forced Child x to not wear nappies. Child x was not managing to stay dry and clean and was wetting and soiling several times a day and parents had even be called to collect him as he needed showering as he had soiled badly, and parents were called on a regular basis for more clothing. Child x was always wet and sometimes soiled when leaving school. When Child x Report was given to parents on the 17th of July 2019 2 days before end of term and 4 weeks since child x had stopped nappies the school had reported that child x was not behind at all in any area and that he had reached all his early learning goals including selfcare. In the TAF meeting on the 18th July when we questioned this the family told from the senco she couldn’t tell us anything as she doesn’t know anything about EYFS and that his class teacher sent all reports to the LA for them to sign off and agree which made no sense as how does the LA know what the child’s done. The senso also told us to keep the appointment with the incontinence service as he still needed it even though they still said he is fully toilet trained.
During the period of January 2019 and July 2019 we has a family also had support from Homestart and the child and wellbeing team. Both of whom by July had discharged the family as a family were fully supporting all of Child x needs and that is diagnosis of Autism explained how he would react in environments. The school were not very accepting of his diagnosis as in their professional opinion he had at all.
The school shut down his CAF in July even when we had requested for it to stay open, they refused as they said it had been open to long as it was.
During his appointment in August 2019 the Incontinence nurse established after looking at charts done by school and home that child x was not toilet trained and that he was constipated and needed de compacting and he also had stools with holding behaviour and that he seemed to have urgency and frequently needed to urinate. It was decided that we would sort out the constipation first as this can affect urine. He was given a decompaction regime which we did before he started back at school for year one and we also found the correct laxido dose we needed to ensure that he was un able to withhold.
Child X started year 1 in September 2019. From the first day he would not enter the classroom with out first trying to run away and hide in the playground equipment. Everyday it took both parents and several members and sometimes even parents of other children. He would run out of the school yard and the teachers would grab and pull him into school and the parents requested that they did not do this as Child x struggled with people touching him and it made it worse. Other parents had started to confront the parents and tell them how their children often complained how child x was always upset and angry and hurting other children and that he was lonely and had no friends. Child x was coming home saying that Mrs B told him not to take his medication as that is why he was soiling a lot. The school would often call for more clothing even when 5 sets of clothing was sent in a day and by dinner they would run out. The school believed is issues were linked to having unnecessary medication and that they knew this as another child had constipation and had to be DE compacted in the upper school. Even after the incontinence nurse called and explained to them on several occasions that his constipation is direct result of is with holding behaviour and that the medication was used to make him loose enough not to be enable him to with hold but not to loose and that the parents had co-operated and were fully following the guidance of the team.
Parents continued to express concerns over how he is struggling and when the school refused to do anything to help the parents sent email to the school and LA with concerns and stated for the safety of child x he wouldn’t attend school until it was made possible for him to do so. The parents requested that the school stopped man handling and dragging him and that something was done to support his struggles within school. The school still maintained that child had no needs and that the only issues was he not going to school. The school did say in emails with parents that he has issues with anxiety. The LA did nothing at this point to help other than schedule another meeting for 6 weeks later which they then did not attend saying no meeting was scheduled. We will explain this later.
We has parents put in a parental request for ehcp which was refused as the school and LA refused to refer child x for back to SALT , to OT and get A EP to assess him. The only thing they did was take a anonymous pen profile and apparently the EP stated that the child is a high functioning autistic with no needs at all that he needed telling that he is just like every other child that he must attend school.
We then lodged an appeal, and this is when we found out what was really going on.
A report was filled to the LA from the school senco that stated that the child has no needs, and the parents must not see this document. Then there is a report from the meeting that should have happened with the LA and school that the la stated was not happening. It did happen without us with the Incontinence service, the child and well being team (who was no longer involved with in our case) and the school nurse.
In this meeting it was recorded that the school believed the parents are abusive to child x they stated that by the parents refusing to allow the teachers to drag child x into school was withholding the child from the school environment. The also said that the reason he had toileting issue was due to the parents giving his medication in currently. During the meeting, the Incontinence nurse again explained child’s x issues and that the parents were doing what they needed to do to support child x toileting needs and that the medication was given how they told us to do it.
The school nurse stated that there were no records at all of anything about child x at the doctor.
The child and well being worker stated that they believed that the parents were incapable of parenting during having a ASD diagnosis themselves. They also stated that mum takes medication for anxiety and that they do not think it works. They stated that the parents wanted to gain him EHCP funding, and she didn’t understand why as child x has no issues it the parents that do.
Child x also has very adult like language and can often say things that sound like he repeated from others which comes as a part of his Autism and communication profile.
In January 2020, the School referred the parents to social services (the school have a social worker that is based at the school). During this meeting when this happened the school senco stated that the problem was that they knew better than the parents as they got refresher training every year and things change and the parents need to attend all the parenting courses every year, so they know what they are doing. They also referred to Home start reporting to the school that they believed child x anxiety is mums’ anxiety and the parents have spoken home start and they say they never did.
The SS visited the family 3 times spoke to child x. Child x told them he struggled with home. SS then said they had no issues with home but needed to speak with school then never approached the family again.
All the while Child x was struggling to attend school, and no one was willing to support or help the family, so they took the decision to deregister child x and home educate while trying to find the correct support. Firstly, they funded an independent Ep who assessed child X to have demand avoidant issues, executive function issues, anxiety and fear of school. He wrote a report with provision and needs which managed to help parents to secure. Then they saved and fund raised to be able to fund OT and SALT. SALT assessment confirmed pathological demand avoidance and a complex communication profile. OT assessment confirmed that the child has significant gross and fine motor skill issues, significant sensory needs.
The parents did a Subject access request to the LA and found that the child’s data had been changed and was not correct, they had the parents divorced, they had dad as stepdad and a person who didn’t exist as dad, they had the doctor as one in another town, they had that child x had never received any injections or had any of his check like 8 months check, 2-year check.
The family are still trying to solve all the damage done. They have proved documents to prove the inaccuracies like birth certificate, vaccination record ect. Child x now has a EHCP but even though provision in reports states child x needs specialist the LA is only willing to name mainstream. The family have used all they had to fund the reports so have no choice but to represent themselves in Tribunal and cannot afford there to take the independent people as witnesses. All they can hope for is that for once someone will do something that is in the best interest of the child. The LA and school have done nothing but damage a family to deny support that the child needed.