Disabled parents and school

daska

Breast_Cancer_Survivor wrote: »

The LEA choose his school as it's the only one in our area that could meet his needs.

Interesting. Has the DfE actually told the LAs that this is appropriate, the guidance used to be that the LA HAD to provide transport. I can't find any more up to day advice than this:

"LAs have wide discretion in deciding whether transport is necessary but they must provide free home-to-school transport for pupils of compulsory school age who are attending their nearest suitable school, where the following conditions apply:

-the school is beyond the statutory walking distance (two miles for pupils below the age of eight and three miles for those aged eight and over)
-for children for whom travel arrangements will always be required, for example children unable to walk because of SEN, a disability or mobility problems and children who cannot reasonably be expected to walk because of the nature of the route.

However, the courts have held LAs do not have a duty to provide free transport for pupils whose parents have chosen to send them to a school other than the nearest suitable one, even if it is beyond statutory walking distance. LAs may help in such cases if they wish but it is for each authority to decide whether or not to do so."

http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/adminandfinance/travelandtransport/a0064354/home-to-school-travel

Breast_Cancer_Survivor

daska wrote: »

Interesting. Has the DfE actually told the LAs that this is appropriate, the guidance used to be that the LA HAD to provide transport. I can't find any more up to day advice than this:

"LAs have wide discretion in deciding whether transport is necessary but they must provide free home-to-school transport for pupils of compulsory school age who are attending their nearest suitable school, where the following conditions apply:

-the school is beyond the statutory walking distance (two miles for pupils below the age of eight and three miles for those aged eight and over)
-for children for whom travel arrangements will always be required, for example children unable to walk because of SEN, a disability or mobility problems and children who cannot reasonably be expected to walk because of the nature of the route.

However, the courts have held LAs do not have a duty to provide free transport for pupils whose parents have chosen to send them to a school other than the nearest suitable one, even if it is beyond statutory walking distance. LAs may help in such cases if they wish but it is for each authority to decide whether or not to do so."

http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/adminandfinance/travelandtransport/a0064354/home-to-school-travel

The letter was the first i've heard of it tbh.

I guess they are having to make cuts across the board.

I'm on benefits IB etc so £300 is alot of money but i'm hoping that it won't come into effect until after he has left school after his exams in May.

It seems unfair that a child with a disability that has no other choice than to attend a school out of town/county as the LEA have placed them then expects the family to pay travel costs.

ETA The school is named on his statement.

sunnyone

daska wrote: »

I have to say I think that is a change that is long overdue.

I agree, my son does attend the local RC school and the local FE college for his level two BTEC in engineering each week though they are not where he normally studies and because it means he goes to several sites the LA provide transport between the sites but what is really daft is that they insist on sending him home by taxis once a week (ten miles!) even though we drop him off/collect him normally and we would rather just collect him from the site he is at even when its not his school.

It even more daft that he will be in the only year ever given this opertunity {manual edit} to study a wide range of subjects due to the transport costs involved.

daska

Breast_Cancer_Survivor wrote: »

The letter was the first i've heard of it tbh.

I guess they are having to make cuts across the board.

I'm on benefits IB etc so £300 is alot of money but i'm hoping that it won't come into effect until after he has left school after his exams in May.

It seems unfair that a child with a disability that has no other choice than to attend a school out of town/county as the LEA have placed them then expects the family to pay travel costs.

ETA The school is named on his statement.

But essentially that means your child is being denied access to education on par with an able child - which is obviously discriminating against him on basis of disability.

Savvy_Sue

daska wrote: »

Hasn't it always been that funding for travel has been discretionary if you choose a school other than the local one nominated by your LEA?

Possibly slightly more complicated than that, but yes, if you choose to send your child to a school which is further than 2/3 miles away (depending on age) then you must expect to be responsible for and pay for transport.

If a school is named on a statement then I thought the LEA had to pay, but maybe that is also discretionary from what BCS is finding.

daska wrote: »

Unless of course you choose a religious school when, for some reason, you qualify automatically - which personally I think is iniquitous.

I think that has always varied from one LEA to another. We chose to send DS1 to a Catholic secondary school: there were school buses from various parts of town going there, and if we'd been Catholic then the diocese would have paid his bus fares, but the LEA would not have done. However there was no guarantee of a place on the bus: priority went to the Catholic children.

When we moved to a completely different area, we chose to send him to a Church of England school, and I was astonished to discover that because we'd sent him to the nearest faith school, the LEA would pay for a bus pass! We weren't CofE either ...

I'm not saying it's right, but I'd have been daft not to accept ...

Breast_Cancer_Survivor

Doh, I've just dug the letter out & apparently it is because he is 16.

Luckily he has improved so much in the 4 years he has been there that he doesn't need to stay on after his exams & will be going onto mainstream further education to complete his A levels. :A

It still doesn't seem fair though to others though as the school have quite a few kids that stay on until they are 19 as they are more severely autistic.

Sorry for any confusion.

SingleSue

daska wrote: »

Hasn't it always been that funding for travel has been discretionary if you choose a school other than the local one nominated by your LEA? Unless of course you choose a religious school when, for some reason, you qualify automatically - which personally I think is iniquitous.

I chose the one recommended by the LEA as the one most suitable to meet the two younger boys needs....but they refused transport on the basis that we chose out of catchment, even though we went with their recommendation!

It was great fun trying to get two children to two different schools, 5 miles apart at exactly the same time (the 5 miles can take up to 30 minutes in the rush hour), it was a blessed relief when youngest finally went to the same school as his brother...my stress levels went down amazingly.

daska

SingleSue wrote: »

I chose the one recommended by the LEA as the one most suitable to meet the two younger boys needs....but they refused transport on the basis that we chose out of catchment, even though we went with their recommendation!

It was great fun trying to get two children to two different schools, 5 miles apart at exactly the same time (the 5 miles can take up to 30 minutes in the rush hour), it was a blessed relief when youngest finally went to the same school as his brother...my stress levels went down amazingly.

Yep, been there with the two eldest, schools in opposite directions and start times within 5 minutes, that was fun LOL

The principle is not so much the recommendation as whether the LA is able to provide an appropriate education more locally, if they can't and tell you that the child MUST attend a school further away then they have been, and quite probably still are, liable for transport.

daska

daska wrote: »

But essentially that means your child is being denied access to education on par with an able child - which is obviously discriminating against him on basis of disability.

Thinking further about this, if you are a parent with a disabled child in this situation, it means the LA is charging a fee for your child to access education over and above the charge levied through legal taxation methods. Regardless of age, if able children can access a more local education then charging a fee goes against the principle of 'free' education.

SingleSue

daska wrote: »

Yep, been there with the two eldest, schools in opposite directions and start times within 5 minutes, that was fun LOL

The principle is not so much the recommendation as whether the LA is able to provide an appropriate education more locally, if they can't and tell you that the child MUST attend a school further away then they have been, and quite probably still are, liable for transport.

In middle son's case, our immediately local school (just over the road), would not accept him as he had been permanently excluded from there, the next local school which was in the next village, wouldn't take him as they had youngest there and they felt they could not cope with both of them and their needs, ditto the next nearest to that one and so on.....so the education authority decided that the school closest to my parents (but miles from here) was the best way forward, plus the school felt they could cope with him with the extra benefit of my parents being within 5 mins of the school and of course, being able to get there quickly in the event they were needed.

From that school, he did the natural progression to the high school for that area but first advice was sought and because of his former peers going to the high school closest to us (but still 3 miles away), it was decided that going to the nearest catchment highschool would be counteractive as his peers knew middle son's triggers, his history and the possibility of them using that to either bully or cause a distraction (light the powder keg and watch it explode for fun) was too great. This was coupled with the fact that the closer school had no organised SENCO, no real special needs provision and would struggle to cope with his needs, so they recommended the natural progression high school.

With youngest, he originally went to the local school, they were not meeting his needs and I in desperation rang the local special needs unit based in another school to see what their criteria for admittance was...that was all I did but apparently it was enough for school to remove him from their roll, luckily they took him on at the unit.

The natural progression high school for him was our catchment high school (which eldest went to/still goes to as a 6th former) but again, the same problem with no SENCO, no real special need provision and their reluctance to take him as they didn't believe they would cope with him (he is very high maintenance and has a very high level of assistance, it was thought unlikely he would cope in mainstream high school), meant the LEA had to get involve as did all the specialists involved in his care.

The outcome to this was that everyone thought the further away high school (the one middle son had started a year earlier), would be best placed to be able to deal with his needs and the best school in mainstream that youngest would be able to cope with due to the layout, ceiling height, less risk of escaping onto a main road etc.

So we went with it......

Once they were both in the same school, transport became easier (although it is still a troublesome drive) but it was the time when middle was near my parents house and youngest was in the next village that was the problem....so glad those days are over!