School exclusions and Special Educational Needs
Pupils who have special educational needs (SEN) support, including those children with Education, Heath and Care Plans (EHCP), have the highest exclusion rate in the UK. The Department for Education found that children with SEN are over 7 times more likely to be permanently excluded than pupils with without. Children with SEN, such as Autistic Spectrum Disorder […]
What happens when parents disagree with each other about school placement?
The appeal of S-G v Denbighshire County Council and another has, for the first time, considered how special educational needs tribunals should handle a case where parents do not agree with one another about school placement. This judgement comes for the Upper Tribunal. It is an appeal against a decision made by the Special Educational Needs Tribunal […]
Special educational needs (SEN) funding – How does it work?
We’ve been asked to clarify how special educational needs funding (SEN funding) is handled in schools. We are told that some local authorities (LAs) are ‘deducting’ the first £10,000 and others are ‘deducting’ the first £6,000. Which is it? The place-plus system of funding for provision in special schools from 1 April 2013 The place-plus system […]
Clarity from the Upper Tribunal about young people and EHCPs
The Children and Families Act 2014 created a new system of support for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Two of the many changes made were: Extending SEND support to the age of 25; Creating the ‘right’ of appeal for “young people”, meaning a person over the age of 16 […]
High-functioning autism and special educational needs
Over the past few weeks we have been contacted by a number of parents of children with high-functioning autism (HFA). It seems increasingly common for local authorities to refuse to make an Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessments of young people with HFA. The reasons that local authorities are giving is that the young […]
Personal budgets, direct payments and SEN
We get enquiries about personal budgets time and time again. Whilst the right for parents and young people (YP) to request a personal budget has been in force now for over a year, it is apparent that very few people who want one have actually managed to obtain one. What is a personal budget? The […]
Who is responsible for therapy in an Education, Health and Care Plan?
There is still quite a lot of confusion about how therapeutic provision should be provided to a child or young person who has an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP). Yesterday, 6 January 2016, we received a letter from a local authority which stated, “the [speech and language, occupational and physio] therapists are not employed by […]
What happens when a Local Authority cuts funding half way through a course
The case of R (C) v Westminster City Council (2015) has just been reported. Unfortunately, we have not been able to locate the case on free databases and, as yet, have not received the full citation. The case concerns a judicial review of a decision to remove funding for a course before a young person had completed […]
SEN expert evidence – Guidance from the Upper Tribunal
The Upper Tribunal has provided guidance on how the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal should approach expert evidence when there is conflicting advice. The guidance for how expert evidence should be considered by the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal is found in the case of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea v CD [2015] UKUT […]
Appealing against the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal
In this final article in our series about the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal we explain what can be done if you are unhappy about a decision taken by the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal (SEND or SENDIST). As explained in our previous articles, the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal is part of the First […]