Our Voices, News, Sesame Street & Cooking 30th October 2015
Dear All Read on…
we’re keeping busy!
SEND Family Voices – our voices News #1 By now, many parents will have received a letter from SEND Family Voices with an invitation to attend one (or more) of our Open meetings in November. If you haven’t received a letter… then it’s on its way! These letters came with our new introductory leaflet and the Guide to SEND Reforms. Today a parent called asking if there was a typo in the Guide as their child had not yet moved from their Statement to an Education, Health & Care Plan (EHC Plan); as the published transfer schedule said this should have happened. Having spoken to the SEN Team, there are some Year 5 and Year 2 children who have not – for all sorts of reasons – transferred to an EHC Plan yet. The SEN Team are working on this and please feel free to call us, or the SEN Team, with any query. If you would like to see a full list of our Open meetings (including the SEN Transport Consultations), please visit the our events page: www.sendfamilyvoices.org/events
News #2 Our next Open meeting is on the school’s Accessibility Strategy (and Chocolate Cake). So far, the first two (of five) meetings on this subject have already made clear the need to develop a School Trips policy that considers the needs of children & young people with SEND (hooray!). There are plenty of parents who will be delighted to read the sentence “parents should not be expected to attend a school trip with their child”. We are also considering how to include playground equipment within this strategy. Details of the next meeting on this subject are: Thursday 5th November – 10.30am to 12.30am Bedelsford School, Grange Road, Kingston, KT1 2QZ
News #3 Next week, the SEND Family Voices steering group, along with representatives from schools (ie SENCo’s), Health and Achieving for Children are holding a developmental workshop on the subject of participation. Our objective is to answer the question: “How do we work together to maximise positive consequences, and minimise negative consequences, for the child or young person & their family?” The principles and intended working practices we produce from this workshop will, we hope, continue to enhance equal partnership in developing services for our children and young people. This is ever more important as there are likely to be central government cuts that affect our families (ie the Spending Review). More news to follow.