We have been told that LAs are not allowed to fund special school places for young people aged 19 or over. Is this correct?

IPSEA does not believe this is correct; however, your local authority is likely to be basing their position on a piece of government guidance, which we do not believe accurately reflects the law. We have prepared a detailed briefing explaining why we believe the guidance is incorrect.

If a school is not registered for students aged 19 or over, it will need to apply to the Department for Education either to extend its registration, or for individual permission for the student in question.

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My child is in Year 5. The deadline for the next annual review of my child’s EHC plan is 15 April. When my child starts year 6, what effect will the phase transfer review have on the deadline for when the next review needs to be completed by?
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There is a school named in my daughter’s EHC plan, but over the last few months she has become incredibly anxious and has started school refusing. She has now missed a significant amount of time.

What can we do?
Our daughter has an education, health and care plan but we wish to educate her at home. She misses a lot of school because of health needs and we think that it would be better for her to be educated at home.

Does the local authority have to help us with this?
We have received the draft education, health and care plan and all the professional advice.

We have been told that we can express a preference for a school but believe our son needs intensive special help of the kind which can only be provided in a specialist independent school for autistic pupils. But we’ve been told that we can’t express a preference for an independent school and the LA intend to name one of their own special schools. What can we do?
I want a special school placement, and my local authority will only consult with certain special schools who have put in tenders as part of its procurement process – they say these are ‘Framework Schools’ and they are the only ones I can request.

What can I do?
We’ve received the draft education, health and care plan and have found a maintained special school we really like for our son.

At our meeting with the local authority, we expressed a preference for this school, but we were told we’d be wasting our time as it is in a neighbouring local authority who has said that the school is full.
I’ve visited the local secondary school, which is the school we want our son to attend. Our son has Down’s Syndrome, and the head made it clear that he does not want him.

He says that the school cannot meet our son’s needs. At our meeting with the local authority officer to discuss the draft education health and care plan, she said it would not be in our son’s best interests to force the school to take him and perhaps a special school would be better, but we do believe that he thrives best in a mainstream setting. And, just as important as his formal education, we want him to grow up in, and as part of, his local community.

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