DE
Reference: D_16_2010
Gender: Male
Aged: 14
Type of Reference: Contents of CSP
1. Reference:
(“the mother”) lodged a reference dated 30 September 2010 under section 18(1) and (3)(d)(i) of the Education (Additional Support for Learning)(Scotland) Act 2004 (“the Act”) in respect of the content of the Coordinated Support Plan prepared by (“the authority”) dated 19 August 2010.
2. Decision of the Tribunal:
The authority is directed to amend the Coordinated Support Plan by 8 April 2011 as follows:
(1) To add "dyspraxia" to the factors giving rise to The Child’s additional support needs.
(2) To delete the Educational Objectives and to substitute as follows:
(i) to access an appropriate curriculum;
(ii) to interact appropriately with peers and school staff;
(iii) to develop anger management skills;
(iv) to develop attention skills.
(3) Under the heading "Additional Support Required":
(i) after the sentence "The social worker also liaises closely
with school staff" insert the words "and home."
(ii) add the following:
"A Personal Learning Plan which defines SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timed) targets and the strategies required for consistency of approach.
(4) Under the heading Persons Providing the Additional Support:
(i) relative to the first paragraph of Additional Support Required, add after "Head teacher" the words "and school staff".
(ii) relative to the final amended paragraph (para 3(ii) above), insert "Head teacher and school staff".
3. Preliminary Matters:
On 16 November 2010 the Convenor, with the agreement of both parties, directed that the hearing fixed for 2 December 2010 be discharged, the case statement period to be extended to 16 February 2011, and a new hearing date to be arranged for 9 March 2011 if required. This was because the appellant wished to postpone the hearing in order that further assessments be carried out.
On 4 March 2010 a pre-hearing conference call between the Convenor, The Appellant Representative for the mother, and The Respondent Representative for the authority took place. The following directions were made:
To allow the authority to call and lead evidence from a witness Witness A, Head Teacher of School A in terms of Rule 22(2) of the Additional Support Needs Tribunals for
To permit the authority to lodge a letter to the appellant dated 2 September 2010.
4. Summary of Evidence:
The Tribunal considered the following evidence:
oral evidence of:
Witness A, Head Teacher of School A;
The Appellant.
The papers in the bundle which consisted of:
the reference, pages T1 to T40;
documents from the authority pages R1 to R51;
documents from the mother pages A1 to A28
5. Findings in Fact:
1. The Child is aged fourteen years. His was born in 1996. He is a pupil at School A. He has been a pupil there since June 2010. Before that he attended School B, School C, and School D, all special schools for pupils with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. In early 2010 he was excluded from School D because of his behaviour, and remained out with full time education until his placement in School A in June 2010.
2. The Child has social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. He has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder which was diagnosed in 2009. He has a conduct disorder. He has difficulty building positive relationships with peers or others. He has dyspraxia.
3. School A has a maximum roll of 50 boys. At present there are 37 pupils. There is a key team in respect of each boy, with a case manager, key worker and a key teacher. Witness A, the head teacher of the school acts as The Child's key teacher. All teachers report to the key team each Friday, and the key team meet with all staff every two weeks. The key team consider the reports on each boy every Friday, and at some point during the week The Child's mother is informed by telephone of his progress.
4. The Child has a social worker (a youth offending worker) who meets from time to time with The Child's key worker at School A and sometimes speaks to his mother on the telephone. The Child meets the social worker from time to time: the last time was at a meeting at the school in January 2011. The worker was very involved around March 2010, the time of The Child's exclusion from School D and for the months after that.
5. The appellant and respondent agree that The Child requires a Coordinated Support Plan. There is significant additional support from the social work function of the authority.
6. The Child does not need Speech and Language Therapy or Occupational Therapy. He does not have on-going support from Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. The persons providing the additional support to The Child are the head teacher of School A, school staff and the social worker.
7. It is necessary that The Child's educational objectives are set out clearly to ensure that there can be effective coordination between those providing support so that The Child benefits from school education.
8. The Child should have a Personal Learning Plan or other plan appropriate to School A which sets out clear measurable targets and strategies to ensure educational progress and consistency of approach by staff.
6. Reasons for decision:
(1) The Tribunal considered all the evidence indicated above and were satisfied that there was sufficient evidence available to the Tribunal to reach a fair decision on the reference.
(2) The issue was the content of the Coordinated Support Plan (CSP) dated 19 August 2010. The mother disagreed about the information contained in the plan, namely the factors from which The Child's additional support needs arise; the educational objectives that were set taking account of those factors; the type of support proposed to help meet those objectives; and the person or agency providing that support.
(3) The authority had accepted that The Child required significant additional support from a social worker.
(4) Section 9(2) of the Education (Additional Support for Learning)(
A coordinated support plan … must contain –
(a) a statement of the education authority’s conclusions as to –
(i) the factor or factors from which the additional support needs of the child arise;
(ii) the educational objectives sought to be achieved taking account of that factor or factors;
(iii) the additional support required by the child to achieve those objectives;
(iv) the person by whom the support should be provided.
(5) Section 19(4) of the Act provides that, in a reference under section 18(3)(d)(i) of the Act, a Tribunal may
(a) confirm the decision; or
(b) require the education authority to make such amendment of the information as the Tribunal considers appropriate by such time as the Tribunal may require.
(6) The mother stated that The Child had been given a diagnosis of dyspraxia. With reference to the Occupational Therapist Report (R10-R13), the authority accepted that it was possible that "dyspraxia" could be included in the factors from which The Child's additional support needs arose. In the view of the Tribunal it was appropriate that the CSP be amended to include "dyspraxia" as a factor from which the additional support needs arose. The mother further stated that he did not have a conduct disorder, which was one factor already included in the CSP. Since she had previously specifically asked that this be included (T25), the Tribunal did not remove this as a factor.
(7) The mother, as set out in the case statement (A2), sought to have included as educational objectives: curriculum objectives, personal and social development, social communication/interaction, self-help skills, and independent living skills. Her representative submitted that the educational objectives should make reference to a personal learning plan or an individual educational plan, a respite plan, a behaviour plan, and an anger management plan. She did not accept that all The Child's additional support needs had been identified. Although the reports from the Speech and Language Therapist (R8–R9) and the Occupational Therapist (R10-R13) stated that no support was required from either service, she did not consider that full formal assessments had been carried out, and she did not accept that The Child did not require such support. She considered that there should be support not only from the social work function of the authority, but also from another agency, namely the Health Board through the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service.
(8) The authority maintained (R6) that the form of the CSP was consistent with the form recommended by the Code of Practice para 18 and para 50, and that the CSP was well-conceived and did not require amendment.
(9) In terms of section 27 of the Act the authority has to have regard to the Code of Practice. The relevant Code of Practice is the Revised Edition, 2010. In terms of section 19(7) of the Act the Tribunal must take account of the Code of Practice.
(10) The Tribunal considered that there was no reliable evidence to sustain any claim that The Child requires support from Speech and Language Therapy or from Occupational Therapy.
(11) Witness A described that E, part of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, have a consultative relationship with staff at School A. Representatives meet once every three weeks to discuss strategies to deal with problems experienced by pupils attending the school, particularly the residential pupils. He stated that there is no direct in-put with regard to The Child. The Tribunal was satisfied that, although there has been contact in the past by Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services with The Child, there is no involvement at present, and none at the date when the CSP was issued. We noted that the authority had investigated the possibility of support to be given by A of the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service in place of S, youth offending worker/social worker, but it had been confirmed that S was the appropriate person to support The Child (R14-R15). We were satisfied that The Child's additional support needs do not require significant support from Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.
(12) The Tribunal were satisfied that apart from staff at School A, the only person providing support to The Child was the social worker. This was support by the education authority in the exercise of the authority's function of social work as well as in the exercise of their functions relating to education, all in terms of section 2(1)(d)(i) of the Act.
(13) The necessity for coordination in the CSP was between the social worker and the school.
(14) The Tribunal noted that work carried out by the social worker includes therapies for managing emotions, problem solving, helping The Child reflect on his behaviour, and to provide a relationship which is consistently and emotionally containing. As explained by Witness A, the school staff rely on the social worker to work with The Child on anger management. He described the staff at School A as being skilled and as specialists in dealing with boys with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties; they have the experience to meet The Child's needs. Due to frequent and regular discussions amongst the staff and the requirement to report to the key team each week, the staff are aware of the problems he has, and each teacher is responsive to each pupil's individual issues. For example, The Child is given one to one teaching in maths as he had problems with the teacher and the class setting. As with other pupils The Child has the opportunity to move around, to get up and get a drink if he wishes, to leave the class setting if he wishes or the teacher thinks it appropriate.
(14) The Personal Learning Plan (PLP) (R28 – R34) was prepared in July 2010, when The Child had been at the school for a month, and was reviewed in September 2010. Witness A explained that the school was in the process of amending its PLPs to reflect the GIRFEC philosophy, and he conceded that The Child's PLP "needed to be looked at".
(15) The Tribunal had regard to para 50 of the Code of Practice which states:
... In cases where there is an individualised educational programme or other planning approach in place, the coordinated support plan should refer to these but not duplicate the content of the plans ...
and to para 57:
... What is important is that the plan contains those educational objectives which require the various forms of support to be coordinated if the educational objectives are to be achieved.
(16) The Tribunal did not accept that the educational objectives should be amended to include the matters suggested by the mother and her representative. We were not satisfied that there was evidence to support a claim that these were educational objectives requiring coordination between agencies or persons providing support to The Child. We accepted that the barriers to The Child's learning which required the coordination between the school and the social worker were the issues identified by the authority, namely anger-management and attentional skills, and that development of these skills would assist him in accessing the curriculum and interacting with peers and staff.
(17) We did not consider however that the educational objectives as set out in the CSP were described in a manner in accordance with the Code of Practice. We had particular regard to para 59 of the Code of Practice which states:
...The objectives should be described in terms that are specific enough to enable the education authority and the other agencies involved in supporting the child or young person, to monitor and review progress over time... When setting an objective, a question that needs to be answered is "how will we know the objective has been achieved?"
(18) We concluded that the educational objectives should be set out clearly and be separated into the constituent parts. We considered that this more structured form of words will assist the social worker and the head teacher and school staff when monitoring and reviewing progress, and also provide greater clarity to the mother about the work being undertaken with The Child.
(19) We considered the additional support required to achieve the educational objectives as amended. We accepted the evidence of Witness A that there is frequent and regular discussion amongst the head teacher and school staff, and it is clear that The Child has made progress during his time at School A. We were surprised however that the PLP did not include explicit targets and strategies for working with The Child in particular with his attention skills and anger management. To ensure consistency of approach, and having regard to the Code of Practice, we considered that the authority should include in the CSP a statement that The Child should have a PLP which defines SMART targets and strategies to be used by staff.
(20) With regard to the persons providing additional support, we considered that the placement at School A included the additional support of the school staff as well as the head teacher and in the amended paragraph setting out the additional support required we considered that the persons providing the support were the head teacher and school staff.
(21) Given The Child's age, the Tribunal gave consideration to meeting with The Child to take his views. On behalf of the mother, her representative told the convenor during the conference call that she did not think it was in The Child's interests to meet the Tribunal. We took evidence from Witness A as to his views of whether the Tribunal should meet with The Child. Having regard to the views of the mother and all the evidence, we concluded that it was unnecessary to meet The Child.
