Looking for Primary School with good Special Needs provisions.......

[jayneyb82]

Hi All,

I am new to all of this, but have a little girl who is nearly 3, and has a few developmental delays - she is approximately 12-18 months behind in quite a few areas but is very sociable and happy. She can walk independently now and her language is coming along. We are currently looking into Primary Schools for her, and we think mainstream is probably the best place for her to start. However, I'm finding it really difficult to find out much information or feedback as to how individual schools in our area are performing in terms of children with special needs, and I have noticed that the attitudes towards this between schools does vary significantly. We are based in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, and hoped that maybe some other local parents have some experiences or advice as to which schools might be good places to start looking at? I have looked through Ofsted reports etc but wondered if there was anyone with direct experience that may be able to offer their thoughts/findings?

Many thanks in advance!

xxxx

[insanityscratching]

I'll pm you the name of dd's school which is a really inclusive mainstream primary with children with all sorts of SEN and disabilities. Dd has ASD but is very happy and incredibly well supported there.
Does your child have a statement of SEN? Have you begun the process? It's oversubscribed you see and as you are out of catchment it might not be easy to get in.

[jayneyb82]

Hi, thanks so much for your reply, very much appreciated! Picked up the pm, thank you for that also, I will definitely pop along and visit. I've heard a few good reports about the school actually and it's so good to hear that they are so inclusive, music to my ears! We currently have support from the Pre School Support Service, and are looking into applying for a statutory assessment, possibly after a 12 week diagnostic nursery placement, so we are pretty much at the start of the process really. We are hopefully not too far away from your daughters school (probably 2-3 miles) so might not be too far out of catchment, fingers crossed!

Thank you again for your input and advice, it's really good to hear from other local families, thank you.

[insanityscratching]

I live a couple of miles away but dd started before the school got full (it's being extended at the minute) and of course she had a statement anyway which gave me the pick of schools. Dd had input from the pre school support service do you see KW? she was/is a governor and knows the HT well.