School Refuser - The Blog

Monday 31 January 2011

Parent Partnership Services (PPS

Parent Partnership Services (PPS) are statutory services offering information advice and support to parents and carers of children and young people with special educational needs (SEN). PPS are also able to put parents in touch with other local and national organisations.

PPS have a role in making sure that parents’ views are heard and understood and that these views inform local policy and practice.

PPS are based with a voluntary organisation, with the Local Authority (LA) or Children’s Trust.

All Parent Partnership Services, wherever they are based, are at ‘arm’s length’ from the LA and the services they provide are confidential and impartial.

The services offered by individual PPS will vary but all will be able to provide information and advice about:

How special educational needs are identified and assessed by schools and the local authority
Who parents can talk to in a school or LA about their concerns
The SEN Code of Practice, the statutory assessment process and statements
Parents/carers rights and responsibilities
Meetings and reviews about a child’s needs
How progress is monitored and reviewed
What parents can do if they are not happy with a decision made about their child’s SEN

Each PPS develops its own local aims based on national guidelines.


Tuesday 25 January 2011

When school is too scary

As a teacher, Charlotte Morbey had always been sceptical about school phobia until her son threatened to jump from the window sill.

She thought she knew about school phobia. In common with colleagues, she used the terms "school phobia" and "school refusal" interchangeably. She was sympathetic but sceptical. She felt it was probably exaggerated and pandered to by parents who colluded with difficult children for a quiet life.

Then Charlotte's son developed school phobia. It started with headaches and stomach pains every day. Her first thought was that he was making them up, but they seemed genuine. They talked about school - was he being bullied; was the work too hard; did he have friends? Everything was fine, he said. He just felt ill.

You can read this story here>>>

Wednesday 12 January 2011

Support our Forum

Our Forum has just exceeded the capacity allowed for the current free service. To continue to provide the service, I have had to go 'Pro'.

Sadly, I am not in a position to provide for all the costs associated with running the School Refuser website, and must ask for assistance with covering the running costs.

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