VAT on education legal challenge Post Reply

[oldtimerhere]

You might have seen this story published in several newspapers over the last few days.

Alexis is a single mum of an autistic daughter who was pushed out of the state system as the schools couldn't meet her needs. She is not rich. She is not "posh". She is a charity worker from a working class background. Together with her retired grandparents who helped pay the fees, Alexis found a great independent school that could accommodate her daughter's needs and where she saw her thrive. However, with the government's plans to impose VAT on private education, she now finds herself also priced out from the private system.

With 110,000 children with special needs currently attending private schools (mainly because state schools couldn't meet their needs), Alexis is one of thousands of parents who will find themselves in this position over the next few months. By the government's own admission, the state SEND provision is desperately broken. Yet, they are now pushing tens of thousands of SEND children back into the state system that can't cope with their needs. This influx will also significantly dilute the meagre resources available to SEND children in the state system now. The state SEND provision must be fixed and ready for them before they come in. They are too vulnerable to deal with the chaos that will inevitably happen in the interim period.

Alexis is now launching a legal challenge against these plans. Please support her legal fight if you can - either by donating, even the smallest amount, or by sharing it further. Taxing education is morally questionable in any case, but taxing education for children with special needs is cruel and blind. Although this case and petition centers around a child with special needs, it's significant to all of us and to what education in general means and should be. A civilised society invests in all children and a civilised society is a society that protects its weakest.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/educa ... JLFCnBXuMg

[rugbymum]

Thank you. Shared and donated. Good luck

[themotherofdragons]

Likewise

[Bedazzled]

I've donated too. Hope she will win. I don't have a child with special needs but this awful punitive legislation is making my blood boil and this story is one of several deeply upsetting stories I've come across.

[Sma56]

I’ve got 2 kids at state schools and one in independent due to my son requiring extra help in a smaller setting with more pastoral support. This policy is so detrimental and decisive. We will struggle to afford higher fees but moving him to a state school will be so detrimental to him and all the other children in the class whose learning will be impacted by someone who needs more support and attention in class but doesn’t fit the criteria for an ECHP.

Please let’s get behind this lady who is so bravely campaigning and taking the government on behalf of so many people like her and me.

Thanks

[Frankly]

I really hope she will win and show this government how wrong this legislation is and how discriminatory and blind they are. Donated and shared

[Guested]

I did want to mention that EHCPs have far wider criteria than people are told.

One of mine is academically very gifted; she has 99.9 centile scores in educational psychology testing, and has since she was small. She's also got severe anxiety and social and emotional struggles. We realised she was a "hidden autistic" because family members are, so we had her assessed by an ed psych, OT and SLT and then secured an EHCP. She attends a small independent school funded by that EHCP and the autism diagnosis was made shortly after starting. She is thriving, after becoming genuinely unwell in state mainstream in KS1.

You're told LA policy, which tends to be that a child must be at least two years behind, or have massive psychiatric struggles to the point they're violent. None of that is true - they must just have needs that can't be met by standard provision, even with extras that cost up to £6000. To prove that need, you either need the reports, or to have provable damage caused by unmet need that acts as its own evidence.

A parent paying for one of three kids to attend independent knows the needs are there. I would suggest assessment, because even a small independent can't meet needs nobody has identified. I'm happy to recommend those experts - they need to be what are called "medico-legal" clinicians so they write reports that include recommendations for enforceable provision. If the needs aren't there then at least you know! I look on it as being like prenatal testing, or car seats, and anyone sensible hopes it's a waste of money. But if it is needed, you badly need to have spent on it.

Independent is a choice for most, and that's fine. But not always a choice, and if it isn't, it is highly likely that the child has additional, unknown and therefore unmet, needs that underlie the parent's decision to move them. I would get those assessments done, as unmet need can cause real harm. Autism and ADHD can be complex, and subtle in presentation, and so can eg dyspraxia. It affects mental health terribly, long term, as the child eventually inculcates a sense that their needs are just character failings.

[Cruickers]

I did want to mention that EHCPs have far wider criteria than people are told.

One of mine is academically very gifted; she has 99.9 centile scores in educational psychology testing, and has since she was small. She's also got severe anxiety and social and emotional struggles. We realised she was a "hidden autistic" because family members are, so we had her assessed by an ed psych, OT and SLT and then secured an EHCP. She attends a small independent school funded by that EHCP and the autism diagnosis was made shortly after starting. She is thriving, after becoming genuinely unwell in state mainstream in KS1.

You're told LA policy, which tends to be that a child must be at least two years behind, or have massive psychiatric struggles to the point they're violent. None of that is true - they must just have needs that can't be met by standard provision, even with extras that cost up to £6000. To prove that need, you either need the reports, or to have provable damage caused by unmet need that acts as its own evidence.

A parent paying for one of three kids to attend independent knows the needs are there. I would suggest assessment, because even a small independent can't meet needs nobody has identified. I'm happy to recommend those experts - they need to be what are called "medico-legal" clinicians so they write reports that include recommendations for enforceable provision. If the needs aren't there then at least you know! I look on it as being like prenatal testing, or car seats, and anyone sensible hopes it's a waste of money. But if it is needed, you badly need to have spent on it.

Independent is a choice for most, and that's fine. But not always a choice, and if it isn't, it is highly likely that the child has additional, unknown and therefore unmet, needs that underlie the parent's decision to move them. I would get those assessments done, as unmet need can cause real harm. Autism and ADHD can be complex, and subtle in presentation, and so can eg dyspraxia. It affects mental health terribly, long term, as the child eventually inculcates a sense that their needs are just character failings.

I'm really interested in this as we are on the verge of pulling one of my children out of state school as they are unable to meet her very specific needs.  She doesn't have an EHCP as quite bright and seems quite sociable but is currently in autistic burnout.  We have identified an independent school that might work for her but we will need to remortgage to pay for it.   She hasn't been to school in 3 months and every time we try to engage with the system she is retraumatised by it.  I don't want to keep jumping through hoops in a system that will never be able to meet her needs but at the same time feel that there should at least be some contribution or recognition from the state that the only way her needs can be met is in the independent sector.
Any tips for specific resources or experts much appreciated!

[Autimum]

As a mum of an autistic girl who is very good at masking her autism but a big state school made her physically sick from stress, please support it if you can. My daughter doesn't meet EHCP criteria but would not survive in a big state secondary.

[Bevvers]

I work in a mainstream school with children on the SEND register. Most have autism and/or behavioural challenges. Not all the children have an EHCP because they are so difficult to obtain from the local authority who would prefer to state that the child’s needs are being met in their mainstream school. However, even with an EHCP, children are still refused places in specialist schools as they are deemed not suitable or simply don’t have a place. So just a word of warning that an EHCP does not always mean your child will be accommodated and supported correctly because as an earlier poster said, the system is broken and the funding is being cut. Sadly, some of our most vulnerable children are struggling daily in the worst way, and parents are having to fight just to get access to an appropriate education for their child. Good luck to all the parents who this applies to and on behalf of the staff working with your children we support you while heartedly.

[oldtimerhere]

Thank you so much for your compassion and kind words Bevvers. Sadly, this is very true and, sadly, some of these children whose parents could just about afford private education for them will now be pushed into this broken state system. Where will it leave them? Some will be refused by schools saying they can't accommodate their needs (as happened to the girl this legal challenge revolves around), some will fail at school, many will get expelled and leave education as soon as they can as it will be such a bad experience. The whole generation of SEND children lost and treated as "collateral damage". I believe this is how it was referred to in one of the recent interviews... "Collateral damage"... if you can support this mum and her daughter who are trying to show how illegal these plans are and how badly failed her daughter was, our fundraiser continues here...https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/educa ... ination-1/