Tuesday 2 September 2014

The week before the holiday

The last full week of the holidays before our holiday was a busy one, for the adults at least! The weekend bore witness to Supergran doing the Ice Bucket challenge which Boy Wonder became very excited about. Before that however he had helped to prepare dinner for us all. 

Bank Holiday Monday arrived with its usual heavy rain. Boy Wonder started his day by going into the shower, turning it to the coldest setting and then standing in it for 5 seconds. He then ran out of the bathroom and announced that he had done the Ice Bucket Challenge 'his way!' He nominated Biker Gramps.
We went to a play centre for lunch and to meet with the family that we are going on holiday with to discuss final arrangements. The centre was surprisingly quiet for a rainy day which was nice. This resulted in no real difficulties.

Superman had a day with the children on Tuesday and they completed some ore holiday chores like going food shopping. Boy Wonder doesn't cope well with supermarkets but is okay in Aldi. We think that this is another reason why Aldi is doing so well as it is small, less choice ( although enough for what you need) and isn't used as a social gathering opportunity. Go Aldi, we say! 

Boy Wonder and Boy Genius went to the outdoor adventure centre on  Wednesday and Thursday which they seemed to really enjoy. This place has proved to be a very good find as Boy Wonder loves it and they look after him very well indeed. When I collected the boys on the Thursday I was warned by the instructor that 'Your Son is black!' Nothing new there then I responded. ' No, really he is black and so is his friend!' They both arrived around the corner looking as if they had been down the pit! The only white bits were the whites of their eyes. Of course all of the other children weren't covered, just black 'war paint' stripes on their faces which had been the activity. They used ashes from the burnt out fire to do this. The boys were highly amused by it and had obviously enjoyed themselves. 

Whilst Boy Wonder had fun and Cat Girl did a raft of different activities with Grandparents and cousins, we went to work ( trying to fit two weeks worth into three days!), had the new external doors fitted and attended a meeting with the Local Authority regarding the proposed statement and the complaint that we had sent in. 

The LA meeting was with the heads of educational psychology and inclusion. In most part it was more of the same defensive rubbish and there was certainly no recognition of wrong doing or admittance of failure of the two professionals that we complained about. Instead they were defended and the school were brought forward as the decision makers and implementers with the LA's only real role being to agree the strategies, approve funding and review each year. On the back of this  it was agreed that the head of inclusion would meet with us and the school in the next couple of weeks to agree the statement. She made it clear however that Boy Wonder's condition isn't severe enough to have a full 25 hours and the SALT input was only a suggestion and not in the order. She did state however that an OT has been commissioned for the statement but wouldn't elaborate at this stage who it was, except that it wasn't ours as she was too expensive! ( we pointed out that she was already familiar with Boy Wonder and the school so therefore costs would be saved on all of this) We will discuss this further at the meeting as to who this OT is and if they are qualified to work with sensory modulation disorders.  The head of EP agreed that they will use our second opinion EP assessment to compare against their own work and formulate a document that considers both quite differing opinions. This is because they cannot afford to purchase a second opinion themselves.  So we will see. We made it clear that if we don't get what Boy Wonder needs as per the medical and second opinion reports, we won't hesitate to appeal for a third time as it is clear that Boy Wonder's needs are not being understood or met. 

So yet again it is a waiting game. The saga continues ......

No comments:

Post a Comment