Special Educational Needs –EHC Plans and Personal Budgets

Special Educational Needs –EHC Plans and Personal Budgets

The new regime for special educational needs from 1 September 2014 has introduced personal budgets in the wake of relatively successful pilot schemes run by several local authorities. The statutory framework of how these personal budgets will work is set out in The Special Educational Needs (Personal Budgets) Regulations 2014. Basically the local authority has the power to make direct payments to parents or a young person to enable them to pay for specific provision or services in the Education Health and Care...

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Special Educational Needs – the new regime

Special Educational Needs – the new regime

There are many children and young people in the education system who have special educational needs. Obtaining funding or an assessment can at times feel like a tug-o-war struggle. We describe the new special educational needs regime in this article. In the period since March 2011 the system for dealing with special educational needs (SEN) has been subject to scrutiny, consultation and reform. This has culminated in Part 3 of the Children and Families Act 2014 (the 2014 Act). Part 3 of the new Act is due to come...

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New Special Educational Needs and Disability Code of Practice

New Special Educational Needs and Disability Code of Practice

Special Educational Needs and Disability Code of Practice 0-25 Published June 2014 The Code of Practice (view the full Special Educational Needs & Disability Code of Practice) provides statutory guidance on duties, policies and procedures relating to Part 3 of the Children and Families Act 2014 and associated regulations and applies to England. It relates to children and young people with special educational needs (SEN) and disabled children and young people. A ‘young person’ in this context is a person over...

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Higher Education: appeals and complaints to the OIA

Higher Education: appeals and complaints to the OIA

 Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA) Law The Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA) deals with higher education student complaints. Student complaints against Higher Education Institutions (HEI’s) can cover a whole range of things from accommodation to teaching standards. A significant number of student complaints each year relate to their apparent failure to achieve expected results, while other complaints relate to student suspensions or removals from a course, as a result of alleged academic or...

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Bullying in Schools

Bullying in Schools

 Combatting Bullying in Schools Bullying in schools is not a new issue and continues to be a problem for many pupils each year. The advent of electronic communication, mobile telephones and social media has brought an added dimension in the form cyberbullying. It is growing very fast. In many cases this takes bullying away from the school premises or school bus but intrudes into the pupil’s home and social environment. Whilst there is a legal framework in England and Wales to try and prevent it, when it bullying...

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Admissions Appeals Guidance 2015

Admissions Appeals Guidance 2015

SCHOOL ADMISSIONS APPEALS – some legal pointers for parents On 2 March 2015 all parents who have applied for a secondary school place for their child will receive notification of what school place they have been allocated. (For primary and junior school places the offer date will have been fixed by the local education authority.) Many parents will find they have failed to secure a place at any of their nominated schools and will want to consider whether they can try to challenge this. The school admissions...

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