Bob please keep your all terain wheelchair on a tight leash, you make it sound as if its chomping at the bit :-))

Try this one by the way

http://www.rougemontcham...file/37/sarah-hornblower

Remember that Conditional Fee Agreements are often the route suggested bt the Legal Services Commission rather than legal aid. She does do both in any case

Bob

What we must forget is that once a service pprovider or an employer are claimed to have discriminated the Burden of Proof is upon them to Prove they have not done so - beyond reasonable doubt. Like HASAWA this is a reversal of the normal burden.

I would be certainly looking toward a fromal complaint in the County Court using any BTE Legal Insurance, personal funding or a CFA as advised by a solicitor. The school needs to know this is serious and an appropriate action is the formal questionnaire. Remember the damages are unlimited and may benefit a charity if that is what you wish

Bob

Firesafety101

I'm sure I'm not alone wishing you the best of luck with this. It's one thing battling against descrimination for a colleague or member of staff, altogether a more stressful task doing it for close family. You've got a lot of support here so don't be backwards in coming forwards for advice/assistance.

Not got a lot of experience in this field personally but one thing that has come to mind is the support that local groups could provide with this. I'm sure there'll be a network of people who experience similar issues to your daughter in your local area. May be worth contacting your local health authority to find out if they have any contact details for support groups, they in turn may have details for a suitable/reputable solicitor who specialises in disability descrimination.

Of course there's always the option of a call to your local press but that may be a double edged sword.

All the best.

Firesafety: Here's a company doing day hire of portable wheelchair lift (up to 1.52m). Scroll down for an impressive listing of previous event use.

http://www.bentleyfielde...wheelchair-lifts_68.html

(Other hire companies and similar equipment available)

Thanks everyone, I am so grateful for all the assistance. I am still waiting for the governors to get back to me but may try Bob's Home Office form and even the other stuff mentioned.

The LEA H&S team are not powerful enough to demand the school do anything I'm afraid.

One thing is for certain I will not give this up, even after my daughter leaves that school.

There have been other parents who have removed children from the school because of similar issues, I don't give up easily.

Thanks.

In other circumstances do you exhort people not to wait for the dithering of the H&S bloke, get your (CFA) accident claim lawyer on the case immediately?

Some governors may dither, and I'm sure there are even some bad chairs of governors, but a blanket tarring of governors as procrastinating is unfair. Most are taking responsibility for running a multi-million-pound turnover operation and doing it for free. How many multi-million-pound companies pay their board of directors nothing? In my experience, most governors take their role seriously.

By all means, if the governors don't respond properly, then it needs escalating, but leaping straight to lawyers and legal action before the governors have had a reasonable opportunity to do anything is not appropriate, in my opinion.

Firesafety101,
Good luck, my boy has a disability but I'm happy to report that his School is a proactive one.

Tell the School Head that if he/she can't manage to get a few pieces of timber together, then you'll drum up some support / fund raising to get it done via the local 'stress' - sorry 'press'. That'll make the ears prick-up!

Seriously though, good luck to you and yours.

I chased up my complaint today and find that the LEA sent the complaint to their Solicitors who then sent the complaint back to the school for them to deal with.

I'm not happy about this firstly as no one told me, secondly I have exhausted to complaint as far a s the school is concerned, letter from Chair of Governors.

Spoke with the Headteacher today and he said I now have to request an Appeal Committee by writing to the Chair of Governors again.

Done this, not holding my breath as they break up tomorrow so it will be Autumn before I hear from them again.

Have a good summer you lot, and thanks again for all the suggestions.

Firesafety101,

Whilst we "may" differ on the exact details of your issue, we have not discussed these in detail I appreciate.
You are 1000% (not a typo) entitled to your "opinion" and support in this matter from all related parties, and a suitable response from the "defendant", as boblewis says, ensure that you chase them to the full extent of the "law", it is your right, just as it is the right of many others to do things that we may feel are "inappropriate"!

Go for it young man, it is your right and that of the "IP".

I hope you get the best result for you all.

I cannot believe that a school would not look to include the child and as an earlier post said, the school years are part of a child's life education.

I take it by the waiting 'firesafety101' that the play is now completed with it being the last day of term. Although not disabled my youngest son broke his leg a few weeks back and was on crutches for his play last week with a plaster cast on and he has a big part already scripted.

The school teacher re-written his intial part to put the broken leg into the story so where flexible, they did think about excluding him on the basis of the policy for schools with kids with plaster casts but luckily they realised I revised this and re-issued it when with the local authority a few years ago and knew exactly what it said.

I find it disappointing that a total misunderstanding of H&S by some (yes, some not all schools) forces them into decisions that (in my opinion) are not justifiable. I wish you well with the developments in this.

As the school not heard of mewps, could they not approach their local HSS tool hire shops, they have a lift and shift department, and after explaining the situation, I would not be surprised if they could not offer a discount or donation for the equipment, after all its a good cause and only for one performance.
If the chair as to stay on the floor she can still hold her head up high.
Best of luck

firesafety101 - Perhaps your previous approaches to the school, LEA, etc had some effect although not in the way you expected. It's possible that a decision was made to hold the event without a stage for several reasons. In addition to eliminating the need for a ramp to allow access by your daughter in her wheelchair, having no stage (with a finite area) perhaps enabled more children to appear and move about unhindered in front of the audience. Also, nobody would need to worry about the prospect of any of the children falling off the edges of a stage. Did the absence of a stage significantly detract from the event? Also, just to avoid any ambiguity, was the Leavers' Service the same event as the play you mentioned in your opening post?

In posing the above thoughts and questions, I'm not attempting to defend the school - just using the limited information available via this thread to try to put the situation into context among the many other matters affecting the school.

On a positive note, you mentioned at #56 meetings with your daughter’s next school and that the people there are being pro-active and making appropriate arrangements and alterations. This bodes well for your daughter and also for any similar pupils there in future. In view of the new school’s attitude and actions, it seems that the people with whom you’ve had meetings have already “got the picture”. This seems to eliminate any need for you to bang on about past circumstances and risk being perceived as whinging and unreasonable. In this respect, I'm not suggesting that these adjectives apply to you. It's a reflection of the wider fact that how and what people try to communicate to others often influences how others perceive and respond to them.

p.s. The apparently unexpected action by the school reminds me of a situation during a school 6th form residential geography field trip I went on many years ago. After the first night one of my friends complained to the proprietress of the boarding house where we were staying that his bed was wobbly because one of its legs was loose due to one or more defective or missing bolts. We came back from our excursion that day expecting to find that the loose leg had been secured. However, it had been removed - along with the other three legs, presumably because no suitable bolts were readily available for securing it! :-)

This is back on the go now, following the delayed complaint meeting with the school governors.

I have received some very good support from our members via pm's and thanks to them for that guidance.

I will be reporting this matter to the Special Educational Needs and Disability - Appeals HM Courts & Tribunals Service.

I have the form downloaded/printed and will be completing and sending it off ASAP.

They say 20 weeks is the usual time for a result.

I will not be asking for financial compensation but will be asking for an admission with apology to my daughter followed by training for staff in an effort to prevent this happening to anyone else in future.

Of course a little bad publicity for the school would not go amiss.

I will keep you posted.