Distressing remarks by class teacher

[Rob Clark]

Unfortunately the response I received was via telephone

I thought it might be!
I couldn't imagine anyone putting that in writing!

I tape all my phone calls Force of professional habit but quite useful in instances like this.

The thing is some schools either don’t know (or possibly don’t care) about this sort of thing. We had no idea DD might be entitled to extra time in something like the 11+, but when we registered her for the 12+ the LEA contacted us to ask whether we were applying for extra time on account of her medical condition. They didn’t say we would definitely have got it, admittedly, but they clearly thought it was a possibility.

Eyelashes, if I were in your position I would contact your LEA and ask about extra time (implying you are enquiring about a child who is taking the test this year). If you get a favourable response it is something you might introduce in passing at an appeal – if you don’t want to be seen to be criticising the school or the system you can always phrase it in such a way as to imply it’s your own fault for not applying for extra time.

If they say you wouldn’t have got extra time for your DS on the basis of his CFS, you haven’t lost anything, you just don’t mention it at appeal.

[MrsB]

I don't know much about appeals and education law, but in other contexts where the DDA comes in, a blanket policy is not lawful. The concept of a reasonable adjustment under what was the DDA and is now the Equality Act surely involves an individual case by case assessment. I would therefore have expected that a failure to even consider it would be illegal and therefore amount to a reasonable ground of appeal