SEN / Legal Support
We are a team of specialist legal consultants in education law. We are able to advise parents, carers, and schools on a range of areas within education law, including but certainly not limited to:
• Special Educational Needs (SEN)
• Discrimination in school
• General education concerns
• School admissions
• School complaints generally
• School exclusions
• School transport
We advise parents and carers generally, coach them, review or draft documents, and act on their behalf as a legal representative before Independent Appeal Panels and Tribunals, particularly the First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability) or ‘SEND Tribunal.’
In terms of SEN, we will –
• Provide advice as to the SEND Tribunal’s appeal procedure
• Prepare grounds of appeal to the Tribunal
• Liaise with experts with a view to securing clear and detailed reports
• Liaise with schools
• Negotiate and mediate with the local authority through, for instance, the working document for an EHC Plan
We also have experience in assisting the senior management teams in schools with a range of legal concerns, such as when we were engaged by a maintained special school with pupils who have multiple severe SEN to challenge its local authority whose home-to-school transport arrangements fell below legal standards. We compelled the local authority to revamp its travel arrangements which had resulted in the entire school cohort of pupils (190) arriving late to school each day, and in distress.
We have supported children with a range of special educational needs over the years ranging from dyslexia, ADHD, speech and language difficulties, ASD, to visual and hearing impairments. In one instance, we supported a family with two SEND Tribunal appeals for two brothers with various SEN, a disability discrimination Tribunal claim, and overturning a permanent exclusion before an Independent Appeal Panel. All of these actions were successful with both boys settling happily in the family’s desired special school.
We are a member of the Education Law Association.
Benefits of our assistance
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- Competitive professional fees that are lowered through minimizing or eliminating arguably unnecessary overheads that firms of solicitors typically withstand and pass the costs on to the client
- Parent friendly working hours. We do not take a simple ‘9 to 5’ approach, and are often available on evenings and at weekends
- Our advice is always clear and delivered in plain English. We focus on making sure that the way forward is crystal clear, and not hidden away in a fog of legal jargon
- Transparency with professional fees, including regular updates on what work has been carried out, and the exact cost. There are no hidden costs, and our fees are fixed whenever possible
- We are an established limited liability partnership founded in 2002, as opposed to a ‘here today gone tomorrow’ outfit.