My daughter Josie attended Ringwood School between September 2006 and April 2007, covered by a Statement of Special Education Needs issued by Dorset County Council.
Prior to Josie starting at the school, I met with Frea Newberry, the School's Special Education Needs Co-ordinator (SENCo).
I advised that Josie was going to need adult support with certain tasks (e.g. to help her organise herself and her belongings, get dressed and undressed for swimming and P.E., open and close containers, feed herself efficiently, etc.)
I also said that Josie's time at school would need to be carefully managed and that she would need to be closely supervised at particular times during the school day.
I explained that 'unstructured time' had proven to be a particularly 'high risk' time for adverse incidents to happen and that Josie was currently being "shadowed" 1:1 by a responsible adult at all unstructured times - including before school starts and when school ends, when moving between classes and at break and lunch times.
I told Mrs Newberry I had produced a detailed document about Josie which contained useful information that all school staff should be aware of. Mrs Newberry confirmed that she'd received a copy of the document from Josie's school.
Mrs Newberry said that Ringwood School would be providing Josie with even more 1:1 support than she was already getting, as an increase in the hours of support had been agreed by Dorset LEA, to help ensure a smooth transition (i.e. an increase from 20 hours to 27 hours per week).
Mrs Newberry assured me that the staff at Ringwood school were very experienced at supporting children with the same kinds of special needs as Josie and she gave me every reason to think things would be fine.
However, it wasn't long before events exposed the school's arrangements for ‘managing' Josie as unsuitable, inappropriate - and even illegal.