Northampton father criticises council after eight month wait for special needs school provision

A Northampton father has been left furious after his autistic son was left without a special educational needs school provision for eight months.

Leslaw Darocha has criticised West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) for its handling of special school provision for his seven-year-old autistic son Ignacy.

Ignacy and his mother left Poland in March to join Leslaw in Far Cotton on the promise that the boy would be provided with SEND provision.

However, eight months later and Ignacy is at home watching the Smurfs for large parts of the day while WNC continues to carry out its assessment, which is supposed to take five months, according to Leslaw.

The father said: "It's an absolute nightmare. He doesn't want to be at home, he cannot be at home. He needs to be in a provision suitable for him.

"He's basically spending most of his days sitting on the sofa watching Netflix and the Smurfs because that's the only thing that keeps him occupied and quiet. The system fails children like this.

"He cannot continue like this. We cannot continue like this. He needs to grow, he needs to develop."

Asked how the family is coping, Leslaw said: "It's been so difficult to cope. We feel let down, a lot. We're both very disappointed. It's had a massive impact on the whole family. My wife wanted to leave and go back to Poland," he said

Leslaw even sent WNC his son's medical reports to make the transfer from his Polish SEND school to his UK SEND school easier for all involved.

The father said: "I said to WNC that if he does not have a place to go we would rather wait because he had provision in Poland. He had a great private school there.

"It's been eight months so far [WNC’s assessment]. It's a long procedure. WNC could have started his assessment based on the paperwork I sent to them before he came."

Leslaw believes there are many other families in the same boat as himself.

"There are loads of stories like this. A lot of people have very similar experiences. It's a very sad thing and I think it's against human rights," he said.

Councillor Fiona Baker, in charge of SEND provision at WNC, said she is “extremely sorry” families are being “let down”.

She said: “We are saddened and extremely sorry that some families in West Northants are being let down in this manner and not receiving the specialist services we know they desperately need.

"We are aware of this particular case, and we are very sorry that this has taken so long. We are doing everything we can to arrange suitable provision for this child and a number of options have already been discussed with the family. We will continue to engage closely with them to secure a suitable school place.

“Tackling the shortfall in SEND provision is a top priority for us and we have plans to provide an additional 500 new places over the next 2-3 years. We know this does not immediately address the challenges faced by some families and these improvements won’t happen overnight, but we are working towards trying to reach practical solutions to improve outcomes for the authority's valued children.”