We have had such a battle -AGAIN- to get Lauren in the school we chose. The system is utterly flawed and I can’t believe both mainstream and special schools get away with treating a child with special needs the way they have.

We chose to pull her out from Laycock- the head teacher used Lauren’s wellbeing as a pawn in her sick game. She’s nasty to the core and I hope I get to see karma catch up with her. We were asked to keep the complaint going against her to the offsted but TWO PANELS of supposedly impartial people thought it was ok to let her get away with discrimination. We had (have) evidence in black and white yet they chose to ignore it. Disgraceful. Utterly disgraceful. We were exhausted.

This meant that my child was better out of an environment where her health condition was targeted, she was isolated more and more and she became angry at having to go to school. That said everything so we searched for a special school. We searched Bradford, Leeds, Wetherby, Halifax and then looked at North Yorkshire.

The school had to be free of Kids with CF, for us this was key because of the infections Lauren is fighting and because we wanted a safe environment. There are a select few individuals with infections that don’t have CF but the infections are serious to a CF child and are airborne. This complicated things. We wanted a small school where possible and we were willing to move completely for it. We loved Leeds and Wetherby schools and wish she could have gone. The only school however, that fit the bill was a North Yorkshire school.

They met Lauren and led Bradford education SEN team to believe they just needed to tick boxes and it would be a September 2017 start. They then called ME not the education team (a definite attempt at manipulation for absolute certainty) to tell us they wouldn’t be taking her. I now hate them. But this is the only safe place for her- for now.

So thankfully our team agreed that their reasons were ridiculous and unlawful and they started the appeal process for us. And we’ve done very little.

The tribunal date was set for 23rd Feb but we were told mid January the courts have upheld our appeal and so she WILL be starting at this new school soon enough once everything is in place.

What a complete waste of time and resources and to be honest this has been detrimental to Lauren’s confidence. It is such a twisted affair when after 1 meeting a school can screw around with a child- and therefore families’ – wellbeing and home life.

It has been some of the toughest days weeks and months of my life. But luckily lauren and I still get along. I had to quit work. Her health was the first reason- but I couldn’t look for anything to fill the time when it was all taken up with Lauren. I’m so lucky that my Doterra business was usually weekends and evening classes that I could use to occupy my brain!! So lucky!!

So- she is starting soon enough. No date yet. But it’s happening.

I have zero confidence in them. So all the time she is there I will be keeping my ears open and looking out for where we could go, should they not do their jobs properly.

And I won’t quit complaining until something serious is done- should we end up in the same situation as Laycock. If it wasn’t too late I would do more about that school too.

Seriously flawed process but high praises for Bradford education who have helped us beyond what we could have hoped for. And a social worker who has been a sounding board to all my frustrations. I couldn’t thank them enough!!

Here’s to the next chapter 🙌🏻😀💜