STOCKPORT Council has been slammed for failing a bright boy with behavioural problems - by only allowing him to go to school one day a week.
Adam Miller was banned from Reddish Vale Technology College for four days each week throughout his GCSE year, after being diagnosed with attention deficit disorder.
But the local government ombudsman found the ‘intellectually very bright’ teenager’s educational needs were not met by the authority throughout his last three years at school - and now they’ve ordered them to pay.
Stockport Council, which was awarded the highest ‘four star’ status earlier this year, was found to be guilty of maladministration.
The ombudsman report said the Council:
"As a result, the boy’s educational needs were not met throughout his last three years at secondary school," the ombudsman spokesman added.
The ombudsman has recommended the Council pay Adam’s mum Denise Miller, £1,000 compensation, and that they set up a £20,000 fund for Adam’s future and pay three years’ college fees.
Speaking exclusively to the Stockport Express, Denise spoke of her six-year fight to get suitable schooling for Adam, now 17.
"It’s been a very, very hard struggle," she said. "I have lost a business I have had for 20 years. It’s very upsetting - I feel that it’s placed the family under so much pressure and stress and I think they have been so unfair in the way they have handled everything."
Adam was moved to Reddish Vale in 2002 after thriving at specialist primary Oak Grove, in Cheadle Heath.
"I could tell in the first six months of him being in mainstream school that it was going wrong," said Denise. "They were phoning up and telling me things that were happening, but they were just treating him as a naughty child."
When Denise complained, the Council tried Adam on two work placements - one of which, she claims, was with young offenders, despite requests for good role models.
"Socially it had a very bad effect," she said. By Year 10, Adam was only being allowed into school one day a week, missing out on vital social skills and, claims Denise, making his disorder even worse.
But despite the fact Reddish Vale couldn’t cope, the Council ignored requests for him to be transferred to a specialist independent school.
A Stockport Council spokesman said: "This young person has clearly been let down by the Council and we are sorry for our failings.
"We will ensure theperson is supported in the future."
Despite his problems, Adam still managed to gain two GCSEs. But Denise has now lost her 20-year-old art business after spending so much time at home looking after him.
"If Adam had been left any longer he could have ended up in prison," she said. "Now I’m left to pick up the pieces."
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Someonewhoknows, Stockport (10/04/2008 at 21:01)
Stockport is very poorly funded, educationally, by the Government. The Council makes this worse by cutting the funding available to children with Special Educational Needs.
If you read the full report on the LGO website, it repeatedly gives examples of why Stockport Council is continually failing many, many children with SEN: reports and evidence ignored, refusals to respond to letters written by parents, staff too busy to read documents properly, beurocrats not bothering to remember that each piece of paper represents a child's life and future.
It may be expensive to pay for children with special needs to receive an appropriate education e.g. by paying for a private special school, but that is no excuse for refusing to do so.
It is also pointless and short-sighted to cut back on spending on a child like Adam with SEN, as, as his mother points out, it will cost society more to meet their needs when they get older, failures of the education system, casualties of beurocracy and possibly criminals or mentally ill.
This is a long-term, widespread problem within Stockport's education system, and something MUST be done about it if we are to have any hope of Stockport's children fulfilling their potential and growing up to be working, happy citizens.
Pip Reddish (10/04/2008 at 22:34)
Bring your children up properly, spend time interacting with them and STOP blaming schools, councils and anyone else you can think of for your own failings as a parent.
Someonewhoknows, Stockport (10/04/2008 at 23:06)
Someonewhoknows, Stockport (11/04/2008 at 18:02)
ADD, ADHD and autism are very similar conditions which do exist and are not something which the child or parents can help.
Yes, there are some parents who makes excuses for their child's behaviour by claiming that they have one of these, but this boy was diagnosed by a consultant psychiatrist, and they don't diagnose without being sure that the child has a genuine condition. Get educated! Autism is on the rise and you need to lose the ignorance.
milli vanillis toyboy uncle, stocky (12/04/2008 at 16:04)
willford (12/04/2008 at 22:52)
Stockport is funded like a number of Councils for schools e.g.Trafford, Solihull, Bury, Bromley, yet their GCSE results have far outstripped Stockport's.
There is something fundamentally wrong with the system that blames everyone else but itself.
Roy Gregory, Exile (13/04/2008 at 13:36)
Do Council Spokespersons not speak the Queen's English these days? He is a boy dammit!
Many badly brought up children do acquire convenient medical labels to mask their avoidable inadequacies. We have no evidence that this is the case here so I feel it’s rather harsh baldly branding Mrs Miller a bad parent or Master Miller a bad boy.