So my apparently convoluted quest to find out what date Jude is transferring to his new school continues…
To date, I have been consistently telephoning the council every week for around a month now and have not been given a start date for Jude’s new school. I appreciate that the school are ultimately the deciders of this date so I’m not entirely impressed with them either at the moment. BUT as is standard practise for Hertfordshire County Council, I do not have a direct contact with the schools department and am finding the ridiculous complexities of their social care system wholly confusing and largely unnecessary. How hard is it really to work out start dates for a bunch of children transferring schools?!!?
I spoke to a lady on Thursday but the person I needed (my Gatekeeper?!) wasn’t available but would call me back on Friday (we’ve heard this one before, haven’t we?!)
Guess what? She didn’t call!!
So this morning I rang up Herts Council again and went through all their security questions. The person I spoke to asked if I had called the school directly to find out a start date – I replied that I had but they never return my calls and the one time I did get through to someone, they asked me to speak to the council team rather than the school direct. The telephone lady retorted that the school should typically let the parents know before the council so it’s really them I need to be calling ARRGGHHHH
She dialled through to the SEN team for me but they’re all in a meeting for a few hours (probably discussing new and innovative ways of fobbing off this nutty parent that keeps hassling them.) SO miraculously, about ten minutes later someone rang me back but explained that I need to speak to a team in a different area of Herts County Council (the county is broken down into smaller sections). I was given another number and a name so called immediately but found out the person who is in charge of this schools count is in a meeting so will call me back as soon as possible…
Can I possibly receive two calls back in one day?! I’ll let you know later.
My point of waffling on with all this detail is to ONCE AGAIN explain how flippin complicated it can be just finding out simple information when you have a disabled child. Now imagine I had a disability myself, or a learning delay and found this level of ridiculousness too much to handle. How would Jude get anywhere?? It literally makes me mad how badly our council treats the people who need the support the most.
