October 2009 - "This Is Getting To Be A Habit With Me!"
I hope that you had a good summer break and that you have had a chance to ease back into work and/or the new academic year 2009/10. It always amazes me that another year always goes by so quickly!
Here is our latest news update. As you may already know, I usually endeavour to write at least two updates every year, firstly a ‘New Year’ update in January and then another in May or June which coincides with the anniversary of the setting up of Douglas Silas Solicitors on 3 May 2005. My 3rd anniversary update last year only managed to go out in September 2008, and this 4th anniversary update is now coming out in October 2009. So, as I say, ‘this is getting to be a habit with me’!
Actually, I have sent out a couple of other updates since my New Year update entitled 'A Lot Can Happen In A Year...' in January 2009. In case you missed them you can read them again here: ‘UK ratifies human rights treaty for disabled people....’ (sent on 9 June 2009) and ‘Special Educational Needs news: parents get further right to appeal....’ (sent on 3 August 2009). Both of which, I hope, were self-explanatory, and I will continue to send out this sort of information from time to time when news arises.
However, it has become increasingly hard for me to ensure that there is something for everyone in these updates. This is because the people now on our various email lists have such a wide range of interests and backgrounds. They say that it is not possible to please everyone all of the time and that if you try to please everyone you will end up pleasing no one! However, I still want to; so whether you know me professionally, publicly or personally, I hope that you will find something of interest to you below.
This update covers sections entitled 'The Lamb Enquiry', 'Latest Additions/Improvements to our Website', 'New Way of Listening to our Website/Increased Accessibility', 'Can You Help Me?' and 'Choose a Job You Love...'. I have actually saved the story which I was going to tell you until my New Year update in January 2010. You will see why when you read it.
THE LAMB INQUIRY
The Lamb Inquiry was established as part of the Government’s response to the House of Commons Education and Skills Committee Report "Special Educational Needs: Assessment and Funding". The Lamb Inquiry, under the chairmanship of Brian Lamb, the Chair of the Special Educational Consortium, was asked to investigate a range of ways in which parental confidence in the SEN assessment process might be improved.
On 29 April 2009 Brian Lamb submitted a Report to the Secretary of State and, in an accompanying letter, outlined his recommendations and identified further issues arising from evidence to the Inquiry that far. The Secretary of State’s reply accepted the recommendations and asked Brian Lamb to report to him again in July on issues relating to statements and the inspection framework.
On 30 June 2009 the Lamb Inquiry called for evidence closed with just over 3,400 replies being received: 1,941 from parents, 544 from school staff, 516 from other professionals working with children schools and families and 400 students. The responses were subsequently analysed as an important source of evidence for the Inquiry.
On 3 August 2009 Brian Lamb submitted his reports on the Quality and clarity of statements and Inspection, accountability and school improvement to the Secretary of State. In an accompanying letter, he outlined his recommendations, including two statutory changes: one to provide a right of appeal for parents if a local authority decides not to amend a statement after a review; and one to place a specific duty on Ofsted to report on the quality of the education provided for disabled children and children with SEN. As I said in my update that day, the Secretary of State’s reply accepted the recommendations.
Most recently, on 25 September 2009, Brian Lamb wrote again to the Secretary of State recommending the strengthening of the SEN responsibilities of schools working together in Behaviour and Attendance Partnerships. He also sent to the Secretary of State the national study of eight Lamb Projects, Lamb Inquiry: LAs’ learning from the eight projects, and recommended further pilot projects to improve parents’ confidence in the SEN system. In a press notice the Secretary of State agreed again to the recommendations.
So you can see why everyone is really looking forward to the full report now. I have heard that it should be with us in the next few weeks. I will keep you updated as soon as I hear anything.
But now a bit about what we have been up to...
LATEST ADDITIONS/IMPROVEMENTS TO OUR WEBSITE
I have now revised/updated/added to our website as follows:
The new pages on 'Types of SEN/Disability' and 'SEN/Education Info’ reflect the increasingly wide range of issues we have been dealing with for children. I encourage you to use the ability to Download Pages As MP3 Files to increase your knowledge about these issues. I use it all the time to keep my own knowledge up!
If you have previously downloaded our FREE Factsheets you can download the updated versions quickly by clicking here.
I was hoping to have been able to revise/update our email course by this stage on ‘How To Conduct An Appeal To The SENDIST’ to deal with the new Tribunal Rules and procedures but, unfortunately, I have been unable to do this due to time pressures. As the current course was dealing with appeals under the old Tribunal Regulations I have taken it down from the website so that people are not confused. I will try to put up a new course at some point in the future if and when I get time.
NEW WAY OF LISTENING TO OUR WEBSITE/INCREASED ACCESSIBILITY
As you may know I am always striving to find ways of using technology to help both my clients and myself as well as help the people using our website. One of the most novel things I did a few years ago was designing a way of people being able to listen to our website by our creating a ‘text to speech’ file on nearly every page. This allowed the page to be read out to you by a computer-generated voice instead of, or in addition to, reading it for yourself. I also allowed for the ability to download certain pages as MP3 files for listening to later on a personal music player away from the computer. I said at that time (January 2007) that, as far as I was aware, nothing like this had ever been attempted on a website. But times move on...
I have recently implemented a new piece of software from a company called Textic (who I am incredibly grateful to for their understanding and support). This provides not only a new type of speech enabling technology but has also increased the website's overall accessibility.
You can now click on a button (at the top of every page) which provides a toolbar (on the bottom of every page) which then allows you to not only select the text that you want to have read to you (now in a very realistic English voice) but also allows you to choose whatever text you want to convert into and download as an MP3 file for listening to later away from your computer.
In addition, there are now a number of other features including increasing/decreasing font size, highlighting text (for easier reading) and many other accessibility options for website users with visual, literacy or other impairments.
It is quite hard to do credit in writing to just how fantastic this technology is. The best way is probably a practical demonstration which you can do by playing around with the toolbar and its features. Please let me know what you think. As a result of this I have gracefully retired our previous synthesised voices, affectionately known as ‘Callie’ and ‘David’, and wish to thank them for over 2½ years of fantastic service for us on a 24/7 basis!
CAN YOU HELP ME?
I am always thinking about ways in which I can add to/improve the website and there are some things which I have been planning which I hope to implement by our 5th anniversary next May 2010.
Although I know that updates from me like these are helpful to many people (judging by the many complimentary emails that I subsequently get and the ‘spike’ in our website statistics on the days that I send email updates out) I am also conscious that I have never actually asked whether people like these types of updates, what they like about our website or what they would like to see us put on it in the future, although I must be doing something right judging by the high number of daily visits.
To get constructive feedback quickly and easily I have put together a quick Website Survey here, which will only take you about one minute to complete. This will help me plan ahead for any changes to my updates and our website, if necessary. Please, please spare me a minute or so of your valuable time to let me know what you think as this may mean that I can provide better and more useful information not only to you but also to so many other people. I will make a decision on more significant changes based on the results of our survey which will hopefully be implemented by our 5th anniversary next May. My sincere thanks in advance.
I know full well how people are always very busy with the relentless challenges of domestic and working life. Remember how they once said that with the advent of technology and machines to help us the only remaining problem would be trying to work out how to spend all of our increased spare time. In fact, this was first said about 50 years ago with the introduction of washing machines and dishwashers. If they only knew how things would turn out. We seem to have become slaves to technology not masters of it!
CHOOSE A JOB YOU LOVE...
Confucius once said "Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life." I feel incredibly fortunate and privileged to be able to come into work every day and be in a team that helps change the lives of children with varying types of SEN and Disability as well as their families. The icing on the cake is that, from time to time, other people also recognise what we do.
Apart from the unsolicited emails that we continue to receive from members of the public praising our website (which we have put on our page called What The Public Say) personally, it still means a lot to me to read What Our Clients Say and What The Media Say about me/us. So please forgive me for ending this update by sharing with you some of the compliments we have received during the past year:
Here is our latest news update. As you may already know, I usually endeavour to write at least two updates every year, firstly a ‘New Year’ update in January and then another in May or June which coincides with the anniversary of the setting up of Douglas Silas Solicitors on 3 May 2005. My 3rd anniversary update last year only managed to go out in September 2008, and this 4th anniversary update is now coming out in October 2009. So, as I say, ‘this is getting to be a habit with me’!
Actually, I have sent out a couple of other updates since my New Year update entitled 'A Lot Can Happen In A Year...' in January 2009. In case you missed them you can read them again here: ‘UK ratifies human rights treaty for disabled people....’ (sent on 9 June 2009) and ‘Special Educational Needs news: parents get further right to appeal....’ (sent on 3 August 2009). Both of which, I hope, were self-explanatory, and I will continue to send out this sort of information from time to time when news arises.
However, it has become increasingly hard for me to ensure that there is something for everyone in these updates. This is because the people now on our various email lists have such a wide range of interests and backgrounds. They say that it is not possible to please everyone all of the time and that if you try to please everyone you will end up pleasing no one! However, I still want to; so whether you know me professionally, publicly or personally, I hope that you will find something of interest to you below.
This update covers sections entitled 'The Lamb Enquiry', 'Latest Additions/Improvements to our Website', 'New Way of Listening to our Website/Increased Accessibility', 'Can You Help Me?' and 'Choose a Job You Love...'. I have actually saved the story which I was going to tell you until my New Year update in January 2010. You will see why when you read it.
THE LAMB INQUIRY
The Lamb Inquiry was established as part of the Government’s response to the House of Commons Education and Skills Committee Report "Special Educational Needs: Assessment and Funding". The Lamb Inquiry, under the chairmanship of Brian Lamb, the Chair of the Special Educational Consortium, was asked to investigate a range of ways in which parental confidence in the SEN assessment process might be improved.
On 29 April 2009 Brian Lamb submitted a Report to the Secretary of State and, in an accompanying letter, outlined his recommendations and identified further issues arising from evidence to the Inquiry that far. The Secretary of State’s reply accepted the recommendations and asked Brian Lamb to report to him again in July on issues relating to statements and the inspection framework.
On 30 June 2009 the Lamb Inquiry called for evidence closed with just over 3,400 replies being received: 1,941 from parents, 544 from school staff, 516 from other professionals working with children schools and families and 400 students. The responses were subsequently analysed as an important source of evidence for the Inquiry.
On 3 August 2009 Brian Lamb submitted his reports on the Quality and clarity of statements and Inspection, accountability and school improvement to the Secretary of State. In an accompanying letter, he outlined his recommendations, including two statutory changes: one to provide a right of appeal for parents if a local authority decides not to amend a statement after a review; and one to place a specific duty on Ofsted to report on the quality of the education provided for disabled children and children with SEN. As I said in my update that day, the Secretary of State’s reply accepted the recommendations.
Most recently, on 25 September 2009, Brian Lamb wrote again to the Secretary of State recommending the strengthening of the SEN responsibilities of schools working together in Behaviour and Attendance Partnerships. He also sent to the Secretary of State the national study of eight Lamb Projects, Lamb Inquiry: LAs’ learning from the eight projects, and recommended further pilot projects to improve parents’ confidence in the SEN system. In a press notice the Secretary of State agreed again to the recommendations.
So you can see why everyone is really looking forward to the full report now. I have heard that it should be with us in the next few weeks. I will keep you updated as soon as I hear anything.
But now a bit about what we have been up to...
LATEST ADDITIONS/IMPROVEMENTS TO OUR WEBSITE
I have now revised/updated/added to our website as follows:
- I have added new pages under ‘Types of SEN/Disability’ in relation to:
- Angelman Syndrome
- Anxiety Disorders
- Arthritis
- Atypical Autism
- Conduct Disorder
- Diabetes
- Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome
- Emotional Literacy
- Graphomotor Skills
- Heller's Syndrome
- Hydrocephalus
- Hypotonia
- Mood Disorder
- Mowat-Wilson Syndrome
- Muscular Dystrophy
- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
- Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD)
- Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI) (Brittle Bone Disease)
- Pathological Demand Avoidance
- Proprioception
- Scoliosis
- Selective Mutism
- Semantic Pragmatic Disorder
- Sensory Integration Disorder (SID)
- Spina Bifida
- Waardenburg Syndrome
- Williams Syndrome
- Worster-Drought Syndrome
- I have added new pages under ‘SEN/Education Info’ in relation to:
- I have updated our Further Information page (to reflect the above changes)
- I have completely revised our Download Pages As MP3 Files page to include much better quality podcasts for all of our pages on ‘Types of SEN/Disability’ and 'SEN/Education Info’
- I have revised our FREE Factsheet on appeals to the SEND Tribunal (to take account of the changes to the Tribunal Rules and Procedures that came into effect on 3 November 2008) and have updated all our other FREE Factsheets
- I have updated our section on ‘Videos/Audios About SEN’ (and split it into 3 sections for easy reference)
- I have created a new, more attractive and better speaking Avatar for our 'Welcome' page!
The new pages on 'Types of SEN/Disability' and 'SEN/Education Info’ reflect the increasingly wide range of issues we have been dealing with for children. I encourage you to use the ability to Download Pages As MP3 Files to increase your knowledge about these issues. I use it all the time to keep my own knowledge up!
If you have previously downloaded our FREE Factsheets you can download the updated versions quickly by clicking here.
I was hoping to have been able to revise/update our email course by this stage on ‘How To Conduct An Appeal To The SENDIST’ to deal with the new Tribunal Rules and procedures but, unfortunately, I have been unable to do this due to time pressures. As the current course was dealing with appeals under the old Tribunal Regulations I have taken it down from the website so that people are not confused. I will try to put up a new course at some point in the future if and when I get time.
NEW WAY OF LISTENING TO OUR WEBSITE/INCREASED ACCESSIBILITY
As you may know I am always striving to find ways of using technology to help both my clients and myself as well as help the people using our website. One of the most novel things I did a few years ago was designing a way of people being able to listen to our website by our creating a ‘text to speech’ file on nearly every page. This allowed the page to be read out to you by a computer-generated voice instead of, or in addition to, reading it for yourself. I also allowed for the ability to download certain pages as MP3 files for listening to later on a personal music player away from the computer. I said at that time (January 2007) that, as far as I was aware, nothing like this had ever been attempted on a website. But times move on...
I have recently implemented a new piece of software from a company called Textic (who I am incredibly grateful to for their understanding and support). This provides not only a new type of speech enabling technology but has also increased the website's overall accessibility.
You can now click on a button (at the top of every page) which provides a toolbar (on the bottom of every page) which then allows you to not only select the text that you want to have read to you (now in a very realistic English voice) but also allows you to choose whatever text you want to convert into and download as an MP3 file for listening to later away from your computer.
In addition, there are now a number of other features including increasing/decreasing font size, highlighting text (for easier reading) and many other accessibility options for website users with visual, literacy or other impairments.
It is quite hard to do credit in writing to just how fantastic this technology is. The best way is probably a practical demonstration which you can do by playing around with the toolbar and its features. Please let me know what you think. As a result of this I have gracefully retired our previous synthesised voices, affectionately known as ‘Callie’ and ‘David’, and wish to thank them for over 2½ years of fantastic service for us on a 24/7 basis!
CAN YOU HELP ME?
I am always thinking about ways in which I can add to/improve the website and there are some things which I have been planning which I hope to implement by our 5th anniversary next May 2010.
Although I know that updates from me like these are helpful to many people (judging by the many complimentary emails that I subsequently get and the ‘spike’ in our website statistics on the days that I send email updates out) I am also conscious that I have never actually asked whether people like these types of updates, what they like about our website or what they would like to see us put on it in the future, although I must be doing something right judging by the high number of daily visits.
To get constructive feedback quickly and easily I have put together a quick Website Survey here, which will only take you about one minute to complete. This will help me plan ahead for any changes to my updates and our website, if necessary. Please, please spare me a minute or so of your valuable time to let me know what you think as this may mean that I can provide better and more useful information not only to you but also to so many other people. I will make a decision on more significant changes based on the results of our survey which will hopefully be implemented by our 5th anniversary next May. My sincere thanks in advance.
I know full well how people are always very busy with the relentless challenges of domestic and working life. Remember how they once said that with the advent of technology and machines to help us the only remaining problem would be trying to work out how to spend all of our increased spare time. In fact, this was first said about 50 years ago with the introduction of washing machines and dishwashers. If they only knew how things would turn out. We seem to have become slaves to technology not masters of it!
CHOOSE A JOB YOU LOVE...
Confucius once said "Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life." I feel incredibly fortunate and privileged to be able to come into work every day and be in a team that helps change the lives of children with varying types of SEN and Disability as well as their families. The icing on the cake is that, from time to time, other people also recognise what we do.
Apart from the unsolicited emails that we continue to receive from members of the public praising our website (which we have put on our page called What The Public Say) personally, it still means a lot to me to read What Our Clients Say and What The Media Say about me/us. So please forgive me for ending this update by sharing with you some of the compliments we have received during the past year:
Legal 500
“Douglas Silas is remarkable for his knowledge, his humanity, sense of humour, and ability to give a client good but sometimes tough advice.”
Our Clients
"The whole team at Douglas Silas Solicitors were unfailingly supportive, friendly, and professional in the very fraught circumstances we faced in preparing for, and at, the Tribunal. I never had the slightest doubt that you were all doing your utmost to get the right result – and the right result is what we got. Many thanks to all of you."
***
"Without Douglas and his team I am sure that my son would still not have the statement that he so desperately needed. He is now in the right kind of school for his needs and is blossoming. We are so grateful to Douglas and his wonderful team, not just for the legal expertise that they so clearly have, but also for their great personal kindness, good counsel and warm support. "
***
Once again, thanks for all your help. Your professionalism, tenacity, clarity and attention to detail gave us a great deal of confidence through the course of this process, and ultimately delivered a result which was better than we dared hope for.."
The Public
"Thanks for your help to date and your brilliant website and email course."
***
"Thanks for all you are doing. I have referred countless people having difficulty to your web site. It is phenomenal."
***
"I really think your website is fantastic. I think this service really does help parents out there "
***
"Thank you, info was very useful. Great website, lots of clear information. Would recommend it to anyone."
***
"Congratulations on your website! I am most impressed by all the most useful resources that are available on your site. The tone of the web site is very friendly and I appreciate all the personal touches. "
***
"It is great to know brilliant people like you can fight for us."
***
“Douglas Silas is remarkable for his knowledge, his humanity, sense of humour, and ability to give a client good but sometimes tough advice.”
Our Clients
"The whole team at Douglas Silas Solicitors were unfailingly supportive, friendly, and professional in the very fraught circumstances we faced in preparing for, and at, the Tribunal. I never had the slightest doubt that you were all doing your utmost to get the right result – and the right result is what we got. Many thanks to all of you."
***
"Without Douglas and his team I am sure that my son would still not have the statement that he so desperately needed. He is now in the right kind of school for his needs and is blossoming. We are so grateful to Douglas and his wonderful team, not just for the legal expertise that they so clearly have, but also for their great personal kindness, good counsel and warm support. "
***
Once again, thanks for all your help. Your professionalism, tenacity, clarity and attention to detail gave us a great deal of confidence through the course of this process, and ultimately delivered a result which was better than we dared hope for.."
The Public
"Thanks for your help to date and your brilliant website and email course."
***
"Thanks for all you are doing. I have referred countless people having difficulty to your web site. It is phenomenal."
***
"I really think your website is fantastic. I think this service really does help parents out there "
***
"Thank you, info was very useful. Great website, lots of clear information. Would recommend it to anyone."
***
"Congratulations on your website! I am most impressed by all the most useful resources that are available on your site. The tone of the web site is very friendly and I appreciate all the personal touches. "
***
"It is great to know brilliant people like you can fight for us."
***
So that’s it for now. I really hope that you have found something in this update of interest to you.With good wishes as always.
Douglas
P.S. Please do not forget to take our quick website survey now if you have the chance. I know from experience that doing something immediately so that you can strike it from your list of things to do is always better than telling yourself that you will get around to doing it later when you have more time. If you are anything like me, you never have ‘more time’!
Douglas
P.S. Please do not forget to take our quick website survey now if you have the chance. I know from experience that doing something immediately so that you can strike it from your list of things to do is always better than telling yourself that you will get around to doing it later when you have more time. If you are anything like me, you never have ‘more time’!
