Sheffield mum claims disabled son has been denied access to education
He has also missed out on a year's worth of free school meals which should have been passed on
Last updated 9th Aug 2023
A Sheffield mum has exclusively told us how her son has had no access to education or the free school meals he’s entitled to for over a year.
Jennifer Dunstan's 12-year-old son Rio has multiple conditions and has an Educational Health Care plan (EHC) which lists him as a pupil at a local school.
But after being admitted to hospital, medical experts agreed he can no longer attend the school.
In that scenario the local authority has a duty to ensure a pupil still has access to appropriate education, despite being physically unable to attend school. Rio’s free school meal allowance should also have been passed on in the form of supermarket vouchers or food parcels.
But Jennifer says she's received nothing over the last 14 months, and has instead drained her savings paying for the resources to try and educate him herself:
“Not so much as sending me what the class might be doing as a topic this month, or anything I can print off and do with him at home… not so much as a paper and a pen, for this entire time,” she says.
“And nobody’s even been monitoring that my son’s receiving any education.
“I tell them each month, but nobody actually checks up to see what is it that he’s learning.”
Rio has three separate sleep disorders which mean he only sleeps for four to six hours a night, sometimes going up to 48 hours with no sleep at all. Whilst he’s awake he needs somebody with him at all times for his own safety which means, as his carer, Jennifer only gets to sleep when Rio does.
“When it’s time of an evening where he eventually does go to sleep and I should be getting some much-needed rest because I’m a parent carer… I’m not getting any rest because I’m spending that time planning his lessons for the week ahead.
“When you’re the one who’s caring for a person who’s that wakeful, how on earth do you then have any headspace to access information, to seek out support charities, to fill in forms?
“I’m not a teacher, I want to be my son’s mum. And I’m sure so many other families will feel the same way. Their actions are preventing us from being parents. They’re taking valuable time that we won’t get back.
“The fact is that legislation is only worth the paper it’s written on when it’s adhered to or respected in any way. It doesn’t feel like councils and school administrators actually respect what the legislation says.
“The really sad thing is I know there’s going to be other mums and dads in our city and our county who are going through a similar thing.”
Chief executive of Equalities and Human Rights UK Chrissy Meleady advocates for children across the country, including Rio - and says his case isn’t an isolated one:
“We’re advocating for hundreds of children across the UK in relation to these similar issues. But his is one of the most prolonged and entrenched cases we’ve seen.
“He wants to learn, he wants to be educated, and he has great aspirations. But he’s been held back, and that goes for many children who have been forced out of education.
“Part of the problem is that local authorities sometimes mislead families. For example, sometimes they’ll say to families that they can’t apply for an EHCP until they’re five, and then they’ll say ‘you can’t have it until you do three terms’.
“But you can have an ECHP from the age of birth in effect.
“So families are having to beef themselves up in terms of what their rights, entitlements and protections are.”
We've asked Sheffield City Council for a response.