I think it is a completely unfair process i could not afford representation in a tribunal against a School, the council did pay to represent the school as they can afford to. They make out on the SENDIST Dvd that it really makes no difference if you have representation or not but i do not agree with this it is in my opinion the only reason we lost the discrimination case was down to the fact the other side had representation and had the full knowledge of the law. they are not interested if a school lies out of the back teeth and the fact that it is very obvious in all the notes they are not interested if a Teacher has a clear problem with having your child in the Classroom and states it - they are only interested if you can prove it within there process. Also i think it is a bit of a joke when it comes down to direct discrimination and indirect it comes down to words and not fact if you have discriminated directly they feel you should say that it was not so then it is indirect - Where as i feel if you have done something so that a disabled child has missed out or caused pain or discomfort and you are fully aware of that fact or not fully aware ( so you should not have got involved in the first place ) you are directly discriminating. I really advice anyone who is going to a S.e.n.d.i.s.t tribunal get representation!! I think it should be free! you have set up a process to help protect disabled children from being discriminated against but not gone the full way in helping .

I have just come across this forum so sorry this is a late posting but I wanted to share my experience of attending a DDA hearing with SENDIST. The school had a barrister (we had nobody) and they convinced SENDIST that my daughter had neither disability nor SEN.

Looking back we were niaive as we should have got independent reports etc done but it all comes down to money in the end and there is no way as a family we could compete with the resources a school has access to.Frankly we would rather spend our money on our children. Like the previous poster I feel that the school lied through their teeth and my daughter's difficulties were trivialised. Her SAT results (a few months later) confirmed her lack of progress between the two key stages but by then it was too late and she never got the support she needed at school because the school refused to see her difficulties.

I am glad I went to Tribunal - I know I did everything I could for my daughter but I would never advise anyone to do so without representation - it is not a level playing field! And what I felt was really bad was that all the school's witnesses (the HT, SENCO, Class teacher and Chair of Governors) were able to be present throughout the whole hearing and were consistently taking notes!!! Having to sit opposite a rather smug barrister was not much fun either particularly as she was quite patronising at times and minutes before the hearing begun) she presented us with a thick bundle of legal casework she intended to draw upon during the hearing!

Truth be told i think the whole thing is a complete farce.The Sendist Panel were nice and did listen but it was pretty obvious that they believed the school rather than us. But I hold my head up because my daughter's new secondary school immediately recognised her difficulties and we have since managed to pay for an independent educational psychology assessment that confirms the educational impact of her difficulties on her learning and the fact that she does have SEN.

As they say - the truth comes out eventually - just sad that the true cost is to the child