If only it were that easy...in the UK, at least in my area (which apparently has one of the worst special ed sections in the country,due to overpopulation and ESL), the schools are not proactive like in the US, they don't hold them back a grade even if they need it (for 3 years straight I begged the Local Education Authority), they just let them leave at 16 (18 for my daughter, rules have changed for her year group onwards) with absolutely no qualifications. For children in my area with my daughter's problems, in an area that covers a circumference of roughly 40 miles of densely populated east of england, there are only 22 places for children with her problems, so they grade them on severity of the READING AGE ONLY. She does have a homework diary, but most of the notes I write in it seem to go unnoticed by her form tutor despite the fact she has to sign it each week.
I do try to work with her but my other 2 children also have additional needs. My 7 yr old has extension work every evening as he is working 3 years above his peer group, and my youngest also has special needs. The school seems to have a very set scheme in which things are dealt with. Form tutor first, then deputy head of year and heads of each department, then head of year, then deputy head, then only after you have exhausted all those avenues do you get to talk to the principal. I am STILL waiting for the head of maths to get back to me.
It won't matter how much I try to get her reassessed for a statement as the LEA in our area has devolved the SEN budgets to the schools for children on IEP, so if the school don't back me, as the primary school didn't, then you have no hope of acheiving that goal. This is because if a child has a statement then the money provided to the school for that child has to be spent on that child,as it comes from 'central government funds'. However if a child has an IEP, then the money is provided directly to the school and the school do not have to actually spend that money helping that particular child and often the funds left in the SEN 'pot' from children on IEP's at the end of the year get used for buying equipment for the schools. It's a travesty that my friends and I are trying to fight, but are meeting HUGE resistance from all the local schools AND the local education authority. There is no accountability for funds provided 'in respect of' a child with an IEP, whereas every penny has to be accounted for with a statement, which is why both the schools and the LEA in our area are putting up soooo many barriers to statements. Unless you have a VERY obvious physical difficulty (and not even always then, I know of 3 children with severe downs syndrome locally that don't get any help) OR, more usually, severe behavioural difficulties, then you are basically stuffed as far as a statement goes.
:soap:SORRY for massively long rant, subject is very close to my heart and a MAJOR bugbear!