Ruby had lots of support at school

This interview was a bonus for my project. When I arrived at Ruby's house I was only expecting to have an interview with her, however her Mum was more than willing to contribute.

Whilst I let Ruby read through the questions once more before we began the interview, Sarah (Ruby's Mum) asked me if she could say a few words about her and her husbands decision to send Ruby to a state school. This was because Ruby would have been too young to make this decision and wouldn't have been able to answer one of the questions I had prepared. Sarah kindly offered to fill in for this question which led to a full on interview as I was interested to find out more.

Ruby was at the same level with her speech and language than her peers

First of all I asked Sarah why her and her husband decided to send Ruby to a state school rather than a specialist deaf school. Her reply was that Ruby had done very well with her cochlear implants and was near enough at the same level with her speech and language than her peers so they believed there was no need to send Ruby to a specialist school. Sarah also felt that she wanted Ruby to be at school with local friends. I then wanted to learn a little more about Sarah's experience when Ruby fell ill with meningitis and their decision to go ahead with the cochlear implants. Sarah explained that they didn't really have much of a choice in regards to whether or not to go ahead with the implants because the illness had made Ruby profoundly deaf. Sarah added that the cochlear implant operation part of the process was a bit of a blur because it was on the back of a traumatic experience.

I then asked Sarah about what she thought of the support that Ruby received at both primary and secondary school. Sarah explained that Ruby was very fortunate and got consistent support from sensory services and she has always had one to one support from a Learning Support Assistant who was formally from the sensory support service. This support was only available to Ruby because of her statement of special educational need which was a difficult document to get. After this was taken to Tribunal, luckily, Ruby was given extra support and extra funding to help her through her education. Sarah expressed that if Ruby was to not win her case and if she didn't have the support she did at school then Ruby would not have done as well as she did in her exams.

"It was almost a full time job going through that period"

In some ways I feel that this may be unfair on other families if they do not have the financial capability or the time to deal with the documents from the council in order for their child to get the support they need. Sarah explains her experience: