A WEST FIFE mum has called for more support to help children with additional needs.

Lyndsey Fraser has started a petition demanding "changes in the education system" which has, in a week, collected nearly 700 signatures.

She was spurred on to take action after concern over her own experiences with seven-year-old Evie, who attends Saline Primary School.

The Primary 3 pupil suffers from heterotaxy, a rare disease which affects just four in a million babies and has left her with two right lungs, a midline liver and no spleen.

The family have been left upset by a change to Evie's pupil support assistant arrangements at the beginning of term and Lyndsey decided to speak out in the hope of changing things for themselves and other families in the future.

"I am fed up of parents not being heard," she told the Press. "We know our children inside and out and within the education system, we should have a say in who is looking after them, who is going to be working with them and things like that.

"We know what is going to work for them and the school is not following the 'Getting it Right For Every Child (GIRFEC, a Scottish Government initiative).

"She is supposed to have a dedicated pupil support. Before the summer holidays, we were told it would be another person but now there are two people switching over. She needs consistency and the school is not willing to listen."

Lyndsey was further angered this week as Evie came home with a letter about an after-school drama class at the school but because it is being run privately, she had been told that she would have to be there with her daughter as cover could not be provided.

"I am at the end of my tether," she added. "It is difficult enough having a child with additional needs without having a constant battle with the school and the council. I just want equality for her.

"I don't want her going into adulthood saying, 'I missed out on that all because someone at the council said there is not funding for things like that'.

"She has never asked to do an out-of-school club or anything like this before. For it to be turned into another stress, that is why I started up the petition.

"In Fife, there are so many families of children with special needs who are fed up. On the petition, some people have been having the same issues for 20-odd years. Unless everybody steps up and actually says enough is enough it won't improve. These children deserve more than what they are getting."