Actually, no, I don't think my son has ADHD, or sensory integration issues, or conduct disorder or behavioural 'problems'...

[WilfShelf]

...or any thing else that can be labelled and which individualises and medicalises the issue.

And the REAL issue is that there is a class of 30 children, and he is a little person who is different and he won't sit quietly like the girls (who are, after all, the 'model' for good behaviour in primary schools).

And the friendship dynamic with one particular group of children is dysfunctional and actually he is simply SAD because he can't feel like he has real friends and the school is not helping that.

And the recognition that he is a physical, creative person doesn't seem to fit the model of what a school child should be. The school seems to be becoming more rigid, more over-reactive: what to me seem quite 'normal' behaviour blips are being pursued with 'intervention'. I don't want it, and he doesn't need it.

Argh.

I live in a cultural desert: there is NO hope of finding a suitable alternative school, I need to work so can't home ed, so what do I do?

[Octavia09]

I have heard that teachers receive more in payment when a pupil has some health issues. That is why they try to attach this ADHD or Asperger's syndrome label to children who do not sit "still" and have some minor learning difficulties.

[KatyMac]

Can you increase his out of school experiences; things like cubs or forest schools are great (esp for boys who can't sit still) as they address learning in ways that can be accessed more easily

[bigTillyMint]

What???? Octavia, where have you heard that?

[spanieleyes]

Well you have heard wrong!

[bigTillyMint]

HOw old is he?

[ColdComfortFarm]

Oh that's absolutely RUBBISH Octavia! It's a bloody nightmare trying to get a diagnosis and some help. That sort of ignorant crap pisses me right off, and adds to this awful culture where parents whose children have a diagnosis are widely assumed to be milking the system for their own selfish purposes. If you don't know about something, why comment?
My experience of having a very physical and lively and creative NT child (who happens to be female) in Yr1 is not at all that she is being being suppressed in a rigid environment, actually. Yes, she gets a bit fed up on the carpet, but it's part of the deal and only for quite short periods. The child in her class who is constantly in difficulties due to an inability to sit still or refrain from calling out is female, and tbh, yes, I think this child has a problem and would hugely benefit from a 'label'.

[DinahRod]

No Octavia there isn't a bounty on children with "health issues"

WillShelf, sorry if you've already said but how old is ds? And have you been able to get in class to observe him?

[Goblinchild]

'I have heard that teachers receive more in payment when a pupil has some health issues.'

That's fantastic news Octavia, I must be owed a bloody fortune by now.
Could you please give me some links, so I know where to put in my claims?
Will it be backdated over the 27 years I've been teaching?

[Feenie]

Absolute hooey, Octavia.

[pagwatch]

Aw wilf , that is so sad and so frustrating for you.
Poor old DS1 found school life difficult when he was between 8 and 10. He hated his school and found other peoples reaction to his brother ( who has ASD) really difficult.

The whole issue of behavioural disorders is so difficult - bloody hard to get a decent diagnosis yet those who should know better bady around terms they don't understand.

And school is too prescriptive now. My DS2 who can't tie a school lace or understand abstract concepts has to do shakespear

I don't know your area and I don't really know what to advise.

If it is any comfort we just supported DS1 as much as we could - reassured him that being a sheep was not the secret to happiness and he has found his way through to being a happy accomplished young man with great friends.

I remember those years so well though.

[brokeoven]

THANKYOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just wish that i had the balls to say this and to stand my ground as my son is EXACTLY like you describe your son to be.

They described him as disruptive and the boy who just cant sit still because he would not sit still on the carpet when he was 4 and started school. (he had been 4 for a whole 2 months)
He fiddles with his shoes, his sweater, the carpet they said...
"give him a piece of blue tac in his hands" i said.
No he needs to learn to sit like all the others they said.

well you are expecting too much i said.

wanted to say "FUCK OFF with your little pigeon hole restrictive regulation "normal kids should do xxx" philosophy!

Class of 34, ds is the youngest in the class.
GAHHHHH

[Malaleuca]

It can be incredibly difficult managing a large group of diverse, young personalities, and also teach them something! Even one hard to manage child impacts on the entire group,often triggering undesirable behaviour in those who are only just managing to concentrate for longer than five minutes.
It is, after all, a mass education system,and the little square pegs have a tougher time.

I work with a teacher who manages her large group rather well, yet one new arrrival,like the child in OP arrived late in the year,and almost reduced the teacher to years,such was the level of disruption. My school is exploring any way to get additional hands-on help. One is volunteer parents, another is classifying the child as one who does need an aide. Another is allocating the support teacher to this one child. All of these options come at a cost.

And if only all girls were models of good behaviour!

[Goblinchild]

It sounds as if you are extremely unlucky with your school, but if you can't move him, then you need to support him and encourage him to be an individual outside of the restrictive environment he has to exist in for a portion of the day.
I would challenge the school on their curriculum, teaching strategies for each learner as an individual and how they are encouraging him to recognise his strengths and work on areas that he struggles with.
Including learning styles and friendship issues.

[onimolap]

Teachers individually do not get paid more for higher numbers of SEN, but it is an important part of schools overall evaluation (contextual and value added scores) and it may increase the the school's overall budget (leading to more teachers, better resources). This article from The Times Educational supplement describes it. It's state schools only, not a private school thing.

[Feenie]

"it may increase the the school's overall budget (leading to more teachers, better resources)"

It would more likely lead to the employment of a TA, actually - but the need would have to be very severe, much much more than we are discussing here.

[colditz]

Just be careful of parental blindness.

Our own child is perfect. We all have a perfect child. We all know that it is other children who sit too still, behave boringly, are strangely adult and don't seem to be childlike.

I shared a taxi with a woman on my way to Ds1's CAMHS assessment. She was telling me that she understood her daughter was a little bit different but really the school were over reacting and with a little bit of flexible teaching, her daughter would be fine. And she was a nice woman, not one of those bullish twats who parp on "Oh he's just tired" as her 5 year old dangles your cat by it's tail.

But her daughter was very very clearly autistic. As clear as he nose on her face - but her mother could not see it.

Likewise, until I get other children into my house, into my actual control, Ds1 seems to me to be normal but active. It's only with comparison to normal children his age that I see that lack of social understanding, the hyperactivity, the appalling inattention that honest-to-God disables him ...

So beware of parental blindness. Nobody wants their child to have an 'issue'.

[mrz]

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/15/ofsted-special-educational-needs-teaching
^ * Comment is free

So special needs is a con, is it? It's not a very clever one

Special needs does not open a treasure chest to school funding

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Comments (106)

* Zoe Williams
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o Zoe Williams
o guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 15 September 2010 20.30 BST
o Article history

As open as I am to the idea of individual teachers being self-serving, mercenary con artists, I always smell a rat at any story that finds those traits in the entire profession. Moral considerations aside, if those are your main motivators teaching is a really poor use of your skill set. You'd be much better off as a sales person, or a management consultant.

But there it is: an Ofsted report this week finds 457,925 of the 1.65 million children who have been diagnosed with special educational needs (SEN) actually don't have them. Christine Gilbert, the chief inspector of schools, said head-teachers are "identifying children as having special educational needs when they need essentially better teaching".

The subtext is that schools misdiagnose deliberately to excuse laziness in teaching and to wring more money out of the local authority. The Times says children are over-diagnosed to "boost funding and improve league table provision"; the Mail goes blunt, accusing the Quintin Kynaston School of being "on the Special Needs gravy train" (read the teacher, Jo Shuter, here).

This presentation is all wrong. It doesn't boost funding to diagnose children with special educational needs; nor are these pupils excised from the exam results, to give a better average for league tables. If over-diagnosis of special needs improved league performance at all, it would be in the "contextual value-added" (CVA) table. This tries to adjust schools for social factors, to give a fairer account of their attainment. Eleven categories are taken into consideration (special needs is one), including the number of children with English as a second language, the "income deprivation affecting children" index, the number of free school meals.^

There is such a high level of coincidence between these factors that the story tells itself, and there's no need for an individual headteacher to exaggerate the numbers in any given category. You could argue that if a large group of headteachers got together to exaggerate their SEN classifications that might, over time, lead to special needs attaining greater status in the CVA calculation. But what you'd be talking about there is a special needs exaggeration cartel. I mean, it's possible. It just doesn't seem very likely.

We have high levels of SEN employ one TA and no additional teachers ...

[mrz]

Not sure where the extra text came from

This presentation is all wrong. It doesn't boost funding to diagnose children with special educational needs; nor are these pupils excised from the exam results, to give a better average for league tables. If over-diagnosis of special needs improved league performance at all, it would be in the "contextual value-added" (CVA) table. This tries to adjust schools for social factors, to give a fairer account of their attainment. Eleven categories are taken into consideration (special needs is one), including the number of children with English as a second language, the "income deprivation affecting children" index, the number of free school meals.

There is such a high level of coincidence between these factors that the story tells itself, and there's no need for an individual headteacher to exaggerate the numbers in any given category. You could argue that if a large group of headteachers got together to exaggerate their SEN classifications that might, over time, lead to special needs attaining greater status in the CVA calculation. But what you'd be talking about there is a special needs exaggeration cartel. I mean, it's possible. It just doesn't seem very likely.

We have high levels of SEN employ one TA and no additional teachers ...

[Feenie]

Am I right in thinking you also have SNAs though, mrz - in our school they come under the same umbrella and are mostly rotated n an annual basis, since working one to one with a child with complex needs can be very difficult and quite draining.

[Tidey]

Is it not true that schools get more funding if a child is disagnosed as having something like ADHD or ASD? I'd heard that before, not the thing about teachers getting paid more, that sounds wrong, but thought the school itself got more money to pay for extra class assistants etc?