All these issues with schools!

@OhMargaret

Because as mentioned upthread SEN/D children are not a homogenous blob.
It encompasses a huge range of need.
My current foster child attends a small SEMH school, class of 8, 2 staff. It's still not right for him.
Sticking 100s of children with a huge range of need in a few schools just doesn't work.

But also this...

This..

The range of SEND is enormous and many many SEN children really are best educated in properly funded mainstream schools. Funding is the issue for all children in education.

There is a need for more specialist provision but it’s not needed or beneficial for 1/4 of children.

My most troublesome classes during my career have often been the smallest!

But that's generally why they're the smallest classes.

Equating SEND children with disruption isn't helpful.

One of my most amazingly successful, talented, accomplished and well-behaved students came under that umbrella. Some real pain-in-the-arse kids don't.

But those 25% would have very different needs and academic abilities. They're not an undifferentiated lump.

We do need more variety of schools.

Sadly, we HAD more variety of schools.

I don't think class sizes is the magic bullet (although the class does need to actually fit the room - I've got 31 rather large teenagers in a room designed for a max of 28 smaller sized people...no-one can move...)

Evidence from meta reviews (Sutton Trust etc) on class size is weak.

My most troublesome classes during my career have often been the smallest!

Class size does help with marking and that would help with retention, so that would be helpful. Although probably schools would just insist on more marking.

If 25% of the population is genuinely SEND there shouldn't be any problem setting special schools up for these kids. Why not group them together if it's truly one in four? At that level it makes no sense mixing these kids with the general intake. There's enough to fill one school in four so why not go down that route? Even if lower staff ratios aren't possible at the moment, at the very least it would spare the other 75% the disruption.

I've worked in secondary schools in inner London since 1991. One big change is to do with SEN.
The number of SEND students has increased a lot and the severity of their conditions has increased.
And the advice by professionals who don't work in education coupled with the so called inclusion policies at the turn of the century has created very poor provision for many SEND students.
Often parents of SEND students are told absolutely misleading nonsense about mainstream secondary schools.
The requirements on some EHCPs run contrary to commonsense and often flout the advice of mental health professionals!
When I was in my first year of teaching during an inset day I was asked what one thing would help most of my students, I wrote down class sizes of no more than 24. I still believe that today, it would cost a great deal of money aka an increase in taxes.

Also quiet/withdrawn/overwhelmed SEN kids probably suffer more from the unmet needs of some other SEN kids than anyone else.

They're not one homogeneous lump.

Some of the feckless people are the problem.

They aren’t all of the problem or even the largest part but some people are crap parents and their children don’t have a chance. Absolving them of responsibility doesn’t help anyone.

Just read the post above yours. Open your eyes, it's naive and ignorant, come on. You are reading too much of the daily mail and falling for it.

There have always been feckless people. They really aren't the problem. But it stops naive people looking and realising when the feckless are blamed for all of our ills. Smoke and mirrors.

@Sweetaschocolate my expat friend was horrified to hear that my AuDHD child has seen a paediatrician twice in her nearly 12 years.

The first time paid for by us (about 3 grand for the ADOS and QB check) and the second time by the NHS after a 3 year wait and he, while nice enough, just rubberstamped what the private sector had done.

GP helpful but don't know much and nowhere to refer to.

Expat friend's kids see a paediatrician once a year automatically under the social insurance there.

@noblegiraffe that is the most poignant post I have read in an incredibly long time.

The power of denial is incredible, I think every one of us applies it to our lives in varying degrees. The reality of how it actually is ( schools, NHS and so on) is too unpalatable to contemplate.

when you have children with additional needs don't like to see them and pass it back to the paediatrician.

Yes, we have seen this with children with autism who suffer from extreme anxiety and suicidal thoughts and when they finally get to CAMHS they've been told 'this is a feature of their autism and not our area'.

Or, they have the extreme anxiety, get diagnosed with autism and that's seen as the end point - oh now you have an explanation for the anxiety.

Many of them will likely find it difficult to find work and to varying extents will be dependent on the state.

They will find the workplace difficult, won't pay much tax and if and when they have their own children, will understandably be suspicious of the education system.

What happens to all these children who need support when they are no longer school age?

I'm a parent to sen children, my youngest has ASD/ADHD and a tic disorder.
Emotionally he is of a 4 year old but is actually 10.
As time has gone on in school he has found it harder and harder.
Last school year he was in for 2 hours a day and I stayed with him to support this.
Now he is in full time with a 1 to 1 but is rarely in the classroom.

My son needs meds for his ADHD but he can not swallow them, he still drinks from a babys bottle and he has been refused liquid medication.

We just get a leaflet on how we can manage my child, and a check in every so often (and most don't even get that).

His paediatrician has stated they would like to have a child psychologist working with them to help my child and a lot of others by actually given them the mental health and strategies to help them but cost to much.
And TAMHS have a very long waiting list and very little support (from my experience) who when you have children with additional needs don't like to see them and pass it back to the paediatrician.

The school has been amazing with my son, but they do not have enough money for the staff and resources that they need.
The government want inclusion then they have to make it actually viable to do so!
Extra funding and more outside support for school and parents so they can accsess help and support when needed.
And not to keep children in a mainstream school when it is absolutely clear that they can't!

The education system is broken and adding inclusion without the means to sustain it is setting up to fail everybody.

They stopped surestarts which where brilliant at targeting familes that needed more support before they reached school and now things get left until teachers/children/parents are at crisis.

It starts with all of us not just parents not just school but there seems to be no community support and no continuity either.

Exactly right and then it moves the problem. A lot of times the schools “trade” kids as both schools want to exclude.

There is also the problem that schools cannot afford experienced teachers unless we work on the cheap. I was made redundant in August when my school closed due to falling pupil numbers. I had already taken a pay cut to work there and ended up only being there a year. I am now looking for a permanent job and am finding it tough. Most schools will take the cheapest option they can to balance the books so my years of experience and skills in behaviour management are sitting at home unpaid instead of being in a classroom doing what I do best.

Very short sighted and presumptuous.

The problem is this. There’s a HUGE amount of SEN in mainstream : we are talking extreme needs, children tearing apart classrooms etc. There is not enough money to staff and keep these kids safe (how many times will we hear quality first teaching?!) - Government targets for the other children left in classroom get more and more demanding all the while everyone’s attention is trying to manage the SEN caseload of children that don’t belong in mainstream and mainstream cannot manage/staff and fund. Teachers burn out and leave. It’s a HUGE issue. In 10 years I shudder to think what’s going to happen.

And literally straight after my post, another doing that exact same thing!