DS had disruptive child sat behind him

I have realised that yes some kids sit with an ipad all day at school. I don't think anymore it's uncommon.

Come on, let's engage brain a little here.
The child will NOT be watching Paw Patrol all day. It will be used as an incentive for him to do work. So finish this worksheet, and you'll get 5 minutes of PP. And repeat.
Some children have such high levels of need, that this is the only way. At least initially. And this child's stress levels will be through the roof at being reintroduced to class.

OP, it would be absolutely fair enough to question the headphones thing. But please do not go straight to the Head as another poster suggested

Not only this 1 child but 29 other children failed.

So potentially you might in a part of the country where Sen provision is really bad and this enables the child to attend school. It's not great for the class but the teacher might. It have much other option if there isn't any funding for a teaching assistant to help the child.

Raise with the school but get angry with our system whereby this child is being failed

Were you in the classroom? No, and neither were your mum friends. Children do embellished and exaggerate. If you don't think your child does, you are That parent. I suspect if the cartoon was audible it was only for a few minutes. Sometimes autistic kids need an activity like watching a favourite show for a few minutes to regulate themselves. Maybe 5 minutes of audible cartoons is preferable to a full on 60 minute meltdown. Ideally the 1 to 1 would take the child out, but with so many send children in a school sometimes that just isn't possible, or the isn't anywhere that isn't being used by someone else. Primary classrooms are never quiet places. Tell your son to stay in his lane and focus on his work. No reason for him to be turning round!
Bear in mind class teachers are constrained by policies, and schools are legally required to follow the child's EHCP however ridiculously impractical some of the measures in it may be.

Children with SEND aren't the reason that schools have inadequate budgets and they're not a drain. What a horrible way to talk about children.

You remind me of the parents who bitched about how unfair it was that my DC had a funded 1:1 as part of their EHCP.

But it is ridiculous that child X is allowed to watch PP in the classroom. That statement is obviously true

Speak to the teacher, gently, focussing on your DS. It is always ok to say that your child finds something difficult, distracting, annoying etc and to ask for the teacher to help change that situation.

You have ZERO idea whether the statements "Child X shouldn't be allowed to watch Paw Patrol in the classroom" or "It's ridiculous that child X is allowed to watch PP in the classroom" are true or not so you should not say them at all.

However "my child finds it very distracting to have Paw Patrol playing in the classroom while he is trying to work at XYZ, so I hope you will be able to help him by not having Paw Patrol playing audibly for those lessons" is something you do know is true and have every right to ask.

It isn't just support staff though. Teachers still have to plan often bespoke curriculums/activities for these children. Often the SENCO role is given to a teacher who also has the responsibility of a class.

There's also a lot of paperwork involved documenting incidents, learning plans, parent meetings etc.

A huge amount of time and resources are given to children with SEND, and there isn't enough funding for full 1:1 support, which is draining school and LA budgets substantially.

So my point still stands that attention is indeed being taken away from the other majority of children (however many) in the class.

Support staff are literally there to support children with SEND, usually their salaries are partially paid for by using SEND funding. In our school three children with SEND left to go to the next stage of their education, one left to go to a special school, one left to go to a different mainstream school. The five children had four Learning Support Assistants between them, three of them were 1:1 and the other two shared an LSA. All four got laid off when the children left because there wasn't the money to keep them and no justification to pay for them using money from elsewhere in the budget. If children with SEND leave, your child doesn't magically get a learning support assistant for their classroom, it's far more likely that resource will vanish entirely.

Almost exactly the same situation for my Son.

No. Parental complaints do not act as supporting evidence that a child needs specialist provision.

Evidence must come from professionals reports.

We don’t anything about it other than that a 6 yo has reported to his mum that another child was on iPad. When, for how long etc. i don’t think we can decide we know more than the teacher based on this info.

Just to point out, letting it go is actually the worst way to help the child with the iPad. He's clearly being failed and might actually get more help if people complain about it.

She’s not. The OP says it’s been going on for some time.

But I suppose it depends on how many children or how many classes you deem acceptable to be disrupted by this. Personally I don’t think any child or class should be disrupted by someone watching TV with no headphones and shouting out swear words.

Rhis child clearly can’t cope in a mainstream class. The situation doesn’t seem to work for anyone.

So no - the OP certainly shouldn’t “let it go”.

Absolutely, then at secondary level the disparity is even bigger. Going from lesson to lesson accompanied by a TA (if lucky) with big classes, short breaks, so overwhelming. That is why i know the best place for my DC is a specialist school, not a unit with mainstream lessons and noise cancelling earphones and extra obvious differentiated tasks, extra workload for teachers and demoralising for these children. Xx

This is shocking. But completely accepted now in UK schools, if you take a glance at the many posts on MN that highlight similar issues.

It’s outrageous that someone is being allowed to sit and watch Paw Patrol with no headphones and free rein to disrupt all the other kids who are working.

They should be wearing headphones. And if for whatever reason that’s not possible, they shouldn’t be in the class for now.

The culture of catering to the every need of kids who disrupt the entire class really grates on me. Why are the other kids just expected to tolerate this and why are parents to accept that their child’s education is being interrupted daily? The OP’s son being told off for looking round is an example of this.

Of course I sympathise with the situation overall, but the child causing these disruptions isn’t higher up the pecking order than the others.

Definitely go in, OP. Don’t let it lie.

Agreed.
My son had to tolerate years if disruption from one girl and one boy. The girl should never have been in that class, for everyone's benefit. The boy perhaps not either.

There seems to be a culture at the moment that the needs of children with SEND come before the needs of 29 other children.
I've worked in schools and 90% of teachers and support staff's attention and effort is going on these children.

In my opinion if the child is swearing across the classroom, they shouldn't be in there. Yes they have a right to an education, but the others also have a right to learn in a quiet and respectful environment.

So yes, I'd be approaching the teacher.

I would speak to the teacher. It’s not fair that the class is being distracted and it must be hard for your son to concentrate with someone sat behind them watching paw patrol.

It’s not harsh to not want cartoons being played with volume on cms behind your child when he is supposed to learn/work.
At the very least the SN child should be sat away from the others, with earphones or sound high enough to be audible in proximity.

Where have I said not to address the issue? I've said she needs to approach it in terms of the impact on her DC rather than focussing on the other child. The other child isn't her business, the impact on her child is her business. She can't say that the other child should T have a laptop or should wear headphones but she can say that her DC is being distracted by the noise and what steps will be taken to minimise the distraction her DC is experiencing - the issue needs to be raised with her own DC at the centre of her concern.

Absolutely don’t let it go. It isn’t for the rest of the class to work around it to help bring on another child’s behaviour

So just completely avoid talking about the actual issue? That won't help anyone. The issue is with the ipad being played at volume and the solution is headphones, no ipad, or the child being out of the classroom. If the noise was being caused by something else, e.g. children shouting out, then the solution would be different.