My child has SEND, significant enough to have warranted an EHCP from Reception age. She’s been at the same small school all through. Now in Y6.
I am so glad we are almost at the point of leaving. Before I get into this I should say I work around education (but am not a teacher) and very much see the good the bad and the ugly when it comes to schools and how children with SEND are and are not assisted. I have seen and heard it all over the last few years, the genuine schools who try their best but cannot do what is needed and the ones who really don’t.
The school have been awful. The first year or two were not so bad (before I had trained fully, and knew better) I muddled along the best I could, ensuring that my child had the support she was supposed to. There was never a time when the school could not accommodate her and what she needed, and the funding was sufficient to cover it. However, there were many many times when they chose to do otherwise. We’ve had the odd lovely teacher, but they’ve never lasted long, a term or two.
By the time I’d realised that really it was not a great place with increasingly poor leadership, my child was firmly settled in and all advice we received (and my own instinct) said a move for her would be disastrous and increase the EBSA. So we’ve stuck it out.
Despite the challenges, my child is very bright and academically able. This year has been geared around preparing for SATS all of which my child has coped with and done well at, with us supporting her at home. However, when it’s come to it last week, she’s just crumbled. She did not want to do the SATS, she’d worked herself up into a right state. Hasn’t been helped by some actions taken at school.
DH and I discussed this, and we’ve always said if she can’t manage the SATS then we’d be happy for her not to sit them. The less formal tests they do always put her at 2y + in her learning. We have no concerns there and her secondary place was sorted out over a year ago due to having the EHCP, not that secondaries really bother with SATS results anyway.
So I contacted school on Monday and truthfully told them, as I always do, that she is having an episode of EBSA, it’s making her unwell, and that I’m not forcing her in. She saw the CAMHS psychologist last week too who agreed with our decision and I explained that. I said we’re happy for her to miss the SATS. I told them that she’ll be staying at home this week, that I was happy to ask her to complete work if they wanted me
to but that I don’t expect them to provide it, given how busy they will be and that if they can’t I will ensure that she completes some homework projects.
I have had several phone calls asking me to reconsider. Which started off as trying to guilt me into ‘think of her future, she needs to do these’ (no, she doesn’t). It culminated in the Head calling me to say that as her year group has only 10 children that her scores make up 10% of the schools results. They know she will very likely excel, and they can’t afford to lose her scores ‘after all the hard work they’ve put in with her over the years’
AIBU to tell them to get to fuck?! They’ve put me through absolute hell the last few years. They’ve lied, they’ve tried to gaslight me, they’ve ignored anything I’ve raised to them until professional documentation has forced their hands, they’ve made it so clear that they’d rather we left and never darkened their doorstep ever again with our pesky child who needs additional help. Despite all of this I have always been polite, calm, civil and professional (even though as a parent it’s really not on me to be professional).
This just takes the absolute biscuit though and I am furious. It’s not just me, I’m not just that one difficult parent. Most children with additional needs end up leaving for elsewhere because the parents just cannot deal with the schools behaviour. I’ve lost count of the number that’ve gone over the years. There’s a reason there’s only ten children (out of a possible eighteen!) left at the end of year 6.
AIBU??