I am a teacher - ex mainstream, current SEN - and a parent of an autistic child who attended SEN school and now SEN college. They were quite high level need but now not so much and I credit their fantastic education with dedicated teachers for a big part of that.
I worked in many mainstream schools. I can count on one hand the amount of times I saw a SEN child being provided with a good standard of education . I did a period of supply teaching and went into about 30 different schools and even in the schools where a student was diagnosed , had an EHCP and a 1;1 , they were mainly given ‘filler’ activities or given an iPad to play educational’ games on.
I now work in post 16 with learners with high level needs , some have been in mainstream and I can see the ability they have - they are academically at a primary level but over the few years I have worked there they have made progression ( for example starting on year 2 level work , now on year 5 ) so they are able to learn but in this setting they have high staff levels and teaching styles specific to them individually.
My final straw in mainstream was this and if this isn’t an example of what is wrong , I do not know what is:
I had a child in my class , aged 9, who was autistic. Non verbal. Academically able, but clearly needed 1:1 and support to be able to focus . I had no TA , no support - just me and a class of 30 . I put many strategies in place to support this child . If they could focus on just some key points during input and had a bit of 1;1 support they were completing the work and making progress . An educational psychologist - who came in to school specifically for this child - gave me strategies to use to support them to be able to focus for short periods and I used these and they were successful, I was so proud of this student . One day , a member of SLT came to observe my lesson. During my feedback he said this EXACT thing to me;
“ It’s lovely what you are doing for XX but let’s face it , they’re never going to get it. If they want to wander around the classroom, let them and focus on the ones that are going to”
Sidenote - to make it worse this member of SLT was present for my interview where I spoke about how my own child’s diagnosis and then their progression due to amazing teachers had been my reason for wanting to go into teaching .
It makes me so sad .