To ask, if you’re a teacher

Teacher training needs a radical shake-up.

However, UK teacher training is regarded as very good around the world. Actually, UK provision and understanding of SEN is also regarded as very good comparative to most of the rest of the world.

If government had joined up thinking, this could be a massive skills gap we could exploit. If only, if only...

100% this. It's always been there.

All the media hype and hysteria is ridiculous. It's natural human variation.

25-35% in my child's class that I know of. Posh Cheshire. Only one ECHP though.

5 in our year 5 class of 30.

4 have EHCP, 1 is diagnosed but awaiting EHCP. Of them; 1 also has a hearing impairment, 1 also has additional speech & language needs, 1 has both Autism and ADHD.

I also suspect that we have another child with a PDA profile.

Incidentally, none of them have a 1:1 TA. Funding does not allow for such "luxuries". ☹️

Depends. In a class fo 30, some classes have 8 and some 1.
But I have been teaching 30 years ago and I had the same exact behaviours but the kids didnt have official diagnosis, so nothing changed except we now know what stands behind the problems and can hopefully support the kids better.

Im a school governor in a junior school. Our Sen register is 33% of the school population (and you can bet your bottom dollar it wont gave captured everything)

More anecdata here, friends of mine with children in rural schools also report higher levels of ND but also amazing care for those children. A relative had two children in a rural school, there was two years difference between the children but because of the size of the school they were both in the same class. Not only did the school recognise one of the children was ND and start the pathway to diagnosis, they also fully accommodated that child in class including a wobble chair. AND they had a sibling group so that siblings of kids with ND could meet and chat and recognise their own experience. This was the most brilliant provision I've heard of, but can totally understand how this becomes less feasible the bigger the class and school.

I teach a class of 30 in mainstream primary.
2 have EHCPs for Autism.
2 others have just been diagnosed with ADHD.
1 is in the process of diagnosis vis CAMHS for Autism.
1 other is on the waiting list, who I suspect will be diagnosed with ADHD.
6/30 = 20%.

My current class are hard. 30 Y5s and 10 of them are SEN or waiting to be diagnosed (and will be)
8 have ASD or ADHD
The other two are dyslexic

Case in point about wealth etc.

Child was first flagged by parents at 4 as having 'something'. School fobbed it off. Parents just quietly went off and had testing done by several experts. Eventually school and CAHMS had to accept it. Child by 7 has an EHCP.

Other child in the same class. Parents know he has some sort of SEN but have a large family and are financially strapped and don't know how to access support. Child is getting no additional help as no evidence.

Yes this is hard and also extends in my subject (and in English literature, I know from my DC's experience) to struggling to infer anything that isn't directly stated in a text. This is an absolutely crucial skill for text based subjects.

DD used to (still does sometimes) scream at me re poetry and novels BUT WHAT IS THE RIGHT ANSWER? WHY ARE THEY SAD?

I think that's madly high personally. It also assumes that kids with those conditions are a nuisance in class. Some are, generally for reasons outside their control (the autistic boy I had one year who couldn't communicate verbally clearly but what he mostly wanted to communicate is how I and other students were wrong about everything ). We did a LOT of post it based feedback that year! And tbh he probably thought I was a right nuisance too.

I would freely admit my ADHD child can be a pain because she will sometimes not.shut.up.

But students who are a real nuisance in class often have no "reason" for it. And SEND students can be perfectly easy to teach, quiet, obedient, studious.

Lumping everyone into a box isn't helpful. When you've met one autistic person you've met one autistic person etc.

@BlackCatDiscoClub I actually had higher numbers of both SEND and autism in my last school which was in a very affluent area.

Just thinking about my classes on Monday (Secondary)
i) 1 class 8/31
ii) another class 5/31

The things ASD students find difficult in my subject (languages) are sometimes hard to mitigate for. They often struggle with the speaking element, because of the social/communication side of pairwork and the performance aspect of the speaking exam. They also often struggle with the idea of making things up or being creative for writing tasks and will tend to insist on trying to write what is true even if they don't know how to say it in the language! It's hard to get around these things!

I may be on the spectrum myself, but the way I teach is fairly ASD / dyslexia / VI friendly.

My PowerPoints have a blue background unless I have a student who'd dyslexia needs a different colour on someone VI when I change to yellow with bold writing. The PPt and handouts use the font 'lexia'.

My PowerPoints are on which ever learning platform the school / college uses from the start of the lesson along with the gapped handout. Students with dyslexia / VI get them e-mailed early.

It's only after an observation that I was told they were 'friendly'. I don't know if that means I don't notice as much .

Surely age and stage taught is a huge factor here too. I don’t have many diagnoses but I observe many who could do with a framework for understanding themselves and feel sad that they likely won’t get that due to lack of parent understanding and waiting lists. 1% stat relates to the whole county. I beleive it should be (WHO Modeling) 5-7%

I teach 11 classes in a girls' grammar school. I have one or two with ASD in most of my classes. In Year 7 they are usually flagged as probable/possible ASD but undiagnosed.

A few years ago I had a class of 30. 10 were diagnose with either ASD or ADHD.
My current class of 32 has 6 with a diagnosis. There are another 4 or 5 who display many traits...

Absolutely it does! For one thing you can pay for assessments and therapies that you need.

This is obviously wrong and it should be much easier to access a paediatrician and support on the NHS and schools should be able to access educational psychology advice (pre academisation this was possible through the LA).

But there are many barriers in addition to long waiting times. To give one example, where I live the LA offer occasional parenting courses for parents of kids with ASD and ADHD (different courses - our child is diagnosed with both so I suppose they were expecting us to attend both). We had to fill in complex referral forms and then when the courses were eventually offered, they were on weekdays in termtime, same day (so think like 4 Mondays 9-11am). We're teachers. We can't do that. So the courses are only for parents who don't work really or have really flexible employers.

Private parenting coaches let you choose a time and date of course. But it would have been very helpful to meet other parents in the same position.

This is very true. Some schools do what is actually required of them for SEND (I'm not sure I can call it a good job because resources don't allow for that but we do the best we can with what we've got) and some just don't - this results in children moving schools and some schools having particularly large SEND registers.

In education, I increasingly hear that trauma is being misdiagnosed as ADHD, such as children exposed to domestic violence or who have suffered other ACEs. I don't know if these are more prevalent in socioeconomic groups but you'd imagine they are. I also very often see a high percentage of summer born boys on SEND registers but can't explain that as they are diagnosed and their symptoms very evident. But perhaps if they were in the year group below they would be a little better able to cope with the academic side of school and their needs would be less obvious.

There are other factors to consider - a school here has a reputation locally, described as "exceptional" by ofsted for their SEND support and inclusion, so they get much a higher % in their cohorts and people actively aeek to move their children/have it named in EHCPs. Whereas there is another school less than half a mile up the road where people can't seem to get their SEND kids out quick enough to move to other schools due to lack of support who no doubt have way lower %s despite otherwise being a v good school on paper

Math class of 27 year 9 boys last year.

9 had ADHD. Two more with severe anxiety. 2 ESOL. Some just very limited academically. Mixed ability class so a couple of very bright boys as well (big overlap with ADHD - a couple of those lads were quite academically capable but incapable of sitting for 20 minutes, let alone for an hour long formal assessment).

No TA.

In NZ having ADHD will not get you accomodations or TA time. You may get a fairly generic IEP but without time/staff/support it is hard to implement.

We worked hard on self-regulation.
We had a lot of fidget toys, gum, brain breaks etc.

Lots of repetitive structure - ADHD takes many forms and for many, whether hyperactive, distracted or inattentive type, having the same start to they lesson, to get everyone settled, offers security and calm.