SEND - children’s needs to be reassessed from year 6 2029?

She had no choices. You don't get choices when you need specialist education. You get the setting that has a space and says they can meet need.

Secondary School - I knew from the very first taster session that they'd got it wrong. She was in an LD primary school. LD schools take any children with Profound and Multiple Learning Disability, through Severe Learning Disability, to Moderate Learning Disability, Profound Autism (needing objects of reference to communicate), medically complex children.

DD1's class was described as a 'bubble' of ability. The year below and the year above had more severe needs and her year were generally slightly more able.

Her needs were well met. She had swimming every week, which acted as both physio and OT. They had an in house OT programme so staff could work through graded exercises and consult with OT if they got stuck. They had SaLT based on site, so they were given SaLT programmes that were woven into the curriculum and if they needed support they'd just check in with the SaLT, who would modify the programme. They had a sensory room which was used several times per week. They had large outdoor space so they could do regulation activities as part of their daily lessons.

She was always meant to go to secondary school A, which was also an LD school. Even in year 1 the staff were saying 'and when she goes to school A....'. Annual review came around in year 5 and we wrote school A on our parental preference slip. Then the final EHCP came and school B was named.

We phoned the LA and spoke to a very brusque woman who said that they had needed 3 pupils to go to school B because school A was full, and school A was '0.5 a mile closer, isn't it?' We tried to have an open mind and I didn't know as much about SEN legislation then as I do now. I didn't appeal. That's on me. School B was a 'moderate learning disability' school.

We went to the taster day and they had split the children into their proposed sets. I sat beside DD1 as a teacher performed a science experiment and wanted the children to write down what he was doing. All these children were writing away, and I was saying "DD1, we're writing 'alker seltzer', we need an 'a'. Do you remember how we draw an 'a'? Now we need an 'l'....'

She started and it was clear that they expected more than she could deliver. They wanted page long stories in a 45 minutes lesson. She had previously written 4 lines on a white board. The children were much more sophisticated than her. She got manipulated and was drowning. She would climb over the 6ft fence to get out of the playground in distress, but then wait on the other side because she didn't know what to do next.

There was no swimming, no OT, no physio, no SaLT. She was expected to move from classroom to classroom. It was mainstream-lite.

In COVID we had shut down. She wasn't allowed to go to school because she didn't get free school meals. Then, when they returned to school, the school adopted a strict bubbling approach and staff wore scrubs and visors, despite Government guidance saying not to. DD1 got the sense that school was a dangerous place. She had developed an eating disorder by this point, but she was seen by paeds on the same day as CAMHS called in August 2020. They were both relieved that the other was involved, so both discharged, leaving me with a dietician who shrugged and said 'I can't make her eat'. Finally, in January 202, I phoned the GP, described her physical state and said 'is that ok?' We were sent to hospital and admitted.

When she returned to school after a few months, the school said that they realised they were the wrong place for her, but that it was too late, so we needed to limp her through until the end of year 11. Again, I should have contacted the LA, but I believed them.

College 1 - I had a meeting with them and said that DD1 was an absconder, I was concerned that they were on a main road, and they must not give her an exit pass. I was assured they knew what they were doing. Long story short, they couldn't meet her needs, she ran away, they excluded her for doing so.

College 2 turned out to be a secure portacabin on the main site. One room, 13 kids, 7 adults. No break out space except a corridor. She got so distressed that they excluded her.

College 3 had better facilities but they expected too much of her and wouldn't listen to her psychologist who was telling them that they had misunderstood her capabilities. So the placement ended.

It isn't their fault. None of the placements have had the expertise to deal with DD1's complex presentation. She has a really spiky profile and she is very verbose, which hides her lack of understanding and overwhelm. She has very poor executive functioning skills, a poor sense of danger, very poor impulse control and acts 'in the moment'. You can never quite predict how she will respond to anything.

She has been failed because each setting took their money and didn't hold their hands up and say to the LA 'we're not getting this right' until they hit crisis point. Every time I would say 'this is going wrong' and they'd tell me it was fine.

You can comfort yourself with the rhetoric of 'choice', but there is very little.

The reading is the same actually, the children I am talking about passed the phonics screening check and the ks1 SATS so should be on track to reach ARE in KS2. At some point between year 3 and 6 these children have fallen behind. Not by much in some cases but enough to mean that it is going to be a stretch for them to get ARE by the end of year 6. We used to run a fantastic reading and writing recovery and comprehension intervention programme for children that were identified as being at risk of falling behind. All TAs were trained to use it in year 3-6. We still have all the resources but no-one to run it. Even if we were magically told overnight that we need to start using it I am the only 1 left who knows how to, as everyone else has left.

25, provided he stays in education or training.

I think I might just lock him in the shed at that point, if that works for you?

How a school and curriculum is set and organised is a completely separate issue to SEND. SEND very much fits in with provision for the majority, not the other way round.

But not to completely derail with a completely different issue. If you have beef with provision for the majority( children without SEND or ND), start another thread.

And that budget will affect education as a whole. I have a right to discuss it, within polite boundaries.

Start another thread if you have beef with provision in schools for the majority of kids that have no SEND or ND.

This thread is about changes to SEND.

If they’re so great why are they regularly quoted as a reason they’re sending ‘just about coping’ kids off a cliff edge, with strict rules and impossible work paces?

Nope but the fact that 90% of schools are actually good or outstanding illustrates that the declaration that

“most NT mainstream kids without SEN”

”have been given inadequate provision for bloody years!”

is ludicrous and incorrect.

And re your hugely hypocritical :-

“I have to remind you every child is individual and learns differently and has different strength and weaknesses. NT children aren’t some homogenous happy blob to whom the curriculum has been designed to fit their facsimile brains”

maybe read back over some of your sweeping,dismissive posts as regards children with autism, ADHD and SEND . You pop up on every thread even remotely focusing on ND and SEND children spouting the same old ignorant shite.

And you think the OFSTED rating translates to each student feeling similarly about the school? If it did then mainstream would be suitable for everyone.

I have to remind you every child is individual and learns differently and has different strength and weaknesses. NT children aren’t some homogenous happy blob to whom the curriculum has been designed to fit their facsimile brains

They’ll follow regardless.

Ok so ultimately she’s been provided with 3 or 4 different settings, and none of them have worked out? I wouldn’t say that’s ‘failing’ her - failing to me would be shrugging your shoulders when placement 1 doesn’t work out, and saying there’s nothing else.

Ultimately it all sounds experimental, they have no idea of what may or may not work until she’s tries it. I’ve seen parents fight for very expensive placements which they say would be a perfect fit for their child, only for the child not to like that placement either and not turn up and so the parent says they’ve been ‘failed’.

I take issue with this word ‘failure’ because it implies nothing was done (which doesn’t sound true) or that, aside from something imaginary which probably doesn’t exist and would be perfect for them in every single way (and this would be different for every child), the state is somehow utterly useless when the reality is they’re making reasonable efforts to give her a choice despite having millions of children to educate.

"It’s time for £100k placements to stop and some kind of fairly basic provision to be made with an online learning package."

Oh I see you would rather pay for the 500k residential payment that will follow this.

That isn’t true 90% of schools in the uk are rated Good or Outstanding by Ofsted. Teaching is pitched at the majority not SEND.

If you have an issue with what the majority without SEND are getting it’s a teaching/ dept of ed issue.

It might not be 'most' but people on here are claiming no parents of children without SEN have to accept an inadequate education. Bollocks, loads do!

There are well known issues in mainstream schools. Huge amounts of cover staff being used to teach gcse science classes for months on end, or supply teachers, try learning when you have a different teacher every week who doesn't know the class. Not enough money for basics so kids having to share resources and parents having to buy more - schools now issue parents with a long list of stuff and kids need to take their own bloody glue stick to school.
And of course yes lots of peoples kids are in crap schools, often if school are oversubscribed (they are in my areas) you don't get your first, second or third choice of school you get the local sink school.
So yes loads of parents of mainstream kids with no special needs have to accept this, what choice do they have, or right to fight it?

If half the class are behind it's more likely poor teaching than a lack of TA.

and some of us haven't always had a disabled child. My son had a completely 'normal' school experience in the exact same school without an EHCP until he became disabled.

There are some children in inadequate schools. I dont think the gcse system serves the lower attaining children well at all and the offer for them is inadequate - but thats not most children.

For those capable of 5 gcses grade 5 or above, the school system is designed entirely around their needs in terms of curriculum and environment. My children thrived, although one has left now.

Not all of us here only have sen children remember. Some if us have more NT children than SEN and dedicate our working lives to all children that pitch up to school. Its really tough in schools right now, its likely to get worse but I dont think we have hit most NT children getting an inadequate education yet and I cant really get a feel for whether these reforms will help or make it worse.

This has happened at DDs' old school. The SEN block became an overflow for kids who were too disruptive for the behaviour hub. So you had young people with challenging behaviour mixed with children who were in the SEN hub because the 'normal' children overwhelmed them. Disastrous.

I think it will make matters worse, for my school anyway. We do not have any physical space to accommodate a hub/base so we will end up with more high needs children shoe horned into classrooms. We are already over capacity in 3 classes as it is due to appeals being granted.

I am saddened to read that but not surprised. I worry you are hurtling rapidly towards carer burnout. Those involved need to take note. They need to take action now. Not at some unspecified time in the future, maybe. It will cost them more if you reach carer burnout. I have said it before, but I will say it again. There is only so much you, one person, can do. You can’t do it all. It isn’t physically or mentally possible. You can’t be everything to everyone all the time. I am always here to listen if you want/need.

Bear in mind that at the moment, we get no support with DD1 at all. We are literally coping hour to hour with a very changeable, very volatile, very dysregulated young woman. I am as close to breaking point as I've ever been.

Not true. Check results statistics and Ofsted history.

and it's about to get even more inadequate in that case when children with largely higher needs have their EHCP's removed and are forced into mainstream.