To think that NT children miss out in school inclusion policies.

The teachers have told us outright that they struggle to challenge our primary school child academically. And this child isn't what I consider gifted. Intelligent, yes, but not exceptional.

To the broader conversation, I have never considered this to be about SEND. It's the result of any type of mainstream education with large class sizes. They can't create a bespoke curriculum for individual children. With limited resources, it's right that they focus on bringing everyone to a certain standard where possible. We challenge our own child at home where we can, but we also have limited time and resources.

Your children don’t speak for everybody in your area and I’d be surprised if the primary curriculum( which is dry) doesn’t stretch your children. The expectations and content are very high. Maybe look at some of the year 6 SATS papers.

I work with children who have EHCPs. The curriculum isn’t adapted to a child’s needs but they have support either through interventions at different times or in lessons. Adapted work is given to them which is separate to what the majority have. Teaching is very much geared to the majority and above.In all my years of doing it I think I’ve only worked with one disruptive child who has an EHCP. Most of the disruptive children I have come across don’t have EHCPs or even SEND. Schools are very good at handling them and giving provision out of class.

And schools are providing even better. Numbers of state pupils at Oxbridge and Russell group unis have risen. I have family offered places for Oxbridge this year and friends whose kids are at Oxbridge from comps. SEND aside getting into a Russel group uni or getting top grades isn’t hard if you’re bright, work hard and are capable of being resilient and independent.

I’m starting to think some parents are bitter because their kids didn’t have the capability to reach aspirations they had for them.

I think this is only partly true.

Part of what allows this situation to go on is that schools are legally bound when it comes to kids who have a barrier or struggle. If they don't accomodate Johnny and adapt the program to his needs, they can be held accountable. To the point that it's true even if he is affecting other kids ability to be educated because he is disruptive.

I'm not saying they always are successful in meeting those needs, btw, but there is an obligation which schools have in a way they don't for average, or gifted, students.

Because there is no similar obligation to other kids, there is no real lever for parents to use, or anyone to use, to argue for more funding, or that Jane who is massively gifted in maths, or John in music, need any kinds of supports in terms of their education.

Those things, those kids, can be completely sacrificed in order to meet the needs of the students who do have legal and policy protections - even students who never have any chance of meeting minimal educational outcomes to carry on with training or further education.

Why would there be funding for things where there is no statutory obligation to provide them?

Well done on your kids achievements! You must be proud 😊.

However, your kids are grown. The situation isn’t the same nowadays. Schools aren’t providing in the same way. Neither my husband and I had tutoring and we both ended up at a top uni as well. He went to a grammar school and I to an international school and both ended up in 6 figure jobs as well. Things are different now. My (now) 13 year old was bored out of his mind during primary age and so was my middle child (now 11). They weren’t pushed at all. During maths he used to finish his work and help others. He went from loving going to school to hating it saying the only thing he enjoyed is PE and lunch. My girl was a bit happier to coast along but she was also a bit bored especially English.

I think for us a family it wasn’t the “shining brighter” that we wanted it was the fact that they went from loving school to dreading it and telling us how bored they were. It wasn’t a nice experience - including the fact that one year my son went up to the teacher saying he’s done he’s work and she snapped back at him said yes I know you’ve done it just sit quietly. I know it’s not a big deal her snapping at him but it’s one of those things that stayed with him and he never said anything else for the rest of the year and he still remembers it. Teachers are overwhelmed and so are TAs but the reality is that the education at the moment at primary level in my area at least isn’t really serving anyone. This is my experience.

I have two DCs, who went to the local comprehensive. Both got all As and A*s in their GCSEs, and AAB at A level to get into the RG university course of their choice. They both got firsts. DS didn’t want to go to Oxbridge and I don’t think DD2 could have coped with the pressure.

Apart from the fact, they could both have got AAA at A level, I don’t know how they could have shone any brighter? DS is earning 6 figures in a profession, where nobody cares about your A level or degree results - all anyone cares about is that DS passed the professional exams.

However, especially with DD2, I got sick of the pushing by teachers, who never cared about DD2’s well being, except one. All I heard from teachers from Year 10 onwards, which was in fact directed at DD2

”All you have to do to get an A/A* is….”

Even when I asked them to leave DD2 alone, because as a high achieving perfectionist girl, she put enough pressure on herself, and she certainly didn’t need any more - with an early history of an eating disorder already. Did they take any notice - no, they didn’t. As a ND girl, who had no support from the school, she was burnt out by the end of secondary education.

I simply don’t recognise what OP is talking about, in the comprehensives round here, nor our own secondary education at grammar schools in the 70s. Boys got the cane at my school, so disruption never lasted long in classrooms.

The problem is one-sized government policy on expectations, and insufficient funding and provision across the education system. Plus slow bureaucratic, time-wasting systems such as EHCPs and lengthy NHS waiting lists that means that it takes years to correctly target and support difficulties.

NT vs ND is not the problem.
Additional needs are far more broad than that anyway.

The problem is there are many children who for many reasons don't cope with "inclusive" mainstream classrooms and there is a lack of provision to meet their needs. There needs to be more alternative provisions and better access to them. It shouldn't be a political failure for a school to not be able to meet the needs of high-needs children on inadequate budgets. There also needs to be better curriculum provision to meet the range of needs of young people.

Many ND children are an absolute asset to their schools and are joys to know and teach.

What we should not have is a system going back to segregating by "labels" but we do need more alternative places to those who need more specialist support and alternative curriculums.

Of course they do. And I would say that a high achieving child has definitely got an education.

Would add my children are ND too. Interesting it’s the parents of NTs without SEND that want all the pushing and extra attention and seem to think their kids are more worthy than anybody else’s .

We were talking about primary level. There's also plenty of non excellent comps in Essex also

You can challenge them. My dc were reading paperbacks fluently in reception. Pushing phonics didn’t cause that to happen, me reading to them and letting them expand sideways with the play they needed which is cut short in year 1 did. There is zero need for pushing of phonics in reception.

Yeah, ND kids get all the advantages in life. They’re just so lucky. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Honestly, if it were as easy as different coloured paper, ear defenders and stimming it wouldn’t be problematic. I teach KS2: I have one child, profoundly autistic who is prone to biting me and other children if he’s dysregulated. He is non verbal and variably continent working at nursery level. Another has PDA and extremely dysregulated behaviour. On Friday afternoon I was kicked in my chest, and had to evacuate my class three times. He regularly leaves the class and tries to escape school. local authority reliably inform us mainstream is the right choice for both. Of course I can adapt and differentiate for the children you reference. Over the many many years I’ve taught, I’ve had blind children, children with dyslexia, Sp and L issues, dyscalculia. But what HAS changed, is the fact that my “inclusive” classroom now has to meet the needs of the two children I reference above. The children just at standard or above don’t get a look in - this is the very sad reality.

Not at all, if it isn’t right for them. By that point in the year he was almost 6, so I’m certainly not talking about four year olds fresh through the school gates. Why shouldn’t we extend their learning and keep supporting them to be challenged, if that is what they are capable of? That is what I’m saying. By comparison my youngest is nowhere near as academically able as his brother and I wouldn’t have dreamt of asking for more phonics learning for him. He spent the entirety of foundation stage outside digging and that is where and how he learnt best.

Is the point not that NTs are included by default a the default and the rest (mainly disabled but also other vulnerable /troubled kids) excluded? Inclusion is for those who face excessive barriers and are excluded. MOST NT children aren’t facing those barriers or exclusion. This is like the I’m not on benefits and I want benefits too statement I see on here, they’re getting something I’m not, how dare they!

imagine being envious of those with barriers and facing exclusion.

schools have gifted and talented programs. There are super selective grammars. Excellent comprehensives in Essex.

Nope

You want 4 year olds pushed and hot housed in phonics. Far far better to let them play whilst they can and read masses to them whilst reinforcing the sounds they know. What in the race?

Were you living and teaching in a socialist experiment such as Islington?

Out in the Shires the older teachers still gave the kids a slap if they dared to square up to them.

Exactly this! Some parents don’t like to accept their children aren’t the brightest and the best and they need a lot of support to attain the goals said parents have set. These parents then turn on children who actually need support. Just awful.

I went to school in the 70s and 80s and taught in the 90s. There were plenty of chair throwers.

All children deserve an education. The current system is failing everyone

I say this a sen mum

There's a six year old boy in my son's class that throws chairs around the room. My son casually told me that Little Jimmy has anger issues.

How has a six year old throwing chairs become so normalised that other children consider it to be unremarkable?

I went to shit sink comprehensive in the 1990's. Nobody threw chairs, because they knew there would be consequences. The teachers would have forcefully (and probably painfully) restrained and ejected violent teenagers from the classroom. The kids would have been suspended and probably expelled.

There's no way on earth that kids in my primary school would have dared to behave like that.

This touchy feely validation nonsense is wrecking education for the majority.

You want your NT child to have enrichment / one on one time to help her to achieve her full potential and I get it. Surely there are clubs at school and things you can pay for yourself outside of school?
Schools absolutely should be paying extra attention to children who are struggling, hence why EHCPs exist. Children with SEN shouldn’t have to budge up for a child who is doing ok.

Yeah of course. But it's more likely to be the kids that can't learn at school and see disruptive as no workplace would want then