School lateness punishments, neurodiversity and the law

In what way? What is a NT brain?

Also exposure therapy tends to make ND anxiety worse as ND brains are different to NT brains

Graded exposure therapy isn't appropriate for sensory processing difficulties so no this won't help. It's not a fear, it's that your brain can't process all the things going on at the same time. The fact you think this is appropriate demonstrates your lack of knowledge around sensory processing difficulties/disorder.

Who's giving up? Op has practical and acceptable solutions to help her dd navigate her challenges. The school won't implement them or let her use them. It's not op or her dd who are the problem.

No, it was not “meaning” that.

Again, inventing meanings that were not in a post and arguing against that is ridiculous.

The discussion was around the difference between what schools can accommodate and what can be expected in work.

You said businesses can't be expected to adapt for all needs meaning that schools shouldn't either.

Firstly businesses do need to fall inline will equality and disability laws. So reasonable adjustments should be made where possible.

Secondly. Schools also have to follow these laws. And it is even more vital that early support and education is done right.

In my experience schools are the most likely to not meet their legal requirements and are less flexible than the real world.

I gave up on in-school music lessons for this reason. Neither child or teacher could make it happen. The music teacher just got fed up with us in the end.

But re the watch - it’s funny how most kids, even ND ones, don’t seem to run out of phone charge, isn’t it? I think this would be a time when a parent would need to take control and ensure it is charged and worn - after all it is about scaffolding the child into being able to manage, so overseeing this for the first few years if the school have met you half way by agreeing to the 5 minute early departure, is reasonable, isn’t it?

LOL - I used to work on a trading floor, but it was 20 years ago and they were lively! You did learn to tune out the noise to just your local seating area though… plus I had been a teacher for a few years beforehand, so maybe that prepared me! I’d love to go and take a look at how they seem these days with all the new tech. These days I struggle to follow a conversation if the telly or radio is on… old age!

This is a really insightful post @AnonyMumAuDHD.

Stock exchanges and trading floors are lovely and quiet these days though. Just a bunch of people tapping away quietly into computers. Visitors must keep their distance for compliance reasons. I've had quite a few ND students go into that line of work, in fact.

I don't believe that every ND person will react the same way because every NT person doesn't either.

I would try anything to help my child adapt to situation where, for example, catching a train on an extremely busy platform might be their only way of earning a living at some time in the future.

I am not talking about children who don't have the capacity for such learning. I am not talking about forcing such training on a child.

Graded exposure therapy isn't appropriate for sensory processing difficulties so no this won't help. It's not a fear, it's that your brain can't process all the things going on at the same time. The fact you think this is appropriate demonstrates your lack of knowledge around sensory processing difficulties/disorder.

Who's giving up? Op has practical and acceptable solutions to help her dd navigate her challenges. The school won't implement them or let her use them. It's not op or her dd who are the problem.

What strategies do you suggest practising at home that will magic away the overwhelm of noisy, crowded corridors in school?

It has already been suggested way up thread, but the same sort of graduated exposure strategy that we use to teach people to take flights or tolerate spiders? Only much easier for most people who live anywhere near a town of any size than flight or spider training. Start with a shopping mall at a quiet time and finish on a mainline railway platform at peak hour, for example?

I know that wouldn't be easy, but like others on the thread I'm frustrated by the low expectations of some of the more mildly affected ND children. I'm not talking about the ones incapable of such learning.

I gave up on in-school music lessons for this reason. Neither child or teacher could make it happen. The music teacher just got fed up with us in the end.

But re the watch - it’s funny how most kids, even ND ones, don’t seem to run out of phone charge, isn’t it? I think this would be a time when a parent would need to take control and ensure it is charged and worn - after all it is about scaffolding the child into being able to manage, so overseeing this for the first few years if the school have met you half way by agreeing to the 5 minute early departure, is reasonable, isn’t it?

I did, but did not suggest school was one.

Cone on, respond to what people actually write, not what you think they may have meant.

I think this is the point many in the ‘what has changed since I was at school’ camp are missing. When I was at school, secondary classes were about 20-22 children and there were usually 3 classes per year. Occasionally in a large birth year there might be a fourth year as an exception.

My local secondary (I am not in a city, just a market town in commuter belt) has just under 1700 students across 5 year groups (ie yr 7-11). This is 330 students per year and average class sizes of 33. At lesson change over this means there are 1650 students, and nearly 100 teaching staff transitioning between rooms. All lugging bags, PE kit, art portfolio cases, boxes of marking, etc. It feels like the departure lounge of an airport with the noise, chaos and movement. The teacher don’t form individual relationships with children because they may see as many as 300 different children a week, so they cannot respond thoughtfully to those amongst them who need a little more support. Of course this feels different to a 2 form entry village primary school. Of course the transition from one to the other is overwhelming.

It isn’t the children who are broken, really - it’s a state school system that has opted for a mass delivery model under financial rationales of economies of scale. It a system that revolves arounds costs and often intangible and undefinable performance measures, not child centred teaching and development.

And no, these types of educational settings do NOT prepare children for the real word - unless they all go to work in airports (actually, and ironically, my school was a feeder for Heathrow airport) or the stock exchange/trading floor. They traumatise even NON ND children, children from troubled homes, with MH issues, with complex social needs. The system is what needs changing so that every child, ND or not, feels safe and seen and, thus, able to flourish within their own abilities.

This is where we are heading, Our L.A has just announced that in our schools 54% of primary aged children and 48% of secondary aged children now have ASN. The situation is out of hand, costing a fortune and impacting on the other 50% that have their education interrupted every hour of the day. The impact is huge.

Do you seriously think every parent has the money to buy ear defenders, some of those parents are using foodbanks, some of those children go to school hungry every day, some of those children have food delivered to them by the L,A during the school holidays. So yes there is a cost.

Also my dd missed her piano lessons regularly despite reminders. She had a watch but forgot to charge it.

Do you seriously think every parent has the money to buy ear defenders, some of those parents are using foodbanks, some of those children go to school hungry every day, some of those children have food delivered to them by the L,A during the school holidays. So yes there is a cost.

You literally posted about businesses yourself

How are ear defenders costing the LA money?

Parents provide these so there isn't a cost?

How does ear defenders disrupt other children's learning?

But that stat conflates children with actual SEN needs with children who have ASN due to socio-economic factors [parents who have never read a book with their child and send them to school in nappies because they have never bothered to toilet train them.].

It’s important not to muddy a real social issue over parenting quality (what used to be called neglect and abuse, but we’re too afraid to use those terms now) and interventions and programmes that need to be put into place in areas of deprivation with actually organic/neurologically proven SEN needs.

Also my dd missed her piano lessons regularly despite reminders. She had a watch but forgot to charge it.