I work in a SEND school AMA

[user1471508872]

Work in a SEND school. This school takes in all of the kids that no one else will. We are known as a ‘last resort’ school.

AMA

Do you have a therapy dog?

Sounds like a PRU, possibly.

What happens to those children when you’re not able to meet need either, if you’re their last chance?

Are many of them are actually incredibly vulnerable young people with previous trauma/other barriers?

Do you feel like you’re adequately trained to support children that no one else seems to be able to support?

No questions, just thanks for what you do.

What do you think is the cause for rapidly rising cases of SEN diagnoses?

And do you make greater exceptions for some children over others depending on their diagnosis / their perceived level of SEN?

Do you have occupational therapists there ? What are your biggest challenges in the role ?

How do you manage emotionally when the children kick/bite/punch you?

Do you help parents make sure EHCPs are specific and quantified?

Not currently no, but we have had one in the past.

A last resort school isn’t a generic SEND school as your title suggests.

Not a PRU. It is a specialist school. There usually isn’t anywhere else for them once we can’t meet need.
Some children where we can’t meet need have just either been at home full time or in residential care full time. Others end up sectioned. We also take quite a lot of students in who have come from being sectioned in a specialist SEN unit.

All of our learners have autism and a lot of them are non verbal. A lot of them do have other diagnosis too. We do have children that have trauma. We have children from all backgrounds, some come from loving family homes, some from not so nice homes and some who are in the care system.

Yes. We get a lot of training and this is constantly renewed on a yearly basis.

What type of SEND school?

Probably the fact that SEN is such a well know thing now.

Back in the past the children I support now would never have even been seen in society.

We don’t make exceptions based on their diagnosis but I suppose in ways we probably do based on the individuals understanding.

Yes we have occupational therapists and speech and language therapists based in the school.

The biggest challenges are probably the behaviours we have to deal with. There can also be a lot of emotional stress too especially if a behaviour leads to a restraint. Those are the days I go home and have a little cry.

The amount of paperwork we need to complete too is a challenge in itself!

In the moment the adrenaline kicks in and you just get on with it. Afterwards though it can be tough emotionally especially if someone has been injured. Having a good team around definitely helps though and I’ve been lucky enough to be part of some amazing teams over the years.

We also have pretty good ‘aftercare’ at work and we will have debriefs etc. We also have access to a wellbeing team and access to mental health support if we need it.

We do have annual EHCP reviews but the EHCP will usually be in place before they join us.

Jesus. My son attends a school like yours and is autistic & non verbal. I’d be deeply upset if it was because it was the only place that would take him.

I’ve really only heard that used in the context of secure units, hospital teaching provisions for children with real risk to life, SEMH settings etc.

I guess it’s an eye opener for me that his level of need is also viewed in that way. I still work within the education sector but when I was directly in schools 10 years ago, I worked with kids who would set your house on fire given half the chance - they were usually the last chance saloon kids.

It’s really difficult to explain exactly without giving away where I work as there is not many schools like the one I work in. Some students travel up to 2 hours to get to school as there is no other schools suitable or able to meet their needs.

None of our learners come from mainstream schools. They all come from specialist schools where they have been unable to meet their needs either due to the levels of challenging behaviour the student displays or due to the general level of support they need. Some students have been in multiple different school. Then like I mentioned we also get children in straight from the secure units.

Do you feel some children make progress at your school

What does the curriculum look like in your school? How much are children learning and what subjects do you cover?

Yes some children make progress and it’s one of the best parts of the job seeing that.

Sometimes it can be something as simple as them pointing to request something. We try to make progress with communication, we try to teach independence where possible but realistically these children will never live alone and will always have a staff team of some description around them.

We can also see huge regressions too where every thing we have got in place goes out the window. This can be due to something like medication changes. I work mainly with teens so hormones play a huge part in this too sometimes!

We have a pretty standard curriculum. We do all the subjects you would expect. The children I work with are between 11 and 16 and have a cognitive age of between 3 and 5. So they would be doing similar work to what a nursery/reception child would do. All lessons are tailored to each individual student. We have 4 students in our class and each student will have changes to their work to make it suitable for them. Lots of our lessons end up being very sensory based. Sometimes the student may only engage for a minute at a time. We use lots of symbols and usually lots of adult support to get work finished too.

Usually our lessons will last for around 5-10 mins max and we have 4 lessons a day. The rest of the time is for students to relax or have therapy sessions and take part in regulating activities. We also have a swimming pool, sensory rooms and rebound rooms.

Looking at some of your replies it sounds like a tough but also quite rewarding job. Do you feel fulfilled and proud of the work that you do?

Do you find there’s a much higher ratio of boys to girls in your school? My dd has been to several schools and SEN placements and we have always found it’s 80% boys. She’s currently in a placement where she’s one of two girls there. My daughters needs are very complex but she has no aggressive behaviour, finding placements for her has been hard as there are often violent students, she has been punched and had a chair thrown at her in the past, this then makes it hard for her to attend (as she’s scared).