Teachers - do you think our levels of training and knowledge about autism are adequate?

[Greensleeves]

I'm chatting with my autistic 20yo who is now at uni (he was diagnosed aged 6) and we're both pretty battle-scarred after years of bullying, safeguarding failures and extremely variable treatment from teachers and school leadership. I trained as a teacher in 2012 and the extent of my formal training on autism and neurodiversity was one afternoon session - I don't know whether this has improved significantly in the interim. I remember most of DS' primary and secondary teachers having virtually no understanding of autism - including the SENCOs - and it did lead to a multitude of unnecessary problems. His needs and behaviours were frequently misinterpreted, we had to fight for every reasonable adjustment and most of the strategies put in place for him were suggested by us rather than school staff (visual timetables, minor adaptations for sensory needs, access arrangements for tests and exams).

As teachers, do you feel adequately prepared and supported to manage the autistic children in your classes?

n.b I am NOT a journalist! Just a parent, an out-of-work teacher and very probably an undiagnosed autistic woman who also had a hell of a time at school.

No way is it enough.

I’m a therapist and our training is also nowhere near enough because it’s basically nothing.

It's also very sporadic, I've seen people well up on it but any suggestions come to nowt because other colleagues are not interested in the slightest. Everyone must be made two do training and everyone be on the same page.

Nope. Nowhere near enough.

No. I do some training and sessions, mostly for parents... it's clear a lot of schools have no clue.

No I don't

Greensleeves it's not just autism it's all sen.
Unless the teacher has a speficic interest, personally it's game over.

There are already too many demands on teachers’ time and resources for them to be able to adapt for yet another difference in the classroom. There’s not enough money.

State mainstream education is predicated on the model of 30 more-or-less similar kids in a classroom all learning in more-or-less the same way. Round pegs for round holes.

When you start dealing with those square pegs, the model breaks down. So where’s your incentive to find out more? There isn’t one, so you carry on catering for the model and hope the square pegs try to fit in somehow.

Do not think I’m defending the system because I’m not, but that’s the way it is.

The other thing is, when you’ve met one autistic pupil, you’ve met one autistic pupil. There’s not one specific way in which it presents, hence the difficulty in providing helpful training.

DSs SENCO asked a class to draw a picture of themselves in somebody else's shoes. He got a detention for drawing himself wearing somebody else's shoes.

I'm not sure all school staff having an in depth knowledge of all SEN is an achievable goal. I suspect training for a fair few serving teachers would go the way of much CPD - either dismissed as unworkable or forgotten by the next week. I think you can improve practice by having some staff who have special training (not just a SENCO), who work with parents and if necessary other professionals to come up with a clear, workable IEP which is monitored in its implementation in the classroom (and other provision). I work in a specialist school, and we monitor provision routinely. I worked in mainstream for years, and I'm not sure anybody knew whether I was following the supremely vague IEPs I was given or not.

No. That's why I left mainstream for specialist provision. It's getting worse, not better. The amount of mainstream teachers who have no clue how to deal with neurodiversity is scary - I mean even uniforms are hard for some kids but it's still top buttons done up and blazer on

No, definitely not. It's dreadful. However, I've done a huge amount of research myself. I often challenged and corrected staff behaviour around children with with autism and other various send which didn't always make me very popular but for various reasons that I won't bore you with, it is a major passion of mine. I was more effective however with the children than they were so my opinions were respected (I think!) thankfully.

I'm going to be teaching in a specialist school all the training is delivered in house. The needs are great enough that they have their own school nurse, OT etc so I'm very lucky. That's not the norm though. Services have been erroded to nothing.

Definitely not!

@TheFallenMadonna.. From what I've personally witnessed, even a shallow understanding across all sen would help massively.

Sometimes they only need small tweaks/ understanding.

Not accommodating the sen makes more classroom's issues as children become disengaged.

I'm a parent of an autistic child and I would say not. He was 5 when he was permanently excluded. It got overturned at a IRP and told by the independent Sen expert we had a good case to take it to a disability discrimination tribunal. The Headteqcher was horrendous. They didn't understand what was best for him at all. Now he's at a different school (still mainstream) and they're wonderful. I think so much of it is about attitude. The first school were awful to any child with Sen who might affect their amazing 11plus results 🙄

That's shocking!

One of my dc starts secondary school and I'm really worried for him. He's slow to process information and prone to losing things but is compliant works hard. He's terrified of getting a detention for forgetting or losing something or wearing slightly the wrong uniform. It seems so draconian in comparison to primary.

That's why you have the IEP or equivalent, giving clear strategies for teachers and other staff. And you check that they are being used.

No they don't. I am a teacher who has autistic children of my own. The problem is that often the training just gives general info that anyone can read on the internet. They don't help much because all children with asd are different. There are also sometimes learning difficulties or they may be behind due to not engaging for many years with the curriculum. For example if you have a child who was not able to participate in learning in primary their basic skills will be weak. What is needed is more ta support in schools. Most of the autistic children I have met in school have all done better with skilled and sympathetic 1.1 support. Some kids with asd are also incorrectly placed in mainstream when they actually need specialist education. Training sessions for teachers won't change these two basic issues.

He also got a detention for not organizing the other kids after PE one day. FFS he could hardly organize himself.

He's just about to go into final year at Uni, but wow it's been hard work.

You'll get there.

Though I accept you are not defending this view I find this so terribly depressing to read.

I cannot imagine any other industry where it is just accepted by anybody, that a percentage of those you deal with 32.5 hours per week should just expect to be failed because that's "the way it is".

IEPs are often pretty peremptory though, often deliberately vague, or just copy-and-paste that has little to do with the needs of that individual child. It's a much-abused instrument in my experience, and very often there isn't anyone following up on it; even SENCOs often know very little about autism and neurodiversity.

I take the pp's point about autism being so variable in presentation that it's difficult to develop universally applicable training, but it isn't impossible to pick out some fundamentals; sensory differences, for example, vary wildly, but their existence and the imperative to accommodate them can be taught. One child might need a safe space to withdraw to during noisy times, another might need to eat alone or with a single trusted friend, another might need to be near a door/window...different sensory needs, but all commensurate with autism and all easily accommodated if the teacher has the knowledge and understanding to recognise that they are needs, rather than just a child who "looks normal" being difficult, or a precious parent demanding special treatment.

As I said in my first post, the IEP needs to be written by people who do know what they're talking about, including parents and staff with specialist training. And they need to be individual for the child, workable in the school, and followed by staff.

No. Not at all.
The only reason I, as a teacher know a lot about it is that my step daughter has it and me and DH have researched it ourselves for years.
In my 5 year training to be a primary school teacher (not very long ago) there wasn’t one mention of autism.
The Senco at my school knows nothing about it and has recently said, “x can’t be autistic because she lies and autistic children can’t lie!” 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

I worked very hard to craft IEPs, to support subject teachers and to make the necessary adjustments to enable those ND children and others with SEND to make progress and I think, as a department, we were able to make a positive difference. That was with specialist teachers and TAs who had training and experience. That’s not the case any more. The number now is about a quarter of the number I managed .

Some things are simple to accommodate. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t be possible to make those adjustments. Others require more thought and training to implement.

I am an autistic teacher who has taught a few autistic children in the last few years. I would say I have a good knowledge about autism. There are adaptations that can be easily put in place to support pupils. However, there is only so much you can do. As already said, with 30 children in a class, it is impossible to meet every single child's needs.

For example, I had an undiagnosed (but considered autistic) child in my class this year. He was violent and distruptive. He wanted to do exactly what he wanted and would scream and kick if he didn't get it. He would make constant noises and touch other children multiple times during lessons. I was told by SLT that I had to stop my lesson every time and take him for a chat - emotion coaching. They seemed to forget that they still wanted results from the rest of the class!

Some needs just CANNOT be met in mainstream. Anything that impacts the other children is just not fair.