DC kept in a separate group from the rest of the reception class?

[Whattodow]

DS has just turned 4 and started reception last week. He has speech delay which we’re working on, we’ve just started paying for private sessions after having little to no progress through NHS SALT. Other than the speech delay, behaviourally the only ‘issue’ I would say he has is he won’t sit still for long periods unless it’s to do something he’s truly engaged with. He doesn’t throw tantrums at all, has been toilet trained for over a year, has never been violent and sleeps through the night. The speech delay, in my opinion, is the primary concern but as I say, it doesn’t affect his overall behaviour.

He has a ‘My Support Plan’ at school and I had a meeting with the SENCO lead this week to discuss this. She explained that he is in a smaller intervention group most of the time because she believes he would ‘become overwhelmed’ if he were in the main classroom. I didn’t challenge it at the time stupidly because she had thrown a lot of information my way and I was trying to take it all in but in hindsight, I don’t really understand how or why she has come to this conclusion. He was in a private nursery full time for 2 years before starting school with a whole range of children and never became ‘overwhelmed’. As I say, he has never thrown a tantrum and he very rarely even cries, he’s one of the most laid back children I have met and just tends to get on with things.

I’m going to request he spends more time with the main class but I want to make sure I am right in doing so. I understand why the intervention group may help him because it means more 1:1 I believe which could help his speech and overall development but I also think there could be some benefit from spending time with the other children who do talk and who do behave in a more standard way. I’m going to sound bloody awful here but I’m concerned that in being placed almost solely with the SEN children who also don’t talk and who, from what I’ve seen when I collect him because he is in a separate classroom with the other SEN children, seem to have quite severe SEN- still in nappies for example, don’t respond to their names, stim a lot etc, this may actually hinder his development. I think if he spends more time around NT children, he may begin to model his behaviour on theirs which is what started to happen at nursery before the summer break when we noticed he was saying more words and had more patience during activities.

I truly don’t wish to cause any offence so I will have to word it in a way that doesn’t sound terrible. If DS does have SEN, he would be ‘higher functioning’ imo because the only challenging behaviour we really have from him is, as I say, times when he wants to run around rather than sit and pay attention to something. I know the SENCO lead is the expert and I am just his parent so I wanted to double check I am right in requesting this for him? He is also kept separate from the main school at playtime and plays in a smaller enclosed space with the SEN children so he has very little interaction with the wider group which I just don’t personally agree with. He happily played alongside the other children at nursery and was never ‘overwhelmed’ at all.

I would revisit it at the end of the Winter term.
Giving him a gentler start is no bad thing.my dd had severe speech delay when she started in reception. Like you we did private speech therapy. She was in a nuture group in reception. By the end of reception her speech had come on leaps and bounds.

I’m sorry this has happened and this is what I was trying to say about widening gaps over time without quality early intervention.

Not trying to be the voice of gloom but I’ve seen kids dragged all the way through secondary whilst largely still working at ks1 level and not really being able to access the formal curriculum or the social side despite parents determination they still want mainstream. It’s pretty heartbreaking and the young people I’m thinking of were even offered special school places that others are begging for.

I hope the OP grabs all the support and dx if there is one she can. The gap gets harder to bridge every year without quality intervention.

I hope you can get more help for your son and support for you. Fighting for him must get exhausting and disheartening.

That’s so good to hear. Wish more schools would offer this level of early intervention.

Regarding the lessons, I’d be waiting and seeing how that worked out.
But I would definitely not be happy about him being kept separate from other kids during play times. I don’t understand the need for that, and I would question it. They’re limiting his social interactions, and unless they already have evidence of bullying etc, it makes no sense to me.

But he didn’t progress well at nursery. He played alongside other children, not with them, “ just tended to get on with things” so possibly not really involved in play or social activities , and his speech and communication skills are very poor.

It's gruelling. I do think there is merit in children mixing and for children with limited attention spans even a specialised education needs to incorporate movement breaks and play breaks.

My son can only mix with his NT peers at the moment but he's realising this year he's a bit different and not catching up at the same rate as every one else and he's got school anxiety and avoidance.

I have school on my side for fighting the EHCP process but everything is so slow. I wouldn't put him through year 2 if he can't get a specialist placement. I would withdraw him which feels like letting the LA off the hook with their responsibilities but it's a very steep uphill battle.

I think you have a very valid point about the need for your son to be surrounded by peers who talk normally rather than spending all his time with non-verbal children. If they think he won't access things like formal phonics and numeracy, perhaps they could aim for him to be in the less structured sessions, normally in the afternoons?

I must say, it sounds as if the other children in his group should be in a special school anyway. There are few if any mainstream schools that can realistically meet the needs of wholly non-verbal children.

I think you are probably blinkered to the level of need your child has. Possibly there are other undiagnosed neurodivergent people in your family/friendship group and you don’t see how your DS behaves as abnormal, other than the speech delay.

Many people have already said this but getting seen by an EP this early is exceptional, as is the level of support already being provided. Even entering school with an autism diagnosis, my DS did not get seen by one for over two years, which was the start of the process of moving him out of mainstream. My DS sounds like he has less significant needs that your DS. He could engage almost fully with what went on in Reception.

I do share your concerns about segregation, to a degree. Yes children learn age appropriate behaviour and terminology, and many social skills from their peers, to some extent, but it sounds like what your DS needs is very focused support to improve his spoken communication skills first. Developing these will allow him to engage more fully with the social side of school with his peers and get the most from it. Think of it this way: Your DS has speech skills that are broadly similar to those of a young toddler. Young toddlers need lots of high quality 1:1 adult attention to develop their language. You would not dream of putting 30 young toddlers in a room together with 1 adult and expect to get good results!

Your DS will likely have areas of strength and weakness. Just because he, or any of the other kids in his group, are non/minimally verbal or use nappies does not mean that they are not maths whizzes for example. By the sounds of it your DS also needs help to increase his focus and concentration in activities that are not of his choosing. This is a fairly standard thing for eg some children with autism or ADHD.

It is a fairly standard for SALTs to ask parents to encourage non/minimally verbal children to use speech by not automatically giving them what they want and requiring them to ask for it first. Saying your child is lazy is SALT speak for stop pandering to them and let them struggle/get frustrated a little as this will help with progress. The SALT is not meaning there is no issue other than laziness.

Coming to terms with a child’s disability can be one of the hardest things. Often you think you have, but then the child you thought you had turns out to have much more severe needs than you anticipated. I would suggest seeking out parent support groups locally and looking and some website IPSEA, Contact, Cerebra. Arm yourself with information. You are likely going to need to fight for provision, even though it seems to be very forthcoming at the moment,

Make sure you are completely on top of your child’s needs so that you can advocate for them. Ask the EP blunt questions. Get a diagnosis, for goodness sake. Schools will tell you it makes no difference and that the system is all needs based, but it very much does make a difference both in terms of getting support in and out of school and in situations like when your DS has started to use words, but is maybe now echolalic and his repeating that phrase from a film he heard, complete with swear words, at top volume in the middle of the playground. Being able to apologise with a “Sorry, he’s autistic” is far easier than “Sorry, I can’t get him to stop saying that.”

It really is. Consider your local mp? The fact he’s already repeating reception and will be expected to make the leap to year 2 afterwards makes it very clear he is in need of an ehcp. But as you say it is so slow and kids don’t have years to waste waiting on bureaucracy.

Have you found any out of school organisations or activities? We desperately need these kind of charities but they find it harder every year to find funding.

Good luck.

Lots of good advice here.

I mean this very very gently but the parents of the other children also probably look around the room and think ‘my child isn’t as severe as the others’, you know your own child, how clever they are in certain areas, what they like best and how they like it so they’ll mostly always be the better version of themselves at home, but in a reception class of 30 a neurodivergent child is obvious to most staff within weeks.
A SEN class in a mainstream school is designed so that the children can spend time mixing with the rest of the school, it may not happen quite as much at the beginning of reception.
There will have been baseline testing that all children received so ask how your child has scored and what has flagged him to receive so much intervention.
but as others have said don’t knock the help, it doesn’t come easily to a lot of others, people are crying for diagnosis so they can receive support and specialist school places, embrace what you can from the school.

Speech apraxia =/= lesser intelligence.

I mean this for OPs child and the other children who are non-verbal.

Many of these children will be fine in mainstream with some reasonable adjustments made. Communication does not need to be verbal. It can be communication cards or both low and high tech AAC, it can be choices boards it can be hand leading and it can be body language.

Status of toilet training also =/= lower intelligence. It can be not being developmentally ready, or having sensory issues like poor internal interoception. Again, this does not mean they're less than capable of learning than children who can speak.

Autistic children have spikey development profiles and can appear developmentally behind and then in a short amount of time they can really peak.

What they need is their needs to be met and a conducive environment for their learning styles.

If the other children should be in specialist schools then so should OPs child because the truth of it is he might never speak. You just don't know. I don't know these other children, you don't and neither does OP. They might be trying to get into a specialist school, they might be thriving in this setting.

Right now until OPs child can pay attention and follow adult led tasks reliably then he's academically the same level as those peers.

I would just give it a couple of weeks OP. It’s still early days and they will all be figuring out what’s best for the kids.

I think it’s more common to hear parents fighting for the support that they need that they are not getting.

so if I was you I would sit tight for now.

to have him assessed etc will be so valuable. So at the moment I would accept everything g that they are offering and then just review at by half term.

its really hard when they first start school and everything is new
to both of you. And it sounds like he probably is currently receiving more support than he needs.

but I would still just wait and observe for now and then see what comes of the assessments etc.

and good luck. It’s not easy being a parent x

In my Reception class today, the children have had phonics, maths and topic lessons. What this means is that I spent 10 minutes with the whole class introducing the ‘t’ sound and recapping on S A M P and T. then the children spent an hour in provision. For maths, we looked at the numbers 1 and 2, inning 1 or 2, writing the digits on whiteboards. Again 10 minutes whole class. Topic was a 10 minute intro then me taking small groups during provision. At the moment there are no interventions taking place but when they start the children in interventions will spend maybe 20 minutes out of class, but spend the rest of the time in class in provision. Perhaps this is whats happening with your DC?

When my son was in year 1 he had many difficulties still, including speech, lack of confidence in group settings, behaviour issues, attention issues. The school didn't have a small group intervention at school so we used to do two morning in a group elsewhere (of course arranged by the school) there were 5 of them in the group and they did lots of great activities to help them. We went for 6 months and it helped him immensely. I saw it as a good thing as it really helped him progress and he was at a point that the class teacher could assist him with any remaining difficulties he had. They put him in lunch time clubs on top of this like lego club, which was aimed at concentration and holding attention. Anytime over the course of primary he had any intervention they deemed helpful. He had weekly meetings with the family worker and they talked about recognising different emotions and how to react and he would have little faces to colour at home and pop in a jar whenever he recognised an emotion he was feeling and they would talk about it.
He is mainstream and now you wouldn't think he'd had any educational interventions if you just met him now. He is diagnosed ASD but that wasn't the case at the time, they just saw he needed help so he was given it.

I think it's great they're starting young with your DC, interventions really aren't a bad thing or a punishment, they're a way to help your DC progress to the same level as their peers.

Edit to add re the "high functioning" because my son is seen as "high functioning" and they did say if aspergers was still a diagnosis, it would be more likely he would have been given that rather than ASD.

Very much this.

I mean this very very gently but the parents of the other children also probably look around the room and think ‘my child isn’t as severe as the others’

I’m not sure about this, I think there are just as many parents who are screaming out for help and interventions for their children when they know that their needs are greater than others and are not able to access it.

I mean this really kindly (I will be in a similar position next September with my deaf DS), but it doesn't sound like your son would cope without spending a lot of time in a nurture group. His needs just wouldn't be met.

That being said, I would push for a blended approach where he joins the main class for part of the day, preferably when they are doing more play based activities, so that he can benefit from watching and interacting with children who speak more, and still have the dedicated support of the smaller group.

Ahh OP I really would have kept him back🙈🙈
I realise you already made the decision, but man there such a lot of misunderstanding re childhood development.
The UK esp England is very behind when it comes to school ages and the research. Most Scandinavian countries start school at 7. They've pushed back the ages recently.
We KNOW that children learn best through play and that they shouldn't really he sitting and learning through table based activities
On top of that boys have a testosterone spike between 4 and 7 and really really need to be physically active.
But we haven't been successful in changing the system yet, it makes me so sad.
Now we're just diagnosing kids right left and centre with ADHD when no normal 4 year old should sit for 5 hours.
Anyway I digress.
I always try to explain that a child that turned 5 in the beginning of reception has had a FULL year extra of play and therefore age appropriate learning than your August babies.
So basically we are depriving our summer born babies of a year of play.
That's so so sad and I don't think we understand exactly how far reaching this is.
Anyway if there is any chance I would keep him back still

My DD has a diagnosis of DLD and was similar in the way she presented. However, her compliant, good behaviour was her masking and not engaging because she didn’t have a clue what was going on around her. She was very happy in her own little bubble, and was easily overlooked in a classroom setting. If you ask her are you ok, she’ll always say yes. Same if you ask her if she knows what she’s got to do. We can’t go overboard on praise and she easily confuses excitement with anger which is scary.

She does need a good mix of SEN and mainstream though, and an appropriate peer group for friendship where social skills are modelled for her to copy.

Yep!
The 'experts' clearly are far behind hence why we start formal schooling at 4???
And why reception is becoming less and less about play.
Nah, the experts are only the experts because no one is challenging them enough

I hate to be brutal, but the SENCO is trying to tell you gently that he won't cope with the expectations of Reception. He's not at the same level as the other children right now and wouldn't be able to keep up. From what you describe, his speech and language problems are quite severe and the pace of learning in Reception is very fast.

So much info dumping here but it really boils down to @Whattodow s dc not getting his needs met in a SEN class but also not getting them met in the mainstream classroom..
OP, there is a child simular to yours in my sons SEN school. He is looking to move out of SEN school to mainstream in the next few years BUT those 2 years of SEN school have been essential to helping him get to where he needs to be for mainstream

I 100% agree with you I wouldn’t be happy if my DC was spending most their time in the 1:1 group.

Hes one of the youngest in the year and it’s normal for many children not to be able to sit still for longer periods, he won’t be the only one. Reception is mostly play based anyway.

If his speech delay is the only issue I would want him to be mixing / playing with his classmates, making friends and getting to know them.

I agree with PP that it could have been better keeping him back a year and starting reception when he was 5. Not sure if this would be an option anymore?

This. You seem to have a problematic attitude towards those children who you deem hve more ‘severe’ SEN OP. As others posters have said, you can’t know what level they are functioning at from a few minutes observation.
More severe SEN isn’t catching btw. You only want your child around ‘normal’ children it seems.

This. It's not true that reception is an extension of nursery. There are similarities yes but it is still a significant jump for a lot of children