How do I find out why I went to SEN school.

[Youagain2025]

When i was a child 8 or maybe nine. I'm quite sure it was year 3? I jointed a school for children with moderate learning difficulties. I was not told why and I never questioned it. I feel like there's a big chunk that i don't know about myself. I'm not sure if things were done differently on the mid 80s like what would have been done to decide i needed to ho to a special needs school. I guess there were not ehcps back then ? I have read GP would have had records. Why would a GP have records about my schooling ? I read that i can ask for a SARS? But it said something about knowing the dates and what it is im looking for . I'm not even 100% on the dates. And I'm not sure how to word what I'm looking for.

I hope you find the early info you are looking for.

As others have suggested, getting a diagnosis nowadays would provide much more insight for you. There might be support groups to discuss with others that have similar learning issues. You might also be able to get certain financial help, or additional help at work if you have a diagnosis.

"They may wish to verify your identity and then they will send them."

There is some kind of BMA guidelines that make some GPs force people to go into the surgery in person to sign a form, but it's not actually legal to require this. They are required to act upon an email or letter they receive from the patient.

I was born in 1978 and have seen my medical notes from when I was a baby. They are paper records from back then so I had to make an appt to view them in person with a chaperone.

But I don't know either way it coukd well be dyslexia abd that's it i don't know. But there,are other things that I find hard to explain but I don't know if that's within the dyslexia bracket. I don't know of thers dyslexia and something else. There may not be.

The logical explanation given that you don't understand things you think other adults do now, is that it was the same as a child. You were likely not understanding the lessons and learning and they thought you'd fall behind more without a school able to cater to your learning path.
Do you remember any lessons at your mainstream school, and do you remember if you could read and write properly when you moved school? If not that's likely why.
Nowadays you probably would have had a TA in mainstream, but there wasn't as much support to keep children with academic struggles in mainstream when you were a child.

I don't see how they wouldn't have to see ID verification? Otherwise I could for example send a letter requesting my partners or an adult child at the same addresses medical information without any verification that they are the one making the request.

With a chaperone? In case you stole them or looked at other people's?
You actually have a right to have the copies sent to you free of charge.

Dyslexia was certainly considered a disability for which special school could be offered in the early 1990s. My sister was offered a special school space for it. It would have been on the grounds of learning disability.

Of course you should go ahead and try to get more info. But you said you were 'thrown' by being told you had moderate learning difficulties but you know you have difficulties with literacy and numeracy.

And as many posters have said, that is easily explained as 'moderate learning difficulties' can include dyslexia and dyscalculia and that could result in going to a 'special school' in the 80s whereas it wouldn't now.

And that the admission criteria for the schools you attended in the 80s were likely very different to when you Google them now.

Yeah I get that. But as you say includes dyslexia. So there could be other stuff that i don't know about . Also may not be. But I feel there's something. But that could be in my head

I also agree that it would be good to try to get an up to date diagnosis, I think a lot of things were classed as 'learning difficulties' in the 80's & 90's and this covered a whole range of things that there would be much more information and on and support for today. i hope that you're ok OP, it sounds like a really difficult situation.

It depends on the service and health authority.

When I worked in MH services, it was the trust policy that when someone requested their records, a practitioner went through them first to remove 3rd party information or information that may cause harm or distress and then a medical records worker would sit with the person while they went through their records and make copies as requested.

It's changed now in that copies are sent but still, a practitioner goes through them first to potentially remove certain information but now copies are sent to the person without having to have someone sit with them.

It was always difficult as the practitioner who would be asked to go though the records would ideally be the care co-ordinator but if it was records from years back, the person asked would be the last person that saw them that was still working for the trust who would have a stack of notes delivered to their place of work and have to go through them on top of everything else they had to do.

Just reading your responses to questions from others, you come across as well educated. I too would be asking why you had been sent to a SEN school. After 13 did you go back into main stream education? Did you go to college/university?

Well if you have dyslexia then that’s probably the reason?

Your GP will have notes going back to your birth.

Honestly you sound worried, I’m sure all it will be is a problem with numbers and letters as you said.
There is unlikely to be anything other than that, moderate learning difficulties.

There was probably no provision, so no teaching assistants to give you extra time in your original school, things were very different.

Best of luck, and don’t worry

No; I was something like a year after the deadline so the records had been destroyed. But it didn't matter, I did the assessment anyway and was diagnosed. My mum found some reports a couple of years later which were interesting to read but I never had anything picked up on in childhood. I went to mainstream schools and nobody ever flagged anything about me. I sought a diagnosis in adulthood because I couldn't make sense of the fact I couldn't seem to keep up with anything I started or maintain positive change in my life.

Are there no family members you could ask?

I don’t mean to be rude, but reading the OP’s responses she comes across differently to me. She clearly has additional needs as she is struggling to follow basic responses from posters. Her questions were answered long ago and she’s still somewhat confused. She doesn’t seem to know where to begin to navigate certain social situations.

OP is wondering if there was more to her attendance at a special needs school than dyslexia. I would say so. I imagine she won’t get the answers she’s looking for from the school records and would do well to pursue an autism assessment as an adult.

I taught in schools for children with moderate learning difficulties from the late 70s to the mid 80s. The bar was extremely low and children were there for all kinds of reasons. Could be behavioural, could be just struggling with basic literacy and numeracy, or might have conditions such as epilepsy that affected their learning.

Hardly any MLD schools exist these days. The schools that I taught in have become schools for children with severe and complex difficulties, and have waiting lists as long as your arm.

Special education has changed enormously in the last few decades.

Good luck with your enquiries. I hope you find some answers.

I'm definitely not well educated. No gcses . I wouldn't be able to do them . Not even now . I was also sen school from 8/9 years old till 16 .

OP what you need to say to the school and the GP is less arduous than what you have said here even.
keep it simple

(to the school)
I was a pupil at your school from around the ages of 8&9 (or whenever it was). I am now 4? (Whatever you are) so that would have been sometime around the late 1980s to early 1990s.

I have never been told of a learning difficulty diagnosis or why I attended your school. My parents are no longer around for me to ask. I am seeking any information that would bring me clarity.

(To the GP)

I am aware that between the ages of XXXX and XXXXX I was educated at a special school for people with learning difficulties. I do not know what my diagnosis was or why I attended these schools.

my parents are no longer around for me to ask. Please would you be able to find details in my medical history with regards to any diagnosis or references to any learning difficulties when I was a child.

Do you need a diagnosis for a certain reason?

OP, I think you also need to consider that things were very different back then and even if you find other things (i.e. other diagnoses) they may not mean the same things they do today. What was then labeled as one thing may be labeled as something completely different nowadays. By all means, get everything you can possibly get from your former schools and GPs, but also consider the suggestion by another poster above to start fresh and talk to your GP about the difficulties you are having now. GPs do listen to concerns and yes referrals might take a while, but a current diagnosis is always worth pursuing (in my opinion) so that you know as much as possible about yourself. It's empowering to know and it might change your life in a positive way.

In my LA we have two SEN primary schools and Two SEN high schools, one primary and high school cater,for children with moderate to severe learning disabilities and the other two cater for children with severe to profound learning disabilities my son goes to the high school for severe to profound
I have a,question I had work experience when I was at school working with children much like my son in a day centre ,as far as I'm aware the day centre was a voluntary service and parents were expected to stay with their kids this was around 1989/ 1990,
There didn't seem to be any formal education for these children would this have been typical?