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.

Hi OP. I am an educational psychologist.

I can't be sure but I imagine you had some kind of test that showed at that age that you scored in the moderate learning difficulties range at the time. I was trained in the 90s and at that age moderate LD was a score of 50-70 on a standard IQ test (not the lower score quoted a few pages back). Scores below 50 were severe LD (though to be honest, most people with that level of learning disability would not be accessing a test).

However - and this is the important point - tests are not "the truth". A person can get a low score on an assessment, especially when they are young, if they have a language comprehension difficulty and don't understand all the instructions. Or if they have a working memory problem and forget the instructions. Or if they have an attention issue and don't properly listen to the instructions. Or if they are very shy or very anxious and don't answer the questions or take any guesses. That's why a person administering these tests should be properly trained.

I can tell you from your grasp of sentence construction, grammar, and spelling that you don't appear to be a person who has a general moderate learning disability. There is nothing wrong with having learning difficulties, but a person scoring in that range would be likely to struggle with long written communication pieces. So I imagine that a mistake was made, and someone didn't look past a score, or maybe you had a particular issue that led to a lower score that wasn't really an overall global learning disability. Or maybe you were very unhappy in a bigger school and someone thought you would be happier in small class sizes. That wouldn't be a reason now to go to SEN school but things were less rigorous and well monitored in the past. It's impossible to say for sure now unless maybe your parents kept copies of old reports somewhere?

By the way - in UK SEN the words "learning difficulties" are used in the code of practice. They are a description which is what a lot of educationalist are trained to do - describe rather than diagnose (not saying this is my view, just explaining!). We use "specific learning difficulties" where a person has no general delay but a particular problem such as dyslexia or a working memory problem. We use "general learning difficulties" where scores are generally low and the person's development is all a bit slower and roughly in line globally.

A learning disability is the same but a diagnostic term rather than a description. It describes someone whose IQ score is at 70 or below (and this fits with their presentation) which is the lowest 2 percent. Sometimes a learning disability label is needed by social care to get certain supports such as respite care or similar.

Could it be a speech delay?

I don't remember much before I went to SEN school i know that I went to thing called unit. And we drank hot juice and a biscuit. I didn't have any friends at all. I'm quite sure I was bullied but don't remember it as such. I couldn't spell my own name till gone 9. I was happier in myself at SEN school had friends. As an adult I much prefer to be in my own I hate talking to people. I'm OK 121 but anything more than that I stop talking . When I was working in a school kitchen I hated it and felt panic when people speak to me I still feel like that now .

There's so much that I don't remember.

Sorry i went off topic really , I think your post made me reflect a bit . Hence my response

I am neurodiverse, dyslexic and from a dyslexic family. All of the next generation have a diagnosis but my generation, in spite of manifesting classic symptoms were not. Contrary to what others have said feel sure that in the mid 80s you would have had to have exhibited some pretty profound difficulties to have been tracked into a SEN school. My brother could not read at all until he was 11 and my Mum got a special tutor, yet at no point was the idea of a special school raised. In fact the verdict was 'you middle class parents just cannot accept when your child is stupid', he wasn't and has achieved highly since.

It is hereditary so a clue might be in the next generation getting a diagnosis of autism?

I, though less severely affected, have some pretty traumatic memories of school from the age of 6 even though ultimately I found ways of coping, being taken out of lessons for remedial reading, work covered in red pen, being mocked for being stupid, being accused of being lazy / day dreaming /weird. Not really being able to process those interactions in time to stand up for myself so the target of bullying. If your issues were severe enough to send you to special school, do you not have memories of your experiences at school before then. your interactions with teachers /peers? Typically neurodiversity could manifest itself as learning difficulties, a lack of organisational skills, poor memory, behavioural difficulties, either being with drawn (how I reacted) or disruptive / having meltdowns' struggling to communicate appropriately in interaction with peers (some people don't realise this is an issue for dyslexics too due to processing difficulties, autistic people have an entirely different way of communicating). Some autistic people can be non verbal. There must surely be some clues in your memories. I do strongly suggest you get an assessment though. Although I made it to university I did not really understand how I was like I was. It has helped me to understand myself and to cope better. An assessment will unlock coping mechanisms and also a supportive community that understands that neurodiversity gives you strengths as well as challenges.

You're talking about learning disabilities, not difficulties with you mentioning IQ.

You keep using the terms interchangeably and I wouldn;t expect an ed psych to do that.

As an educational psychologist were you conducting IQ testing? I know ed psychs used to more than now.

If you were, i'd have thought you knew the difference between learning disabilities and learning difficulties? but you seem to keep conflating the two.

Odd.

Without being rude, if you couldn't spell your name until you were 9 you obviously have some SEN and therefore were placed in a SEN school.

Cross posted. I should add that neurodiversity does not really fit into neatly defined categories / labels. They don't for instance tend to use the term "Dyslexic' anymore because some people can have working memory and processing problems and still not have problems with Literacy. Learning Difficulties can manifest themselves in other areas. So the label is now Specific Learning Difficulties. Autistic people may or may not have Learning Difficulties, their challenges too will vary.

Well.that's not necessarily true is it ?
Some children do struggle with spelling and reading that doesn't necessarily mean they would need to be in a,SEN school.even back in the 80,s
Fwiw I was a prolific reader from a very early age but I have a long hyphenated name and an Irish surname which I struggled spelling for a couple of years .,whereas my sister had a four letter name and was able to spell here much earlier.

Tbh school wise, moderate learning difficulties is from a standardised score of 69 and below. The op could be within this range.

I was thinking the same🤔

Without being rude you clearly do not understand SEN nor the experience of people who had SEN in the 80s when they went largely undiagnosed. Many people went through the mainstream schooling system and came out functionally illiterate. It would not have been that unusual to not be able to spell your name at 9 and stay in the mainstream system. There would have had to be more profound issues

Yes, I understand the concern. Nevertheless, they're not supposed to hinder a subject access request in that way.

But how does that work whilst maintaining confidentiality laws? If for example a woman had secretly had a termination it could put her in huge danger if an abusive partner or father found out by requesting her medical records

Equally she could be well above that range, as many neurodiverse people are highly intelligent but with learning difficulties that hinder them in mainstream schools, especially where the focus is on memory based learning as it was in the 80s, and sadly is going back that way now . Look and Say was a nightmare for children like me because we were never going to learn to read solely by memory.

Do you think because you write ‘ executive function disorder’ we’re all gonna bow down to your superior knowledge. You’re talking absolute rubbish you know that surely if you know what those words mean.

Yes, I said I understand the concerns. However, the process is supposed to be easy. She shouldn't have to take time off work to go to the surgery during their limited opening hours to sign a form.

You think you have learning difficulties and you’re wondering why you went to a school for children with learning difficulties?

You think you have learning difficulties and you’re wondering why you went to a school for children with learning difficulties, and would like to understand what those difficulties were in order to develop better coping strategies?

There fixed that for you......

https://www.england.nhs.uk/contact-us/privacy-notice/find-out-how-to-access-your-personal-information-or-make-a-request-in-relation-to-other-rights/

If it's medical records with the nhs it says they do require ID. I would assume and confidential records regardless of provider would be the same, it's not about stopping it being easy, they'd be breaking the law if they handed medical records over to someone else without consent.

It's not odd, as I explained in the next post along.

Are you familiar with the SEN code of practice?

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2014/6/section/20

Can I ask op, are you black/ an ethnic minority? There was a time where in the UK a lot of kids were placed in sen schools due to racism. I find it quite sad that you've gotten to adulthood and don't know if you have a diagnosis of a condition. Why have family not told you? It isn't 100% clear, but did you attend that school for a period of time and then went into mainstream? Did you continue your education afterwards?

You could try contacting children's services as they would likely have been part of the decision making behind your school placement

Woodside school is near me. Nowadays it’s a school for children with autism. https://www.woodside.bexley.sch.uk/

No im white British. That's pretty awful though.

It might be that I don't have a diagnosis at all so there was nothing to tell.

It's the other way I went to mainstream until around 8 or 9 . Then I went to SEN school from then till 16.