Education is the right of every child

[Cheeseandolivesplease]

What should be done when this isn't the case? Perhaps when parents/carers don't support this right?
I've been in education (SEND Specialism) for well over twenty years and I still don't have the answers.
I am not referring to those parents with whom I absolutely emphasise - those parents that are trying their absolute best to get their child to school/a place of learning and I fully appreciate that mainstream isn't the right place for all learners.
But what about those who really don't try to facilitate any form of learning at the detriment of their child?
I wish I had the answers to make this right 😕

Equally, it is easy to blame parents when you lack understanding of SEN and lack understanding and experience of EOTAS/EOTIS/C in particular.

Parental blame doesn’t help anyone.

@scoopofmintchocchipicecream Agree, LA were proposing staff via agencies for dd's EOTAS that didn't have even the qualifications or experience specified in EHCP so of course parents need to be involved in their recruitment. Nobody met dd until I had seen CV, spoke with them and met them in person

@scoopofmintchocchipicecream Please go back and read my orignal post!

Are you asking whether homeschooling should be made illegal like in Germany?

I don’t need to. I have read your posts. Parent blame. Parent blame. Parent blame. Demonstrating a lack of understanding of SEN and a lack of understanding and experience of EOTAS/EOTIS. While excusing LA failures because they are strapped for money and staff and are overwhelmed.

How many parents are you meeting like this? You say most children you work with have an EHCP. I don't know any child who got an EHCP without the parent pushing for it. So I'm a bit confused at how you have come to the idea that the problem in the education system is parents not facilitating education.

I reckon most parents with kids with SEND are just exhausted from it all. The only way to convince them that they need to send their kids in is to be gentle and show them the actual progress made by other kids with their child’s profile. They probably just don’t believe that kind of progress is possible.
The problem is of course that children however hard their challenges are most likely to progress as children when their brains and bodies are malleable to learning. So show and prove that to the parents so they believe it. But if the education system keeps putting up barriers just like the NHS then of course people don’t have the energy to engage in the first place.

I really do not believe that someone working in education with SEND specialism believes that every child in the country is offered a suitable school place and the issue here is the parents. Are you genuinely claiming that your SEND school has zero waiting list and none of the children that cross over to you come with trauma from their previous school experience?

@Cheeseandolivesplease, mu DSis, works in FE with young SEN people. She is continually frustrated because part of her role is to transition these young people into the workplace. Through learning life skills as well as vocational or academic study.

What frustrates her the most is parents who do not want the young people to be taught how to travel on public transport and who don’t actually see their young people moving on into the workplace.

She works with young people from the age of 16-24. The majority of them have EHCP certificates. Her job involves assessments of competences and skilled. She feels some parents are not willing to fully engage themselves or their young people in these assessments because for each skill achieved, the EHCP is adjusted accordingly.

She talks of these young people being intelligent, enthusiastic and excited to have left school and now be in SEN FE. Not all, obviously because as PPs have been said, one size doesn’t fit all.

I think I get what you saying OP.

@scoopofmintchocchipicecream You believe that a parent can never, ever, plausibly, fail to help facilitate or support an education and it is always the fault of everyone else.
Is this true of all students do you believe, or just those not in mainstream?
We will have to agree to disagree and leave it at that.

@Forgottheforgetmenots I don't work in a SEND school.

No, that isn’t what I posted. I point you in the direction of my post yesterday that you conveniently ignored.

“That isn’t what I said. I said the reasons why need identifying without attaching blame and judgement.

You can’t resolve the situation whilst attaching parental blame. You can’t work with the CYP and their family whilst judging them and pushing them away. You can’t work towards engagement without understanding the why and making changes to how/when/who/where works with the child. You can’t work with the family without understanding the wider context and history. You can’t achieve engagement without understanding the trauma and likely parent carer burnout. You won’t secure engagement without a comprehensive assessment (not the cursory, vague assessments LAs often undertake) by an MDT in order to identify the child’s needs and what they require. You won’t secure engagement without the LA focusing on what is actually required rather than what they would like to provide, their preferred providers, their own (often unlawful) policies, passing the buck or saving money.

If the child cannot engage with the AP offered, it isn’t suitable and therefore the LA needs to provide provision that is suitable to comply with their duties.”

If the poster is the poster I think she is, she doesn’t work in SS, she has been an EOTAS tutor for less than 18 months.

Alternatively, the parents’ judgement of their YP’s needs and the SEP required is more accurate. Anyone who knows the first thing about EHCPs knows LAs regularly downplay, misrepresent or ignore the CYP’s actual needs and SEP required. It is part of the reason why the appeal success rate is so high.

There have always been parents who are utterly disinterested and probably baffled as to why their children should even go to school.
And probably didn’t do much at it themselves when they went.

All educators can do is keep going. Maintain basic standards.
Parents who are problematic will always exist. The difficulty is when a whole school has more than their fair share of such people.

I always like the mix up of public school inviting in difficult children from state schools. I watched a programme on this once. It was a revelation to the state school pupils. Watching children with respect for a teacher. Doing things they would have jeered at. But people their age taking it seriously. It really changed some of them for the better.

I do get this and part of my DSis role is to prepare for these assessments of which there are many. Every step of the process of preparing young people for the next stages of their lives is appealed if it is seen or felt to not be in the young person’s interest.

As you state also the LAs are not always engaging in the individual young persons interests and their approach is purely administrative.

Clearly the parents have their young person’s interests solely at heart. My DSis does though feel sadness when she sees a young person being held back or not being able to access fully what is available. Because even at FE level many young people cannot speak up for themselves and are not always involved in the decision making process. Although where capacity lies they should be.

Everything you state must be integral to every decision made by LAs and the professionals working with these young people and should not ever be over looked or not interpreted at every stage. From listening to my sister, I would say that this is overly the case.

Yes. Having gone through the EHCP process myself I struggle to believe that there are many completely uncaring, uninvolved parents of children with EHCPs. OP what sort of numbers are we talking? How many children are you dealing with where the sole barrier to education is the parent not caring about their education?

@Monty36 I would like to watch that! Unfortunately even just a basic respect for teachers is becoming increasingly more of an exception than a rule. It's just one of the many reasons as to the recruitment and retention crisis.

It was an eye opener for the state school children. Particularly the classical music lesson. The went in sniggering. And then stopped when they realised the pupils were taking it seriously and listening and respecting their teacher. They were flabbergasted at the behaviour of the public school pupils too. No backchat, no lip. All well behaved. It threw them to see something different.
That and the fact that the public school pupils were not remotely interested in joining in any poor behaviour and when it occurred ignored them.
It really was an eyeopening piece of TV.

Remember those kind of programmes are manipulated to please their audience. They are created for entertainment. Plenty of well behaved DC in state schools and plenty of uninterested parents in public schools.

And yet LAs regularly overlook them, often intentionally.

If the LA’s original decisions were lawful and the right decisions, the appeals to SENDIST wouldn’t be successful.

When the YP’s wishes, views and aspirations are not considered, the LA is acting unlawfully.

Held back or the parents’ having more of a handle on the YP’s SEN and SEP required than the LA.

It was a documentary I think it was on the BBC. It didn’t have any axe to grind.
Of course not all children fit into some sort of pigeon hole of public school good state school bad.

The system is ridiculously complicated and makes it hard for parents to navigate. I say that as someone who works with children with SEN and as a parent who has been navigating the system for years.

Parents shouldn’t need to become experts in SEN law just to be able to access the right education for their child. They shouldn’t have to go to court just for their child to be able to access a setting where they are safe. Schools shouldn’t be in a position of having to rob Peter to pay Paul in order to stretch the limited resources even further to meet needs they simply can’t meet safely.

most importantly we shouldn’t be in a situation where at best children survive because they are in an inappropriate setting. Every child should be given the chance to thrive.