Headteachers use open days to dissuade 'undesirable' families.

[Diamondsgreen]

I've worked in schools for a long time. The challenging schools used open evening to try and persuade families they wanted their DC to attend - empty places cost money and add even more challenge to the school.

However, in every one of the "good", oversubscribed schools the HT used them to put off families they didn't like the look/feel of.

E.g. in a small infant school the HT insisted on doing all the tours herself. Then at any mention of SEND would be most unethusiastic about how the school might be able to meet the child's needs, even suggesting other schools locally who might be better placed to do it.

A Grammar school made a big deal of all the expensive trips and extra curricular activities, you may think to show depth in their offer, but the strategy was to put off less afuulent families.

The one doing the rounds currently is behaviour. The school's (often Trust's) behaviour policy is designed to create a positive learning environment, but the school won't suit pupils or families who will challenge that....

Sensible management or wholly unethical?

This happened on our tour. Speech about challenging behaviours and no space for time out so school couldn’t support difficult behaviours as no space and so it wouldn’t work.

Sold for me there and then! I said where do I sign 😂

So I suppose it is a sales pitch for some parents.

Sadly this is the direct result of the 2 conflicting agendas that are in play in our education system. Whilst there are demands for "standards" the need for inclusion will always take second place. Add to this heady mix the pressure faced by headteachers and school leaders from Academy Trusts - where you can be clearing your desk at a moments notice - it is no surprise that unethical practices take place. (8am Saturday school visits anyone?). It's a matter of professional survival - where children's needs aren't always paramount

They should be similar in terms of their local offer especially for SEND - you should be able to send your child to your local maintained school and expect a similar standard to other maintained schools. This doesn’t happen in practice but should. It’s would avoid catchment issues and create more equality for the children in all communities.

I visited an all boys state school and the head teacher went on about all the fabulous (expensive) trips and I'm sure it sounded great to the richer parents and put off others. Even though head droned on for an hour, zero mention of pastoral care or SEN. Just the fact it wasn't mentioned will have stood out to any parents who have children requiring extra resources and probably put them off. Lots of subtle things to get the applicants they want.

That's illegal offrolling.

With my DS who has clear SEN, apart from when he entered Reception all the schools have done this. Don't come to our school, we don't want the bother.

When DD and we were looking round secondary schools one clearly wanted to put off parents like us. Over subscribed, massive, and the HT talked about how many pupils went to Oxbridge. DD is unlikely to go to university and there was nothing really that applied to her. I raised a safeguarding concern (boys and girls loos sharing a set of sinks) and the teacher said "well if that's important to YOUR family" hence marking me as THAT PARENT.
DD actual school, the HT told us about all the things year 7s would get to learn about themselves. It was much more inclusive.
There's also a lot of parent grapevine at work -if a child with SEN has a dreadful time at a school they will tell other parents.

Re: the bathrooms I don't think you were the only one who would have noticed it - I noticed that at a secondary school open evening recently and it put me off (I only have boys who wouldn't care but I thought it must be horrible for girls who've just started their periods!)

How did it come up that he is autistic?

Usually the issue is people bring this up to steer the conversation towards extra support they want for their child, almost always things that cost money - one to ones, extra technology, small group staff, interventions, therapies etc.

Schools have no money and the first £6k of send costs for any child has to be met from the existing school funding, so a child requiring send support immediately means less money for everything/everyone else. If you flag that your child is going to cost more than the others, its a bit inevitable they will put you off. The money is finite so the extra costs for your child will be to the detriment of all the others.

I was a SEND student. I was incredibly well-behaved engaged student, the opposite of distracting or disruptive. In fact teachers would put the chatty naughty children next to me as they knew I would ignore them and focus on the school work.

The school was happy to take the extra funding they got for having a SEND student, however they were not happy to spend any of that extra funding proving me with the reasonable adjustments I required and they were obliged to provide by law.

My family and I were absolutely tortured by the school. To this day I experience physical pain because of what they did to me.

On one hand I think it might be best for SEND students not to attend schools that are vile ableist cesspits hostile towards them. I'm just not sure a school that welcomes SEND students and adequately supports them actually exists.

SEND students have as much right to a good education as anyone else, however it sounds like these schools aren't actually good at providing education, they are merely good at picking high achieving students.

I used to work at a school that was the local hub for students with physical disabilities.

there’s a lot of focus these days on students with ASD or adhd but the majority of students that came to us had disabilities like down’s or cerebral palsy or epilepsy.

teens in wheelchairs need a wheelchair accessible school. Some (probably most) schools are not wheelchair accessible (stairs, no lifts etc) and so usually these students go to one school in the area.

there’s also the visually impaired kids and the partially deaf ones again many of whom are mainstreamed.

it does take a lot of time to adapt lessons for these students - a pp said that most of the strategies for disabled students are good for the whole class - signing for a deaf student does nothing to help the rest of the class, bringing in coins for a blind student does nothing to help the rest of the class.

there’s only a few sends which actually require not many adjustments, a lot of disabilities require a LOT of adaptation.

It’s a Michaela style school (not Michaela itself) - not normal behaviour standards. The rules I felt were Draconian included no speaking (at all) in the corridors when moving around the school. Also no choice of lunch or who you sit with at lunch (“family dining”). I know the reason they do these things but I feel it is only appropriate when families actually opt in rather than this being your only catchment school

No choice of lunch can’t be enforced as pupils have allergies/religious requirements etc.

that would not stand up in court and I suspect that they do actually permit exemptions.

I thought Michaela was vegetarian (as its OK for all religions)?
Presumably they have to make exceptions for allergies.

I think no choice of lunch is pretty common in Europe (with exceptions with a Doctors note). I wouldn't like no choice of who to sit with though - as adults we get a lunch break and can sit with whoever we like/by ourselves.

Absolutely OP, they do. The school we"re hoping to send our dc actively suggests other schools have more resources for SEN during open days. That said they do an excellent job with the SEN children that do attend.
My children don't have SEN. In the school of our catchment area, there are many children with SEN and I am in all honesty concerned that my children who will naturally "meet expectations " won't be pushed to maximise their potential as all the effort will go into helping those who are "working towards" .

It's a tough conundrum for schools and parents.

Do teachers not realise providing access and adapting lessons for SEND students is part of their job and required by law?

I was often too ill to attend school. I asked if they could video call me so I wouldn't miss the class. They acted like it was the most unreasonable dangerous request and absolutely beyond the scope of what they could provide. It was a different story when covid happened and all the able bodied students couldn't come in.🤔

My son is a wheelchair user and so far, I've actually been pleasantly surprised at how wheelchair accessible his current school is and both high schools we looked around at recent open days are. The main issue in all of them is that the lifts are tiny and the wheelchair is a squeeze, one high school used that as an excuse to attempt to put us off and didn't seem impressed when I said it's like that in his primary school and it's manageable.

His primary school also has full changing facilities (he's incontinent) so I do think we got fortunate as it is his local primary school. Neither high school has full changing facilities but I'd find that very unusual for mainstream high school so I wasn't expecting it.

I don't think this is completely outrageous but I say that after spending an inordinate amount of time having to deal with a problem child that had all manner of excuses for his behaviour. Frankly if the head of that school had put him off, it would've been a much nicer experience for my two and the rest of their class. Someone mainstream education is not suitable for some children with behavioural issues - and it's unacceptable to affect the majority of kids just so the problematic ones don't feel singled out. Bugger that!

Yep. I put my ds2 in private. Not to get away from the Sen children but to get away from the poorly behaved children, some Send, most not.

They're reacting to outside forces. We need to address the underlying issues. "Why" don't they want to accept those families and students? Ban league tables or anonymise results. Or force the focus to be on student satisfaction, rather than performance (progress is still performance). Just examples: not advocating for them.

"What" causes them to behave like this? Fear of repercussions? Loss of bonus or promotion? Look into changing that so there is no longer an incentive to behave in a shitty manner.

Humans behave shittily mostly by nature - we need reasons not to.

You do realise that many send children meet expectations or are above and non send children may also be 'working towards'?

I still wouldn’t call it draconian. Strict yes.

I agree with you but also see PP’s point. Ideally all schools should be able to cater for everyone, but with very limited resources that’s just not possible.

The responsibility is on the school not on the individual teacher.

all lessons need to be adapted for all children and all classes

some cannot.

there were children we couldn’t take swimming because the risk assessment was that it was too dangerous.

there are children in wheelchairs who can’t take part in the hurdles race.

students with send are entitled to an education. Generally students with particular disabilities (blind, deaf, etc) are grouped together in schools or units or classes because it’s much easier to teach a group of students who have similar needs than a group of students whose needs have nothing in common.

And somewhat misses the point that these schools aren't usually any better for children with send, it's just they don't deliberately put parents off and point them in the direction of somewhere else.

signing for a deaf student does nothing to help the rest of the class

There is some evidence that BSL in classrooms benefits hearing pupils too.

bringing in coins for a blind student does nothing to help the rest of the class.

I’m not 100% in what context you mean here, but if for instance you mean for maths calculations, using manipulatives can benefit more than just DC with a VI.

Generally students with particular disabilities (blind, deaf, etc) are grouped together in schools or units or classes

This may surprise you, but the statistics do not support this assertion. For example, in the most recent 25/26 statistics, there were 8,918 DC with EHCPs with HI as the primary need. The majority in mainstream (not SEN unit or resource provision) - 1,183 in LA maintained mainstreams, 1,993 in mainstream academies, 121 in mainstream free schools, 132 in independents. In comparison, a smaller number in a resource provision or SEN unit 110 in SEN units in LA maintained mainstreams, 438 in resource provisions in LA maintained mainstreams, 205 in SEN units in academy mainstreams, 525 in resource provisions in academy mainstreams, 1 in a free school resource provision. A smaller number are in SS. There’s some in other types of placements too or not with a placement. Then there are some without EHCPs too. Similar picture for those whose primary need is VI.

All schools have a notional SEN budget. The idea of that budget is to fund SEN provision for children with SEN, including the first £6k for children with high needs (EHCP). That funding isn't ring fenced, but it exists whether you welcome children with SEN or not. Clearly some schools have decided that discouraging SEN children means that they can save some of that notional SEN budget for other things. The consequence for more inclusive schools is that they can have their whole notional SEN budget taken up with the first £6ks for EHCP pupils, leaving nothing for those with other SEN needs. It may be possible to request top up funding from the local authority if the level of SEN is unusually high, but you're probably never going to be in the same financial position as a school that puts off SEN parents and children.