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?

My child’s outstanding and oversubscribed primary tried this. Bit them on the bum when OFSTED finally showed up after years of no inspections and regraded them needs improvement, the key factor being SEN.

And here-in lies the issue. An assumption that everyone lives someplace with a broad range of schools that are accessible both in terms of places and transport. The educational equivalent of a Dairy Milk tray chocolate box.

the other ‘go away’ is schools that say no opt out for religious participation. Especially egregious when a community school has been taken over by a religious academy chain removing choice in a location.

Teachers that won't or can't teach SEND pupils are obviously either ableist or incompetent.

It's such a waste of resources and time having to train them not to be ableist or incompetent. The budget and training time could be better used elsewhere.

Why don't we get rid of all the ableist/incompetent teachers and make them be freelance tutors?

Off roll the perpetrators not the victims.

If your suggestion ever came to pass, just so long as they aren’t foisted on DC with s19 provision or those with EOTAS/EOTIS packages via their EHCPs. Too many LAs think nothing of putting a completely inadequate tutor in front of a child with s19 provision or EOTAS/EOTIS.

You think this is new ?
i retired from teaching in 2016
it was ever thus for the past 30 years !

SEND covers a wide range of conditions, some of which require very different approaches (e.g severe visual impairment, extreme behavioural issues).

Teachers are not incompetent because they aren’t trained to teach severely disabled pupils, who obviously need specialised schools and/or teachers. Teachers are also not incompetent if they can’t or don’t want to manage poor behaviour from pupils with ADHD, when this is affecting the rest of their classes’ progress. We’re paid to teach, not to do crowd management.

What about poor behaviour from non-SEND children? This is probably the majority of poor behaviour, are you paid to teach them? Or the anxious, but well behaved autistic children, are you paid to teach them?

Behaviour management is clearly part of teaching and, being part of the job, is what you are paid for.

Extreme behaviour issues are a real problem and can relate to SEND, often as a result of a very distressed pupil. But I suspect that most of the low level persistent disruption seen in many schools has nothing to do with SEND.

This constant conflation of SEND and behaviour issues is deeply unpleasant.

My DS1 has had an EHCP since before he started school. He was never disruptive, to the point that the school started redeploying his full-time 1:1 LSA elsewhere. He was physically assaulted while not with his LSA. This was in Year 1.

So so many things went wrong for him at that school. It was Ofsted Outstanding and they insisted they were brilliant for SEN. They weren’t. They didn’t understand and they didn’t care.

Its disgusting and discrimination. I'd whistle blow to ofsted and any other organisation ( dept of Education)

You are paid for classroom behaviour management, it's part of the PGCE course. I know as I was a teacher.

I would always ask an HT if the School recognised festivals, events through the course of the year (Christian or otherwise), I certainly wouldn't send my child to the School in Hampshire where the Headmistress banned any recognition of Easter last year, it caused a lot of upset........🙄

How does any HT have time to do personal tours, or interrogate to identify the deplorables?

In rural areas there only is one school per catchment, the undesirables can't afford bus fares to send their kids elsewhere.

Weird.

I call it corrupt.

I've never known a head teacher physically take parents around the school but they usually give a short speech to all the parents at the beginning or end of the tour. The last time we looked round schools we noticed which head teachers mentioned neurodivergence (dyslexia, in particular, was mentioned at one) and which definitely didn't.

I think emphasising the behaviour policy is fine. One head told us directly that if you are a family that doesn’t follow rules then don’t send your kids here!

What if those parents don't have a choice?
The world would be very boring if everyone followed all rules. For a start, parents whose children have SEN wouldn't be able to advocate properly for them.