to find it sad only 3 parents showed up

[biddysmama]

ds's school has an informal coffee afternoon for the kids with sen/ld so their parents can go in and see who will be working with their child and what they are doing/have done, they have things for younger kids to do aswell so you can talk and they tell parents how they are doing and what action atc being taken..... i went to it yesterday and out of 30 kids 3 parents went :(

i know not everyone can make it but i know some of the parents dont work (inc my neighbour who was definately at home)

their little faces as they came into the room and no one was there for them and my crazy pregnant lady hormones made me want to cry :(

Ok statements.

My son when to a mainstream school for two years without a statement. Dispite me going into the school before he started and on a regular (weekly) basis after he started. Dispite me furnishing them with all the information they needed. I also raised concerns about his lack of progress. I attended all the IEP meetings and parents evenings and assembilies and plays etc.

After two years he still couldnt read or write and had no extra support.

I applied for the statement myself. I didnt know you could until then.
Within the few months it took to go through the process my son was dx with ASD, moderate LDs and a condition that meant his brain processes sound/language at a very low level.
He also moved to a special needs school. He was reading within 6 mths.

So no kids with SEN/SN dont get help without a statement. Not unless you are very lucky and the school doesnt like to keep their allocated SEN budget in one big lovely pot.

a lot of non sn parents do get it Riven, but sadly there will always be a few who feel they can pick us apart and judge us, but i bet they are the ones who think it could never happen to them,

I am finding myself avoiding them 2shoes. I am tired of standing up and educating.

oh I am bored with teh educating, you can't educate ignorant people it it is to hard.
perhaps we should judge the working parents, why can't they get time of to go to see their nt kids in the weekly assembly/do coffee mornings blah blah.....I mean think of the nt children with their [hsad] little faces.

Hi Headfirst, iam interested in the Seal project which I c u have referred to as apparently my child has been doing this at school as part of their PSED but as parents we have been told nothing about it. Can u tell me what it involves?

but there are parents who don't go because they can't be arsed and yes I judge them

Just out of curiousity Gooseberry, have you actually had parents of kids with SN/SEN actually come and say to you "I don't go to coffee mornings because I simply can't be arsed"
Some on here have said they can't be arsed because they have other commitments, travelling problems, other children at various schools spread out, hospital appts, docts, meetings, work and so on but have they actually said they just can't be arsed like in a way that implies they don't give a hoot about their kids needs?
I would gather that other than a few comments on here which you've picked up on without looking beyond for the reasons, that you don't really have much to do with parents of SEN kids. Is that right?

Many kid with SN do get picked up by taxi. A lot of parents fight tooth and nail to get their kids the help they need, nothing is given without a battle in most cases, a lot of stress, heartache and pain...

I'm one of the luckier ones, mine are so bloody clearly LD that statement was automatic and it's always been SEN school which is only 5 miles from me but being as it's the only one here, many parents have to travel 25 miles, often without a car and relying on many buses, to attend things like reviews, school medicals, concerts, plays...some have to take and collect their children as they won't go on the buses provided. One or two I know of have to hang around all day waiting to collect them again!

Do you understand any of this at all?

It's not just the child at the SNU either.

As from September ds1 and ds3 will be dropped off by taxis, anything running after a certain time at the other boy's local MS school is impossible to manage. It has a pervasive efect. Just as sometimes ds2 is late of a morning becuase ds3's taxi has failed to turn up until we are late.

Luckily both ASD boys attended the MS for a time (ds1 managed all of it, it's comp he can't- ds3 transferred out in year one). So the school 'gets it' and we miss out on the usual notes about ds3 needing to be there on time, as from now he is able to walk in alone anyway.

My big fear is that ds4 will not cope in nursery this year and will ahve to attend the Base as well: fine whilst ds3 is there I guess but once DS3 goes to comp (only one he can attend seems to be at a Catholic school, will be interesting as we are a CofW / Quaker family) it will mean 3 taxis which is just ridiculous. Both in cost and practicality. But needs must (planning was refused a few years back for an ASD unit that could have taken them all so as a town we are without provision: good in that we had free choice for ds3, but a huge shame wrt to community links etc)

All sounds very complicated Peachy- hope you have some military training for all these manouvres
I remember the days of having 4 kids at 4 different schools, only one withion walking distance. One 12 miles away, one 12 miles but in a different place and another 7 miles away somewhere else entirely.
Was great fun dashing to and fro when the transport for younger 2 was so dire that we refused to use it (no MOTs, seats caved in in the mjiddle, no straps etc, not English spoken, except to swear around the kids and to sit in laybys for half hour with bus load of kids cos they got to school too early and got told off!)
Glad I don't have those problems anymore and feel for you having them.

It seems a bit like this thread has become filled with people who are in extreme and very difficult circumstances. Nobody should be judging parents of children with SLD or who have 3.5 hours of travel for not getting regularly into school. That should be a no brainer.

But it didn't seem like that was what the OP and the first few pages of responses were about at all? A group of children with SEN at your average ms primary school are going to be mostly kids with dyslexia, dyspraxia, unexplained slower learning, milder forms of ADHD and ASD. If it's a more incusive school there will be those with more severe needs but they are not going to form the majority of a group of 30 children.

It seems unlikely that 27 of those 30 parents are going to be unable to turn up for reasons such as huge commutes, needing respite, having multiple other SN children etc. At least a proprotion of them must have had no good reason for not turning up. And that is sad.

I don't think posters who are saying how disappointing it must be for the children are being unreasonable or are not empathising with some of the extreme problems other posters in this thread face. They are just taking the situation at face value and seeing it as a normal coffee morning for weaker learners in the school.

But if the children are very much at the lower end of the need's spectrum I would question the need for a 'special' event.

It doesnt sound very inclusive or integrated to me.

But that is my experience of mainstream schooling unfortunately.

well no manic, however the coffee morning would then be on top pf all the other crap sn brings and once you have taken time off / found babysitters for the 'basics'- sports day, school fayres, parent's evening- and then again for IEP and statement reviews- well!

From a group of 30 I can completely understand that only 3 may have been SAHM / carers: in a MS school that would probably represent the number of children severe enough to need a carer (ds1 is in MS until September and needs a carer), so realistically it coulod be as simple as that? Exhausted annual leave and / or babysititng favours by sheer overload.

I have to agree with MrsDV as well that personally I am really uncomfy with the notion of a special event of this style. Ct's not confidential (how TAs are allocated should be, some parents don;t want their child's use of one to be common knowledge and one can hardly have quiet chats about needs at a coffee morning. I spent an hour at ds1's future ASD Base talking about problems today, not things I would want discussed at a coffee morning). It's also quite separatist which is clearly the opposite of inclusive.

It's also quite separatist which is clearly the opposite of inclusive.

This is what I've always said about MS for SEN. It's k if they're not so bad I suppose but i know for mine would be a living hell.
And they call it integration when half the time the kids have seperate lunchs/breaks/classrooms...and coffee mornings too it would seem!
Not saying they're all bad but integration IMO is when they're all 'included' in every event and every daily activity.

I like the base set up the boys access, that's my take on effective inclusion as long as backed up by decent teahcers who are happy to pull from ms if needed.

My experience of asd in MS hs not been positie. I know it's fab for some but not really my boys. I suspect it works entirely on the basis of if the kids are wanted by the school it's positive; if like ours it's not really a school meant for kids with SN- they just HAVE to take them- then nope.