to be outraged at this labelling of SEN children by a head teacher

[JustNotFunnyAnymore]

The KS2 SATs results at a local school are particularily poor (compared to recent years and then they were not particularily good) and a letter has just been sent out to all parents. The contents of the letter point to the fact that the cohort consists of 40% SEN children (8 of 20 children in the class). To me, this is wholly unacceptable. I interpret this as the HT using SEN as an excuse for the poor results. In my opinion her message to the world is SEN children are academic underachievers where I know this is absolutely not the case.

I am shocked that a HT considers this kind of labelling as acceptable. If this is what she believes then how on earth can those kids be getting the education they deserve?

I really would like to challenge the HT on this (my DC are not SEN) but feel I have to be careful as to what I say as she has accused many a parent before of bullying her when offering their views.

AIBU and (obv if you think IABU) all suggestions re my course of action would be gratefully received.

I believe if they are not going to score L3 that is.

The school hasn't failed all the children! The Sats scores are recorded as a percentage of level 4s and 5s for the school. She is explaining why the percentage is particularly low this year. I'm sure she wouldn't have bothered unless people had commented. Unfortunately prospective parents could look at the scores out of context and decide it's a rubbish school!

YANBU, I wouldn't be happy.

She's justified in doing this. Schools with transient populations also have problems and suffer from the league table not representing the progress the children have made. League tables aren't perfect.

That having been said, local authorities could throw a lot more money at schools in these situations and provide more 1:1 support where necessary,

It's quite nice in a way that you have thought about this and have lent on the side of SEN even though your own children have no SEN issues. But I wouldn't take it as anything more than what it is; a letter explaining the scores overall. As long as your kids did ok I wouldn't worry. If they didn't do as well as you feel they could've done then I would be challenging the teacher or head to find out why but otherwise...

I'd be livid. My daughter is a SEN child, a high proportion of kids like her and they'd be top of the league.

(I hate SATS results tables, they give a completely distorted view of how good a school is. My daughter got the better education when I moved her from a 'top' school to a 'poor' school.)

I don't like it and I think I know why.

Plenty of parents don't like having SEN children in the class because they think that pulls the levels down and detracts from their own children's chances. Plenty of parents also believe that SATS results are a general indication of how well the children are learning and think that any child who is at a school with low average results will therefore be learning less.

Those parents will now see that the Head blames the SEN children and will feel justified in their belief that SEN children ruin everybody's chances.

Imagine if the Head had sent out a letter saying that the low scores are due to having so many traveller's children (seeing that they statistically get lower scores). It would be bound to have a negative effect on relations between parents.

Imho there is a difference between what the head should be saying to justify herself to Ofsted and what she should be saying to the parents.

SeniorWrangler believe it or not the school has suffered recently with la money thrown at it over the last year and thus the results were expected to be better which would have shown that progress has being made.

Lots of points I agree with that I wouldn't have considered have been posted. I am not the greatest fan of SATs myself but the message that I feel is being sent to the parents has (to me) obviously been very ill thought out - or (controversially maybe) meticulously thought out to save HT onions.

If most of the SEN in the class was for learning difficulties, then of course that will have an impact on the overall percentage. Yes, teachers should have high expctations of SEN children but that doesn't mean always expecting them to achieve as well as their peers.

Also it's a very small school, so each individual child, whether SEN or not actually accounts for 5% of the school's result.If 3 children with moderate learning difficulties weren't entered into the tests because they're not working at a high enough level, the school could only ever get 85% level 4s. If another 3 children worked too slowly, and didn't finish the test, the school is down to 70%. And so on.

What would you like her to say, Cory?

cory - agree absolutely

Children with sen do not have to be entered for satsI believe if they are not going to score L3 that is.

They do not have to sit the tests if they are below level 3, but they still count as the overall percentage, whether they sit a test or not. So if 8 children were indeed working below the level of the tests, they would score as 40% not achieving level 4 anyway.

I think her message ought to concentrate on whether a significant number of pupils had made sufficient progress- if so she ought to point that out as a positive- if not, she should say that the school is looking into ways of improving its teaching.

Yes, I agree that the letter should have focused on progress. She could also have commented on whether the school achieved their own targets, which would have taken SEN and the children's starting points into account.

I see, thanks.

I would be interested to know what the whole letter says, because it's easy to take offence at one sentence and overlook positive messages that may have been included. In my long experience working with schools I would expect headteachers to emphasise anything positive that they can when writing to parents. So possibly to make some mention of other measures of achievement in the letter.
The head is doing her job in stating that fact. 40% is a high level of statemented children, and if this affects their attainment then it is absolutely right that she mentions this. She has to make sure that the parents she is writing to understand that while the overall score looks poor, individual children in the school are (hopefully) making good individual progress. She should explain if there are any factors that would cause a score to look low. She didn't invent SATs, she is stuck with dealing with them.

p.s. We don't know whether or not the letter gives information about progress. Op hasn't made that clear.
If you're pissed off then the thing to do is ask to have a chat with the headteacher. If you're contemplating some sort of complaint then that will be the first stage in the process anyway. She should be able to explain exactly how the school tracks pupil progress, identifies "gaps" and sets up interventions to deal with them. If the governors are doing their job this will also be reflected in the minutes of their meetings, although they will not be public record for you to read until they have been approved in the Autumn term.

FallYI, letter also stated that a number of the writing papers had been sent for re-marking. I am aware this has been an issue this year by reading press coverage but in some ways I think this almost makes the SEN comment worse as the implication is the divide should be even greater.

Does that make any sense?

I also think YANBU, as, as others have pointed out, SEN does not necessarily mean learning difficulties. My son has a statement of special needs and is medicated for his condition. He scored highly in the Y6 end of year tests. He's about to go to secondary school, and I spent an hour with the SENCO almost literally banging my head against the walls as she kept telling me "He doesn't have learning difficulties, so I will not be spending a lot of my time with him". I KNOW he doesn't have learning difficulties, ffs! He DOES have a statement of special needs, and he DOES need support. And breathe.

All children are not expected to make the same level of progress. Or at least they are certainly not expected to make the same level of progress at secondary school - targets are contextualised and take into account SEN. I don't know if they have CVA in primary schools.

I don't have a problem with this. The head has a very large % of sn children. Most people aren't as caring, or knowlegeable or analytical about SATS, or other things as us MN'ers !! Most people don't think of it as 'progress'. They just see a'result'. They probably just give them a quick glance and think 'oh dear those results aren't good, wonder whats going on there ? Head ? Poor staff ? poor teaching .... etc etc'.
The Head has to explain/justify/account for the results. And her's are probably lower than another school with no sn children. I mean come on , lets get real here, they are bound to be. Schools are aiming for a 2A. If a child gets a 3, great. All heads will be aiming for that.
And questions are asked. By parents, PFA's, Boards, LA's, all sorts. This Head is just trying to explain. And i think thats fine.

If you've got a smaller school, then your SATs results tend to bounce up and down a lot more than larger schools - because one "weaker" child is a much larger percentage of your results. While the kids getting 3s might have absolutely whomped the value added stakes - if you're looking at purely the percentage of 4s and 5s - the results would look superficially bad and the head's trying to explain that. Of course it depends what the nature of the SEN in question is - but it's a decent explanatory tool without having to go into individual kids' circumstances.

As for the writing re-marks... there's bugger all chance of anything coming from it, but there ARE papers out there that DO get cocked up pretty badly - I mark the English SATs, and I also went in to help a head I know put together cases for appeals this year on his - saw some "interesting" marking shall we say? I don't think even the powers that be knew exactly what they wanted to do with one particular strand of the long writing marking this year - it seemed to have a much higher bar placed on it from the start than in previous years (of course you always have that initial feeling your way and learning where to pitch your marks each year thing going on through the training process but it seemed much much harsher than normal).