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AIBU?

To just not get sencos

87 replies

Shaddawadsa · 08/10/2015 20:08

I'm training as a mh professional and part of my job is to go into schools to talk about how to meet additonal needs, specifically behavior/ emotional development. I have meetings with sencos who are also head teachers, deputy heads, class teachers, most of whom don't seem to have senco training and aren't given the time needed to do the job. Could someone explain what is going on? I just don't get how it is an effective way of supporting the children with real needs. Aibu?

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Lurkedforever1 · 09/10/2015 15:18

lauren yes, but sometimes they need reminding about who's funding it is.

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Foxyloxy1plus1 · 09/10/2015 15:34

I'm glad that my post came across as frustration with agencies who have unrealistic expectations of schools Lauren15. I can't see that I in any way was critical of parents or that I suggested they should 'put up and shut up.'

i'm actually saddened that so many other professionals apparently lack understanding and are quick to be critical. Agencies and schools need to work together- the current EHC plan encompasses education, health and social car and puts the parent and child at the centre.

Shaddawadsa, I don't know which profession you are training for, but would you be happy for your qualifications to be queried? For he sake of clarity, I am a qualified teacher, with post graduate qualifications in SpLD/ dyslexia, behaviour management and ASD.

Can we please try to work together with understanding, so that the people who benefit are the children and young people.

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Burmesemum · 09/10/2015 15:45

We had three and they were all useless. Did more harm than good.

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NeedsAsockamnesty · 09/10/2015 15:46

lauren loads of schools don't seam to get that the ECHP/statement funding is for just the named child.

and when that happens there is very little that a parent can do to stop it. I've seen parents threatened with referrals to social services when they have tried to raise it as an issue,ive seen parents refered to as "lacking comprehension of the system" despite having trained advocates with them during review meetings, and parents bullied into unofficially having part time timetables or unofficially excluded on behalf of their children due to symptoms of their disibility all because these school do not have the decency to say "nope we can't handle this" when approached for a place.

The sencos lack of time or competence or what ever the excuse of the week is routinely deprives children of specialist placements where they would get the help they need and the help that appropriate people recommend, having no time and no facility to carry out the work required never stops them accepting the funding intended to facilitate it or being honest about it.

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Badders123 · 09/10/2015 15:55

I have never met a Decent one.
They aren't trained, they are normal teachers who just fill in the necessary forms.
It's appalling.

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Burmesemum · 09/10/2015 15:59

It is appalling. I am extremely angry at the way I and my son was treated by these so called 'SENCOs' it's a bloody disgrace.

So glad my son is now in an independent secondary school receiving all the support he needs. The difference is huge.

Inclusion my arse.

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Badders123 · 09/10/2015 16:05

I just gave up.
Got private help for ds1.
All want very well, but cost £££££ and lots of our time and the people who Are paid by the govt to teach our kids get away with either providing no support or such patchy and poor support parents take things into their own hands.

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Lurkedforever1 · 09/10/2015 16:05

Yy needs. I know of a parent who wasn't equipped to battle the system in any sense, and who only had a statement because it was a blindingly obvious sn, who was told the 1-1 had been cut down from full time to 15 minutes, before disappearing altogether because the school couldn't afford to spend that much on one child! Bastards. My friend had quite a bit of fun twat baiting whilst facilitating a statement naming a suitable mainstream school on the mums behalf.

badders I really don't know what the training level at Dds primary was for a senco, but in all fairness they did always get it right, I presume due to the fact they actually listened when they didn't have comprehensive knowledge of any aspect of sn.

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Badders123 · 09/10/2015 16:09

My sons primary didn't even have a senco for 2 years (she was in ling term sick til the school forced her retirement)
Then they brought in a woman (no idea who she was...ex retired teacher I think) who was named as the senco but who did NOTHING for 2 years.
Now the year 5 teacher is senco (she went on a course)
She is also a ft class teacher and science co ordinator.
Until schools actually realise that senco is a Jon in itself things won't get better.
I have heard of schools where the senco is also a class teacher, literacy co ordinator AND head of year.
Utter madness.

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Burmesemum · 09/10/2015 16:17

As I said we had 3 SENCO's one after the other and they were all useless. The last one we had was never there she was always 'off sick' and then when she was in caused more harm than good.

The one before her was even worse and didn't even know who my son was. She was a 'nice lady' but that was about it.

They all did NOTHING to help my son in fact all they wanted to do was remove his support.

If you want to know what is going on SENCO's are there just for that. To remove support that's it basically in a nutshell.

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Lauren15 · 09/10/2015 16:18

I have never worked in a school where the head or senco tried to divert funds from a named child. I'm sorry for anyone who feels that has happened.
In some 10 years of working in schools, I have found only a tiny minority of staff don't want the best for SEN children. Most would like to see them thrive.
Needs I am interested what kind of behaviour you are talking about 'symptoms of their disability'. I have seen children act in ways which endanger themselves and others, which is caused by their 'disability' or SN. I feel so sorry for them but it often takes 2 or 3 members of staff to handle these situations. If it's a rare occurrence that is manageable but if it happens often, you cannot expect the school to have to regularly cope with it. There are other pupils to think of. In these situations, the head sometimes has to find another setting for the child. They don't take the decision lightly.

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Burmesemum · 09/10/2015 16:27

Oh yes 'other pupils to think of'. My son has a Statement and so what do the teachers do? Use HIS statement to support disruptive children instead of providing the support that is outlined in it and then I'm told his LSA hasn't got time to deliver it because she has so many other children to look after.

My son was the most well behaved child in that class. That's the problem. Another child with ASD was highly disruptive flinging chairs around etc the school certainly made sure he got his full time support!

As for 'finding another setting for the child' teachers WILL NOT ADMIT that they can't cope. I went through this myself. One of his class teachers denied he had tics when anxious to the EP who was assessing him. We were trying at the time to get him into 'another setting' as he was threatening to kill himself he was that anxious and the bloody teacher would not admit to the EP that the school could not cope.

The funny thing was the EP admitted to us that she saw our son ticking in class. He has also since then been diagnosed with Tourettes.

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Alfieisnoisy · 09/10/2015 16:49

Quite honestly I think SENCOs and support staff in mainstream are hugely overworked.

Many special schools have closed and the LEAs insist that most children should be in a mainstream school. This will be despite the huge warning signs that things are not going well.

My son dropped two whole levels in English and at least one level in every other subject. What scares me is that the school could not see this was a problem and a sign he was not coping. It took a good few months of fighting and arguing with the LEA to get a special school placement. I would have Ho d to tribunal had they not agreed it.

Despite the issues I liked the SENCO who was clearly overwhelmed and overworked.
I took her in a thank you card and some chocolates after DS had moved and she waxed lyrical about the academic progress DS made during the last year. I didn't bother arguing that he hadn't as she didn't have the figures in front of her and I didn't expect her to keep that in her head with all the other info.

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FloatIsRechargedNow · 09/10/2015 17:02

Foxy you are obviously one of the few Sencos that takes the job seriously as well as the needs of the children and you are also highly-qualified and experienced. You also recognize the need for all agencies and parents to work together for the good of the children. There are also some posts on here from parents who are deeply grateful and appreciate the work and effort that their school's Senco puts in. Unless they are all parents from your school thankfully you are not the only one.

But the vast majority of posts on here are from parents who are very unhappy with their Senco experiences - and this can not be denied. Just because things should work in a certain way it doesn't mean that it does.

You probably weren't a Senco I came across, but because I appreciate what you do, please have some .

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NeedsAsockamnesty · 09/10/2015 17:03

I am interested what kind of behaviour you are talking about 'symptoms of their disability'. I have seen children act in ways which endanger themselves and others, which is caused by their 'disability' or SN. I feel so sorry for them but it often takes 2 or 3 members of staff to handle these situations. If it's a rare occurrence that is manageable but if it happens often, you cannot expect the school to have to regularly cope with it

From strimming to anxiousness to full on 2:1 positive handling situations being required and most things inbetween.

If a school says yes we can offer this child a place and the issues have been fed to them then yes they should cope with it and yes you should be able to expect them to do so.

It is far more helpful to parents and children to be upfront and admit you cannot accomadate a need at the first availible chance to do so.

We have children in this country not receiving an education or not able to recieve one because schools and sencos are colluding in a misguided attempt to appear to be efficient and apparently save money unsurprisingly it usually ends up costing more when they do this.

Oh and it's not a case of parents feeling it has happened a great many of them end up with courts or tribunals agreeing with them that it has and that it does.

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Lurkedforever1 · 09/10/2015 17:26

I'll give you a recent example of a statemented child causing disruption and danger to others. With a few irrelevant details changed because it's not my child to discuss. Child does ok in primary despite dx that impacts social/ behavior side. Child goes to secondary. Childs statement ignored because he was fine at lunchtime in primary. Child gets picked on at break/ lunch for being odd. Child starts showing signs of approaching meltdowns. Child goes off to be alone. Child bollocked by dinner lady. Child bollocked at break by prefect at tuck shop. Child proves weirdness by going off and/or screaming and shouting. Child wound up cos it's 'funny'. Child sent home regularly for behaving badly towards others. Poor little innocent tarquin was only being friendly, that nasty bad tempered child should have known he was joking. Especially cos tarquin can lie his way out of his bullying behavior and call 'child' the instigator. Child eventually snaps and has full blown meltdown involving chair throwing. Child disruptive and dangerous to be round others. Poor school have tried their best. Needs to be moved to another setting. Child won't get specialist provision because childs 'not that severe'. Child therefore 'bad' parents 'bad'. Child written off by education.

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Lauren15 · 09/10/2015 18:23

Lurked I know a very similar story about a boy diagnosed with ASD who was at school with my ds. The primary school were great. He went up to secondary and in the first term ended up hitting a boy who'd been winding him up. He got suspended for three days. The mum of the second boy (who had been at the same primary) said it 'served him right' because he'd been given too much leeway at primary. Cow.
I work at a primary. All I know about secondary SEN provision is from other parents but it sounds pretty appalling.

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Burmesemum · 09/10/2015 18:29

I always remember this incident because it was typical of how my son's disability was ignored and the after affects for us at home because of this.

I had told school that if there were any video footage to be used in the classroom that they must run it past me first given my son's inability to recognise fantasy from reality.

This was ignored and he along with his classmates were shown video footage of a child being run over by a train. It was not graphic but implied.

Son comes home in a highly agitated state obsessing about the child being run over by the train. This continues all evening and a sleepless night follows with continual nightmares about child getting killed by train.

Son goes into school the next day tired through lack of sleep and written in his home/school diary is "please make sure J gets to bed on time tonight".

I wrote a full page informing them of exactly what happened and guess what the following month it happened again.

Inclusion is just a word and it doesn't work with many children particularly children with ASD. If you have a child with ASD you need to have a close working relationship with school but unfortunately school do not want this close working relationship because it means more work for them.

What they do instead is take your hard fought after Statement that is supposed to be a legal binding document and totally ignore it or give lip service to it. The LSA who is employed by the LEA to support your child is then shared amongst the rest of the needy children in the class leaving no time to deliver the Statement.

SENCOs know this and so they too try to keep out of your way as much as possible or deter you from getting support for your child in the first place.

You might not like what I say but it's the truth. That's what happens.

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Notonaschoolnight · 09/10/2015 18:58

Burmesemum spot on my dd doesn't get 50% 121 with a TA that her statement dictates she gets 2 hours a week for her math, 2 fucking hours I swear to god

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FloatIsRechargedNow · 09/10/2015 19:55

As I said - most of our experiences are negative. It's not just the Sencos, even if you have a good one, it's the whole crap system. Gradually this is changing with the replacement of Statements with Plans. It's going to take years for all parties to adjust. I have actually seen a difference in that ds's Indie SS have increased their day/primary provision which shows that the LEAs are responding to non-mainstream needs more appropriately and sooner. Great.

For ds though, nowYr9 and still just a Statement that is truly a bunch of pants, but unquestioned by me as Part 4 names an Indie SS, it's not so good. But not the end of The World.

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Shaddawadsa · 09/10/2015 20:00

Burmesemum that is just awful. I'm so sorry for your poor boy.

OK. This has been a major eye opener.

What incredible cruelty to our most vulnerable children. I feel incredibly sad.

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NeedsAsockamnesty · 09/10/2015 20:01

Lurked. That is sadly all to frequent an occurrence and could be one of any of the thousands of children with disabilities that are percieved as behaviour issues.

you would think a qualified experanced senco would be aware that is a huge risk for the child, wouldn't you.

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Shaddawadsa · 09/10/2015 20:04

lurked I have heard this before along the grapevine of colleagues - its a fucking disgrace.
Is it systemic disablist abuse??

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Shaddawadsa · 09/10/2015 20:05

Sorry getting a bit hot under the collar here. It must be something, surely? Not protecting a vulnerable child?

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Lurkedforever1 · 09/10/2015 20:21

Agreed, that's why unfortunately I stuck with saying recent, I can think of plenty of similar straight forward ones I know of, before even getting into complex ones. One similar one being played out now with an ex primary classmate of dds. And Sen or education aren't even areas I have specific involvement in, just a minor cross over sometimes through work and normal social experience. But hey, we all know a few parenting classes will provide a cure.

It blows me away if I'm honest that the huge impact of an alien secondary environment with a totally different atmosphere is brushed off when it comes to Sen. Although tbh it happens at plenty of primaries too.