Why do people fear Home Educators so much?

[sebumfillaments]

Not a TAAT but inspired by the other thread, I was stunned by the level of vitriol aimed at home education. Is it all borne from fear and ignorance?

Home Ed isn't about replicating school. And education isn't (in our case) about gaining qualifications from an institution to increase their value in the workforce!

So why so much animosity?

zzz- at a school level, or at a LA level (remembering that most schools are academies now?)

Floating TAs - or rather the Learning Support Department - is exactly how large secondary schools manage this.

How does it work in a 3-form rural primary with 35% SEN?

(I was answering the 'why isn't every teacher fully trained in all possible SEN' point, btw, rather than how it is actually managed at a school level.

I agree that reactive training - by SENCo, by specialist teachers - used to be from LA special Schools, now rarer because LAs much poorer and SEN teams mainly disbanded - by TAs who are trained to work with specific students and them move up the school wit them etc etc - is how it happens at the moment.

however, the dual challenge -- to not only look after SEN children who need care as well as we possibly can - parents are often the best source of training here - but also move them forward in their education - for which education specialists are usually the best trainers - remains, especially when 10 or more children in a typical primary class can present with different types of SEN)

grecian100 that sounds like our area.

stitchedglitch we have been to a few HE things but it is always the same core of people. We have travelled miles and they still turn up.

I have a particularly thick skin but it doesn't mean that I am deaf or blind.

I am not 100% British although I have northern accent and I think I can pass for being British. On the other hand I know that I don't really fit in looks wise. I cant explain it but just something in my face looks different to the rest of the white middleclass mummies. the other I know I don't look like other people.
When ever we are abroad people never think I am English they always place me as being from the country of my father. I obviously have that particular look about me and I wonder sometimes if people subconsciously close ranks

Floating TAs - or rather the Learning Support Department - is exactly how large secondary schools manage this
Thats what we do (and every school ive workwd in has done it). We have a team of specialists who work with classroom teachers to implement individual plans and keep us briefed on the needs of the children in our groups. (Eg my colleague teaches a hearing impaired child but i dont so they have additional support there. I teach a number of children with literacy issues and SEMH needs so ive done extra there).

As another poster has pointed out SEN is such a broad category that no one person can be a specialist in all area.

We are all given general training.

Equally, there is nothing wrong in saying 'you know what, we've put all this stuff in place and actually we arent in a position to offer what we (and the parent) feel the child needs and to flourish' and help parents fight through the system.

zzzzz
I think it's partly my fault it came up yoo for pointing out that general comments from some Home ed parents that 'schools are rubbish' for SEN are a little too quick considering the scope of SEN from a subject teacher view.

I feel the system is rubbish in places, but feel it's much better for people to say 'in my case our local school...' rather than start making sweeping statements about how teachers dont know anything about SEN etc. Just me saying that seems to have led to silly clas that i dont educate sen kids.

There is of course nothing wrong in saying that you can't meet a child's needs, IF you have exhausted all resources.

Is there anything wrong with saying - in extreme cases, bearing in mind that I am talking about an occasional child with extreme needs, while routinely teaching classes where c. 1/4 to 1/3 are on the SEN register - that while we can meet a child's most basic needs (to be cared for and kept safe), there are specialist settings that would meet their needs very much better? A bit like a GP saying 'yes, we treat suspect skin lesions here with basic equipment, but if what you need to treat your cancer is an operation on a brain tumour we will pass you on to a specialist hospital'?

Disabled people have a right to go to ms school morally and legally unless they are significantly impacting others education (and some other logical criteria).

'Significantly impacting' is a really nebulous term. Every child impacts every other child in a class - the silly ones, the mothering ones, the dliligent ones, the noisy ones, the ones with very significant difficulties in their home life, the ones who are very bright in one or more areas, the ones who fall out with their friends every 2 minutes. It's one of the things that makes teaching so challenging - that every class is different because every child impacts on the whole so differently.

Can you give an example of what you would mean by 'significantly impacting'? Putting them in physical danger? Taking 4x as much time to plan and prepare for as the rest of the class put together, plus daily meetings with parents and specialists? Requiring full re-equipping of part or all of the classroom, restricting what is available to others? None of those, IME, have put any child anywhere near not being in mainstream - in all cases those adaptations have been made in mainstream. What would 'significantly impacting' mean in your view?

zzzzz There may be, there may not be. I wouldnt do what some on this thread have done and make sweeping statements about a very diverse education system.

Fact still stands that not all needs can be met in all mainstream schools and I'm not 100% sure thay all should be all the time. E.g. there's a great mainstrram secondary in my area that has adaptions meaning children with a certain SEN need have a unit on site. Another mainstream has some additional facilities sensory needs. In an area where there are maybe 15 secondary schools in a council, it isn't doable to have all secondaries with those facilities just in case in future there ia a child who needs them. But, in terms of admission children with SEN are further up the criteria.

There are some SEN needs that I know of but have nevwr encountered in my career. According to some on here I'd be a crap teacher for not being as knowledgable about that as I am about the SEN needs I actually work with.

The system needs reforming in places. Sometimes Home Ed is the best route for any number of reasons and that's fine.
I just get a little fed up of people who've never worked their arse off teaching a class of 32 kids some with SpLD, some EAL, some more able, some on the ASD spectrum, some with dyspraxia, some with ADHD and a child with mental health needs (that was one of my classes this year!) declaring that teachers know nothing about SEN, dont do anything, schools don't do anything etc etc. It really winds me up. By all means people can say they've had a bad experience, but deciding to home ed your own child doesn't mean you are in any position to decide nobody does anything and schools are crap.

A friend of mine who has a visual impairment just won an award for her work in STEM and she is one of the most articulate, knowleadgable and motivated people I know. She was home educated.

zzzz, You will have to take my word for it that, in the case I am thinking of, we really were in a GP's surgery vs specialist hospital department scenario.

That's also why the 'just give mainstream school the same money as a Special School would receive' doesn't work in some cases:

'Oh, your patient has a brain tumour. As hospitals are really expensive, and some aren't very good with some diseases, we won't send your patient to the well-regarded specialist brain tunour surgeon in X hospital, we'll just give you the money instead, so you can do it yourself'

'But I don't have a suitable operating theatre, anaesthetist, surgery equipment, medical consultant or after care facilities'

'Oh, that's OK. Use the money we're giving you - I'm sure you can rig up something in one of your consulting rooms and retrain a few of your other staff. Everyone has the legal and ethical right right to be treated by their GP, and to be part of the GP community. No reason to send someone away to a more distant specialist.'

We'd never say that in medicine - so why do we say it about education of those with very very complex educational needs?

Could you give examples of what you would regard as 'significantly impacting' the education of others, by the way?

(And I will say again that I support the inclusion of the vast majority of the 25% - 35% of children on the SEN register in my classes year after year. I am talking about the extremes.)

cantkeepawayforever
You speak quite a bit of sense.

It's how I feel when CAMHS is being stripped back so teachers and pastoral staff are picking up some things that would otherwise have been CAMHS. Whilst I'm more than willing to have additional training in some areas the fact remains that I'm all too aware that mental health staff at CAHMS know a damn sight more about the intricacies of teen mental health than me.
Same with SEND. Most special schools in my area arent generic special schools. They have specialisms eg ASD, PMLD etc. Whilst I like supporting our SEN students, as a mainstream teacher I don't have the same experience and knowledge as specialists.

Our job as educators is to fight for each child to get the best education and opportunities and that includes knowing when to say we can't provide x y z.

Sweeping generalisations about schools and teachers being rubbish come up almost every time SEN is mentioned.

Parents of children with SEN needs have a set of experiences that I as a teacher don't have.

But no, having a child with SEN does not mean you know in the slightest how to juggle often competing needs of 32 different children, the SEN statements/school action etc (as was obviously there's been changes since), teaching needs, intervention, parental meetings, multuagency meetings across a whole range of needs (not just your own child), running around school for the welfare forma you have for the 6th child this week when you know CAMHS will bounce it back because it's 'not enough of a need', arranging access arrangements for exams etc and actually keep the bread and butter teaching, marking and pastoral needs going.

Parents of children with SEN needs have a huge amount of knowledge about their child and their situation. That is not the same as juggling the sheer range of needs in a mainstream school.

I obviously am going to feel the "user" has a better understanding than the "provider", you feel the opposite
I dont believe that the user has a better understanding of a situation. I think they have an experience of a service user.

I dont feel the opposite at all actually.
I feel people have experiences of THEIR situations, whether as a parent or a professional.

I don't know better than my GP because I use their surgery. I have my experience of the surgery but it in no way qualifies me to decide what the GP does/doesn't know or do or the issues they face in their job.

I replied to a poster outlining that HE for SEN may work well but that claims that schools are rubbish etc are sometimes not helpful as general comments because mainstream schools are full of generalist teachers with some SEN training buy not the same specialist knowledge as SEN colleagues and ended up being accused of thinking SEN kids arent smart, think kids with additional needs dont need educating in mainstream, that i want to push them out etc. (I said nothing of the sort).

To me it's simple (and what I said in my first post before getting jumped on):
HE works for some children, whatever the need. However sweeping comments about how rubbish schools are for SEN etc / schools are so awful for x y z etc aren't helpful because the school system is so varied. But that was clearly a controversial view.

I do think schools vary and teachers within a school can have very different attitudes/abilities.

My children, now grown up, have attended 5 schools between them, generally I was happy with 4 of them and I accept that nothing is going to be perfect.

The 5th school is a conundrum, my son did really well there got on well with all but one teacher and he had a bad year with her but unfortunately he had a health problem that year so it might have been different if he had her at a different time. Same school my daughter had a totally miserable time, she was there for 3 years and had two different teachers and they both seemed to dislike her and she was told she was a nuisance as she got through work too quickly. For one term she had a supply teacher when her teacher was in hospital and she had a wonderful time and the supply teacher brought in special stuff for her to do. Once a week she did special projects with a TA, it was a small group of 5 or 6 I think and again she did really well and loved the TA to bits. So do I judge that school good or bad?

Maisy I completely understand, DS wasn't progressing at his mainstream school ( he left in reception so I didn't see how he would pan out but I knew he would struggle long term).

Not only that, I worked at a mainstream school and could see how some of the teachers were struggling to meet the needs of 29 kids in the class as well as meeting the needs of a child with SEN...(to be honest, seeing this confirmed that I did the right thing by moving DS from his MS as theirs only 8 children at his current specialist provision).

Though, I think your statement is unfair. At the end of the day, the well wellbeing of my child is on ME and many parents of SN children realise this. I truly sympathise with teachers on how it can be difficult balancing out the needs of so many children... but frankly, as harsh as this sounds, this wouldn't concern me as a parent because at the end of the day...if heaven forbids, DS is struggling, has a breakdown because he cannot cope, his needs are not being put down in place, its falls ME as a parent to make sure that this is provided as the repercussions can be serious and it will fall on ME once again to deal with it.

I said that I think SOME people are too quick to bash schools (true - seen on MN all the time). - Dont get me wrong the system could be better, but I do feel a bit like some people are quick to claim schools are rubbish at SEN without considering how broad that category is and the other elements of teaching mainstream

I said that mainstream staff do have training in SEN but it's not the same as the specialist knowledge of special ed colleagues (which is why some needs may not be best met in mainstream). What people forget is that mainstream, by definition, is generalist and then get annoyed when generalist staff arent trained in the intricasies of each additional need.
I'm no SEN specialist and have had training on a range of additional needs but nothing close to special school colleagues and aome of our special needs TAs who know more about their specialism than most teachers. Equally, colleagues in PMLD special education won't have the same training as me on EAL or More Able teaching

What i was accused of was saying that SEN kids couldn't be bright and that I apparently think mainstream schools should only teach bright kids: Why do you think that you as a mainstream teacher should be trained in "more able teaching" but not SEN? I didn't say that. And a child in a PMLD school working on P scales is not going to be thr same type of child we get our GCSE more able training for.

I would say being accused of thinking kids with additional needs should be shipped off when I mention having specialist education counts as being jumped on you feel that the children with significant SEN should be shipped off to "specialists" but the super-bright ones can be accommodated in school - again, didnt say it.

I stand by my views:

• some people are quick to make generalisations about a sector based on their experience
• some peoplr on MN think because they look after their own child (sen needs or not) they know the detail of working in a sector and that's not the case
• Home Ed works for some kids, I've even said up thread i would consider it through primary.
• just because someone chooses home ed doesnt mean its ok to make sweeping statements about schools (same for the other way round)