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?

not

I agree to a great extent - which means that those involved in such decisions where parents are not in a position to do this (through their own SEN, through deprivation, through lack of language, through their own difficulties e.g. with substance addiction, through being a member of a marginalised group within society, through absence such as imprisonment, through simple ignorance of 'how things work' in the UK, to name just those situations relevant to children I have been involved with) HAVE to be ready, willing and able to advocate for the child's best interests if a parent cannot.

zzzz,

I would be horrified if the children who, through CP processes including my information, were placed in foster care were hurt there, yes.

I would be horrified if the children i taught in primary were hurt in secondary, yes.

I would be horrified if the children moved to safe accommodation based on information that I provided were later hurt there, yes.

I would be horrified if the information (not - not recommendation: I think you have a picture that i said 'I think Child X would be better placed in a SS' to the many, many review meetings held. No - as a class teacher, my role was to describe provision made, advice taken and applied, consequences, observations and outcomes (e.g. Child X is working at P 1 or 2i in most areas, with some elements of P2ii - some non-random response to stimuli on some occasions within the limitations presented by sensory impairment) provided led to a placement in a SS where the child was hurt.

However, that understanding of the role that my information plays, in combination with information with others, in deciding on some change - of school, of home, of carer - does not necessarily mean that I have a responsibility to personally inspect those new schools, homes or carers. That responsibility lies with those who have used the information that and others have provided to make a recommendation to act, and a decision on what precise action to take.

To be fair, zzz, I don't think that either Maisy or I have said anything that in any way demeans or puts down your decision to HE. In fact I have spelled out repeatedly that I entirely understand why, for your child, HE is currently the best option.

What we - particularly I - have discussed is nothing to do with HE - it is whether, when HE is not an option, SS placement is sometimes the best option, depending on the child and the MS and SS placements available. Your view is not, my view - and I believe Maisy's view - is that in some extreme cases it is, even when for the vast majority of SEN children inclusion is absolutely the way forward.

if the recommendations you are giving lead to a child being placed in an institution

Coming back again - sorry - to say also it depends on a judgement of a balance of risk and benefit. From all the information everyone involved had at the time of making the recommendation, the benefit seemed significant and the balance of risk positive (because the MS placement was for a variety of reasons not risk-free).

Of course, only experience tells. Do I blame my DS's pre-school teachers, who felt that his first MS school would meet his needs just fine for the fact that, in the event, a combination of teacher, peers and management circumstances led to him developing selective mutism? Do I blame DD's primary teachers, who spoke highly of the MS secondary which was already proving very successful for DS, for the fact that a mischance of year group and class organisation have led to 3 suboptimal, though improving, years for her (she's my school-shaped child)?

No. I am aware that the combination of class makeup, specific teachers and changes within a school can make even the best of schools 'on paper' a less than brilliant setting for a specific child on a specific occasion.

MaisyI'm finding your posts quite rude and bordering on personal attacks. im not sure why you think I'm a difficult parent, or upset my children's teachers
Really? I'm not making comments about you personally at all or your choice. I don't agree with some of your views and the way you've taken things I've said (e.g different educators get SEN training to meet the cohort of kids in front of them eg PMLD vs highly able gcse traininv) and turned them into utter falsehoods (that i believe disabled children don't deserve highly able teaching).

Why do you feel I would feel differently if I taught in school now?
I think a parent knows more about THEIR OWN CHILD than teachers.
I think teachers know more about the complexities of TEACHING than non-teachers.
So somebody having a child does make someone qualified to instruct me on the challenges and complexities of mainstream teaching.

After all, if it's so easy and any old person could do it then why is there such a shortage?

It's fine that you like the way things are done now. I don't.
I've never said I'm thrilled with the current system. I've said i think there are issues. But every year my colleagues and I (who have ZERO control over how the education budget is allocated) end up dealing with people kicking off because they think the system should be different, their child needs more money or resources and they know so much about how it should be done. All it does it get my back up because maybe those people should spend a little more time directing their efforts at people who can change the fundamental issues instead of teachers who can't change it.

I then gave an example of how most of the excellent partnerships I've had work and that comes from understanding the DIFFERENT experiences people bring and working together to navigate the system to help children.

I think disabled children are better provided for in ms schools than SS. I'm pro-inclusion
Things like this is exactly what's irritating me as the way you talk about inclusion demonstrates limited experience of how managing inclusion works in mainstream schools. You also imply somehow that any departure from mainsteam ed makes someone non-inclusive.

The vast majority of children with SEN needs ARE catered for in mainstream.

But we have to think clearly and reflectively about what we understand by inclusion. Not every secondary can be resorced with a therapy pool, or a light room, or a sensory space. How do cater for a child on P scales when 85% of the year group ended KS2 working above the expected standard and class sizes are 30?
Consider that people who train secondary are trained 11-16/18 in their specialist subject. They are not trained to teach early phonics like our primary colleagues. They are not trained in more severe additional needs.

What do you do for a non-verbal child during a GCSE speaking component (compulsory element) with a KS4 class? Keep them in a mainstream KS4 under the guise of inclusion when they can't access the material?
Sometimes keeping a child in mainstream because it sounds nice to say inclusion is actually less inclusive and not the best option for the child.

I've had a look at the statistics for children with PMLD. 83% are educated in special schools, only 17% in mainstream - and I suspect not many of that 17% are in fully mixed ability standard classrooms of 30. I was interested because I was beginning to wonder whether my school and its professional partners had been completely unreasonable in thinking that a child working at around the 12-18 months stage of development and with both hearing and visual impairment might be better catered for in a carefully-investigated and specialist local special school than in an upper primary mixed ability classroom.

It's a different picture for, say, autism - where less than 10% are SS and the overall numbers are at least 10x as high. It is more reasonable to feel that every primary school should at least have the training, facilities and understanding to aim for inclusion for the majority of children with ASD, should that meet the child's needs and the parents' wishes.

I return to the point I have made multiple times before - the choice between HE, inclusive MS and SS depends on the child, their needs and the specific institutions available to them in that locality. None are 'always right', nne are 'always wrong', and the choice is not always 'for all time'. Locally, many SS are co-located with inclusive MS schools, so integration and facilities-sharing is much easier where a child might benefit from 'a little of both worlds'.

But zzzzz Just because your DS had a bad experience in one SS, shouldn't cloud your judgement whether you think SS are good or not.

I find it mildly irritating that you need to lump me in with some emalgam if pushy unrealistic "difficult parents
I've not said that at all. I've kept my comments general. Just like I've not commented on your own educational choices and yet you insist that I have.

I return to the point I have made multiple times before - the choice between HE, inclusive MS and SS depends on the child, their needs and the specific institutions available to them in that locality. None are 'always right', nne are 'always wrong', and the choice is not always 'for all time
Exactly cantkeepawayforever.
And that's why parent school partnerships like the ones I've mentioned are so important. It's through those open discussions that some former students of mine were able to spend most of their time at mainstream school with days/morning/afternoons out at charity partnersipd and specialist projects.

The more time I spend working in education, the more interesting ways I've seen children get support and the more I am totally convinced that when we talk of 'inclusion' what we actually need to do is ask questions. When i first started teaching I was very much of the view that each school should do everything to keep children in them. Experience has taught me that whilst that sounds good, it's not always best for the child.

It comes back to what I said long before getting jumped on. People have thrir own reasons for choosing home ed and that's fine as long as those individual experiences aren't used as the foundation of opinions about a highly diverse and conplex system.

Yes, you learnt that specific SS wasn't right for your DS. Doesn't mean other SS wouldn't be.

But everyone is different.

zzz, I don't think that notgivin is questioning the validity (or the appalling nature) of your statement that your particular child had a bad experience at a particular SS.

The question is whether it is right to extrapolate that to all children in all SS?

is it possible that you are over-generalising from the data that you have (understandable, given the high emotion of the situation)?

If I look at the situation in which DS was harmed at his first mainstream school, I could make as variety of statements of different degrees of validity:

• This MS school is harmful for DS at the moment.

• This MS school is be harmful for children in any way like my DS.

• This MS school is harmful to any child.

• All MS schools are harmful for my DS.

• All MS schools are harmful for any children like my DS.

• All MS schools are harmful to any child.

t the time, I was angry and bitter enough to make almost any of those statements. However, in hindsight I would say that the first is totally valid, the second is quite likely to be valid, but I don't have enough data to support any of the other statements. So I learned from the specific experience - I removed DS and HEd him - but in the end I now have further data that there are at least some MS schools that, far from being harmful to DS, allow him to thrive.

I know you have direct experience not, but have either of you (cant and maisy) spent any time in a SS? Parented a child in SS? Taught in a SS?

We aren't claiming to. Nor do we need to.

We are saying that parents know their child better than teachers and that mainstream teachers know the challenges and experiences of teaching mainstream better than non teachers.

So, somebody being a parent of a child with special needs has a lot of knowledge about their child, but it in no way makes them qualified to tell us how to do our job, comment on the challenges of teaching mainstream etc etc.

I have experience of looking after someone with dementia, it doesn't in any way qualify me to tell care staff or nurses how to do their job.

Not a special school, but I have educated in non mainstream settings. Either way, working in a special school wouldn't give total insight anyway because working in a PMLD school is different to an SEMH school, which is different from an ASD school. Mainstream teachers are trained in SEND but working in a special school would have almost zero impact on my job, other than gaining new teaching strategies, because classroom teachers aren't the ones who lead on referrals to special schools.

It's becoming a pointless debate. You've had a bad experience of a special schooland seem to think being pro inclusion is keeping children in mainstream at almost any cost.

We've pointed out that most children on the SEN register ARE already educated in mainstream but that for some it isn't the right environment.

So your experience allows you to draw informed decisions about settings you have no direct experience of but mine doesn't
I have experience of non-mainstream education including children with mental health, behaviour needs and SEMH needs. Experience of 'special schools' as a category implies that they are all thr same. As i have said, someone working in a PMLD school woulf have a very different experienve than an ASD school.
My mainstream experience tells me that there are times when mainstream doesnt work for some children. I do not need to have worked in a special school to be able to say that.
Equally, in a school with close to 100 teachers it is the experience of our SEN colleages (mainstream and special school) who oversee placements because they have got experience of both.

When i pointed out the multiple needs in a large mainstream class and how until someone has done it they can't comment on it, you came back with thia big thing about how I claimed you didn't understand presentation and how you do actually have all this awareness of mainstream because parents of SEND children live additional needs 24/7. They do. But that is not the same as teaching mainstream.

You've now mentioned out of area. Not all special schools require a child to be out of area.
If thereasonsyou feel SS is better for an individual child aren't valid, then that feeling that "this is the right thing to do", is not based on sound logic and can and should be questioned. Surely that can't be taken as bullish or insulting
Nobody moves a child because gut instinct says let's move them. The decision that it is the right thing to do comes at the end of a lengthy process of adaptions within mainstreams, staff raising concerns, lots of parent meetings, meetings with other providers. People on this thread have repeatedly spoken about the difficulty finding the right school, do you actually think that schools just move kids about at will?
Everyone should be interested and engaged in that discussion and it certainly should not be the preserve of any one group however hard working and diligent.
Sigh. I already said that pages and pages back and gave examples of when it works really well. Different stakeholders have DIFFERENT experiences. That means (for about the 6th time) parents know THEIR child better than teachers, mainstrram teachers know about teaching more than non teachers.

No animosity; I've read plenty of accounts of HE success. But the only RL example I know causes me concern.

What I said was that ms staff may FEEL it is better for the child, they may be TOLD it is better for the child, but that may NOT be the case.
A mainstream teacher is able to comment on whether mainstream is working for that child. It's not a question of i decide one day that i don't think it's right.
The decisions about which placement is best comes from SEND staff in school, LA, and special school/other placements.

Nobody knows for sure what any school move will be like and if it will be better until it's tried. Same for moving to a new school in an area, moving for pastoral reasons, moving to a more 'academic" school, moving to independent school etc.
It doesn't mean those options and moves aren't done because there's a better chance of it working than the current situation.

Are you basically of the opinion that ONLY teachers should discuss how inclusive our school system should be?
I haven't said that. I have REPEATEDLY said that different people bring DIFFERENT experiences.
Do you ever feel able to accept people hold a different opinion to yours without being compelled to explain it away by characterising them as lacking relevant experience, insight, or emotional detachment?
I accept people holding different views. Again, i have ALREADY said that multiple times.
I just ask that people don't try and step on the different remita of others e.g. i would never tell a parent that their experience of THEIR child is wrong, but I would have an issue if they took their experience and used it to try and corect my experience and professionalism.

This is getting bloody boring so I'm bowing out.

I would agree that poor practice should be challenged wherever it arises:

• Poor practice that allows some schools to 'manage out' or 'take care not to admit' children with SEN.

• Poor practice that means that children - both those with SEN and others - are not kept safe from the direct or indirect consequences of that SEN.

• Poor practice - often accidental, through lack of expertise or training - that means that best practice in the education of children with specific SEN is not applied, or consistently applied.

However, there is also 'unintended less than optimal practice', which may often be beyond the control of those around the child:

• Lack of space in the most suitable setting, leading to a less than optimal placement.

• Limitations of physical design of buildings and the pace at which this can be altered.

• Lack of critical numbers for key potentially beneficial / therapeutic facilities or expertise, whether that be a hydrotherapy pool, a sensory room, an on-site physio etc.

• Lack of knowledge / expertise within that particular local area, in particular for relatively rare conditions.

There are also, even where practice is good, balances to be made between the needs of a specific pupil and the needs of the class. We may not wish that to be the case - the vast majority of education professionals I have worked with want the best for EVERY child in their class and find the compromises that need to be made agonisingly difficult - but the inevitable consequence of group education is that every member of the group has an effect on every other member.

Inclusion that strives to provide all that a highly disabled child needs can actually mean significant isolation of that child as their needs are met primarily in a 1:1 environment. So for example a child with severe learning difficulties, whose educational and care needs are best met through a setting that resembles an early years / nursery class - free flow, multiple activities with different equipment, short adult-led inputs, periods of self-directed activity, appropriate self-care and hygiene routines routines - can absolutely have their needs met within a mainstream 11-18 secondary BUT as a consequence of having their needs met, they will be isolated from their age peers for the vast majority of the school day.

Conversely, there are some children whose inclusion in a mainstream class has such a high impact on the rest of the class that, although the practice around that child is good, the practice for the other SEN children in the class - say 6 or so in a normal class of 30 - is relatively poor, and practice for the remainder of the class is also poor. While we all - parents, educators, educational policy makers, disability specialists - may want to make provision for the most disabled, the most vulnerable members of our classes and society as good as we possibly can, we do also have to have regard for the fact that we have a responsibility to all other children too. This kind of compromise is always the case - if I lined up the parents of every child in every class I have ever taught, and they asked me 'Did you always, in every lesson, at every point in the day, do absolutely everything that you could have done for my individual child?', then the answer would always be 'No'. However the compromise is most stark when a small number of children within the class may have needs so great that the key resources within a classroom - direct adult time, indirect adult time (as in planning, reviewing, discussing, researching, training), space, resources - are primarily devoted to those children.

"Nobody moves a child because gut instinct says let's move them. The decision that it is the right thing to do comes at the end of a lengthy process of adaptions within mainstreams, staff raising concerns, lots of parent meetings, meetings with other providers.."

Not always, sadly. This wasn't my experience, DS mainstream staff kept telling me he was "fine" - as in, he wasn't being disruptive, didn't have challenging behaviour. I was the one who had to set up meetings. Other parents of SN children experienced the same.

Luckily, the meetings which I had with DS mainstream school, I was able to observe DS (unknowingly to them ! As the class doors has a glass view) and he was just sitting in the corner, playing with toys, didn't know where the TA was. I saw this on multiple occasions.

On the flip side, I've witnessed teachers complain that a child needs more help or they think a child needs to move to a suitable provision. However, the parents don't see anything wrong or disagrees with the school that the child needs to move.