what the feck are we to do about he lack of specialist schools?

[mercurymaze]

in the news this week so many kids without places and mainstream school can't cope.

any suggestions apart from the bleeding obvious?

there is literally no provision suitable for my child who is intelligent with High Functioning Autism and Sensory processing Disorder.

He can't cope in mainstream because of the sensory issues and his perception of language peer issues make it very difficult. It makes him so anxious he would rather die than be at school.

There are no special schools that can cater for his academic ability and many of the special schools have children with behavioural problems which DS doesn't have and he wouldn't not be able to tolerate without making him anxious.

I am therefore left with no option but to put my career on hold and to attempt to educate him at home. We are looking to get the EHCP amended to get some support with this but it will take months. He has not been educated properly for 2 years now.

It is not only lack of school options though it is lack of any meaningful theraputic support. I am having to engage a private OT from 100 miles away as there are no local OTs with any proper experience of dealing with the issues that my son has.

Our children are being failed. Many deregister their children because they don't have the energy to fight so I doubt anyone knows the real number of families / children who are in this position.

Units/ resource bases in which children are educated full time but are staffed only by TAs should be closed. It is also totally unacceptable to have a teacher employed but only to 'manage' the unit, not to teach children who are there most of the time. It makes my blood BOIL.

How dare schools be so discriminatory.

@zzzzz I’m sorry, but with the best will in the world, my little brother just would not cope in a mainstream school. He has severe CP, can’t walk, is blind, can’t talk, is PEG fed, has epilepsy and learning difficulties. If you have any suggestions on how to mainstream him, I’d be happy to hear them. But right now, he loves his special school, the staff are amazing with him, they give him loads of 1:1 time and find ways to stimulate him and involve him in school life.

zzzzz Thank you for clarifying and I’m sorry that your boy has had as awful an experience in special education as mine did in mainstream. I do get what you mean about having to travel such a long way for special provision. My boy is actually a weekly boarder because of the distance to his special school, which we’d never have considered until we had to. But he’s blissfully happy boarding and gets a fabulous life skills curriculum as part of the boarding programme. We’re lucky to have such great provision and lucky that it suits his needs so well. Even though I’ve been laid into more than once by other SEN parents for choosing boarding!!

There needs to be more special schools built by local authorities In England, LAs can't just build new schools, they have to open (or hope that others open) new free schools

This is a horrible situation, my quiet, shy DD started mainstream school with 30 kids in the class, 8 of whom were SN and had carers, she often came home having been bashed by a SN kid, but she was gentle and understanding and fully aware these children were special. Suddenly I got called in by a teacher to complain my DD had been violent towards another child, (never ever has she been before and never ever has she been since), the teacher actually decided to make an appointment with the school psychologist, I attended the meeting in total disbelief that my child had been violent but also respecting the teachers POV, it transpired the teacher was stressed out coping with the SN kids, she had not actually witnessed the incident with my DD and had actually accepted the words of another child as the truth and fact. The psychologist actually went beserk at the teacher, I felt quite sorry for her but I left, rang a prestigious private school in the area, luckily and unbelivelably was offered a place, I removed my while from that school a week later, the new school were made fully aware of the issues that had been raised to me, they agreed to independently assess her, their verdict was she was and is kind, gentle, shy, caring and has no other issues, we struggle every single month to pay the fees but she is happy and thriving and succeeding in a class of 18 students and that makes the struggles and sacrifices worth every single penny.

Imsosceptical raises another reason why mainstream isn’t necessarily appropriate for every child with SEN. Unfortunately on many occasions in his mainstream class my son caused great distress to other (mainstream) pupils by his head banging, growling, scratching his face until it bled etc because he was so distressed by the full-on mainstream school environment. He is blissfully happy now in his more ‘gentle’ special school environment where his needs are actually met.

Imsosceptical I’m sorry that you and your DD had to go through that and so glad that she’s settled at her new school.

My 17 year old DS has been out of specialist school since 14. He did 5 terms of secondary school in 5 years. He had to fail transition to mainstream secondary and we had to go to tribunal for specialist so he was out of school for most of year 7. Then he had to be a weekly boarder because of no appropriate local provision. Then the head of his specialist School changed and DS1 could no longer cope due to changes in uniform, homework etc and placement broke down.

Failure is 'needed' to justify an increase in provision but is not cost neutral for the young person having to fail to prove 'genuine' need. His mental health has taken a battering and it is a struggle to keep him alive on a daily basis. Of course CAMHS won't accept referral because they don't do ASD. And LA EOTAS told me that carer's support wasn't for the likes of me but was for 'real' carers.

But even so we had to begin Judicial Review legal proceedings before the LA would transfer his statement to an EHCP and deliver Provision. They wanted to wash their hands of him completely. Now he has tutors at home for 15 hours per week via personal budget plus private OT, SALT and counselling each week. This was only achieved with support from SOS!SEN in the first place and we constantly have to battle for it to be continued.

I fought smarter for DS2. He goes to internet school and his fees are paid by personal budget. It was cheaper for the LA to pay the fees (only 3.6K per year) than it was in mainstream with f/t 1:1 even with the school paying the first 6K because there was no AWPU or top up funding. No need for tribunal or thousands of pounds to get private reports. OK I can't work but DS1 prevented me from working anyway and at least his mental health is intact. As is mine - the never ending stress is a killer. I don't think this is the right political answer but I can't sacrifice my child (again).

WRT never ending stress - this is not the stress of having DC with additional needs and challenging behaviour. I can cope with that. I observe impact, I learn, I do things differently. The stress comes from daily contact with the school (and less frequent contact with the LA at key points).

Schools ime do not work in partnership with parents. They disrespect, disregard and dismiss. They lie. They are ignorant but believe themselves to be experts who ignore advice and recommendations from paediatricians (even GOSH), SALT, OT etc and make malicious referrals to SS. This does not help the child or their family but it does help get rid of them and so reduce costs. I hope this is structural and not personal but whatever the cause it is unpleasant to receive.

Keep I could have written that. Despite the special school and the endless EHCP admin, assessments and recommendations, the school is sanctimonious in its attitude.

zzzzz - sorry to hear that. It's so hard to keep fighting year after year and getting nowhere.

Secondary m/s was a nightmare for DS2 and there was no prospect of it improving. He already had f/t 1:1 but it was so generic and didn't meet his needs. The head just kept saying he had to learn (through punishment) to fit in - ie not be autistic. SS wouldn't have been right for him.

He shines at internet school - they can't see that he is in his pjs and dressing gown sat on a yoga ball and playing with thumb chucks, just that he posts correct answers first 99% of the time. He's now comfortable enough with himself to attend HE science and computing clubs whereas School was destroying his self esteem and he was retreating.

Sadly I don't think it is possible in some instances to make schools work in the short time that our children depend on them and unfortunately this can have a life long effect on an individual basis.

The only reason ds is coping in mainstream at all is because his school are amazing and will go above and beyond for him. He quite often retreats to the heads office when all gets too much for him and they will have w chat and pop some bubble wrap!

My ds hasn't started school yet goes in September I have fought to get him a EHCP and totally failed to do so. My son is waiting to be assesd for asd and is on a 2 year waiting list. He needs handling very carefully has to have totally control if he doesn't his anxiety goes though the roof. We are currently working with nursery to write support plans to send to school we already getting the attitude of his special teacher that it's tough he is just going to have to do as he is told regardless which scares me. He's already a school (well nursery) refuser and I have been dragging him into nursery for 16 months I always get greeted with where have you been what took you so long why dis you leave me here. I have thought about home schooling my ds and been told I can't as he need socialising as that's one of his issues. Reading your stories really confirms what we are facing it really is going to be bad.

Ime it's not always MS V SS or specialist.

It's the willingness of MS to truely be inclusive. To spend the funds on children with SEN who may not be a great value towards their gcse results etc rather than focus on those who can protect their image.

It's become even harder to police with academies and freeschools who the la have less - if any - control over.

I've never worked out why bases/units have 8-10 pupils for a whole secondary cohort. If they opened up a class sized unit they could teach whole groups where appropriate, have more funding towards resources (most pupils bring in 10k to a unit). Instead you have kids like my ds who is in ms with 10k/ 20 hours funding and EHCP. I think it would be far more economical for him to be in a literacy class that teaches specifically for children with his type of SEN than in a ms class with a 1:1 ta.

it would be far more economical for him to be in a literacy class that teaches specifically for children with his type of SEN than in a ms class with a 1:1 ta.

Then you get people as pp here have saying that's just segregation on a mainstream site. My base has 2 specialist classes, each taught by a highly qualified teacher, 1 HLTA and 1 TA. 7 kids in each. Each kid does some MS integration but many do all their academic work in base. Not everybody would agree that is OK.

I think the difficulty a lot of kids with SEN face is they do learn very much at their own pace in their own way, so there needs to be a lot of differentiation for each pupil. yourenotkiddingme how would it work with bigger classes? Is that what you mean? Most EHCPs state "small group" work etc and the size of the classes/noise can add a lot to raising anxiety levels. Even in "specialist" settings each child is so individual. I'm not sure there is such a thing as class that teaches specifically for children with his type of SEN One might be severely Dyslexic, another's main needs may be social. I fought very hard to get my son into a class which was "level appropriate" rather than "age appropriate" which has massively helped though, but it's so frowned upon to have a child out of year group. The one thing that's for sure is the lack of funding is the killer.

I think yourenotkiddingme means class groups of, say, 6-8. Of course that is possible- how do you think special schools function? They can be a blend of ages and needs.

If units/ bases have 30-35 places this is possible. However many bases just have 8-10 places on the assumption that the children will be able to access mainstream classes. The reality is that many just can't and then you end up in the 'worst of both worlds' scenario where they are segregated from mainstream but don't have specialist teaching and facilities.

No - what I meant - and probably didn't portray well - is that these bases (in my case I'm thinking asd as that's what my ds has) often only provide for 2/3 pupils per year group. They are designed for pupils who can access MS with support but also need it salt etc. I think the bases need to be bigger and admit more pupils. And look into smaller lessons for things like literacy/maths differentiate to the needs of the cohort rather than having pupils in ms English lessons with 1:1 support trying to keep up.

My thinking of this is that 1/2 peers (in your year group) isn't enough for some children but there's nowhere between that and 25-30 others in your class.

I obviously only have my ds to base my intricate knowledge on (everything else os from what other parents tell me) but I know it's the social stuff going on around him in class he struggles with but likewise he is social and wants a peer group.

X posts

I think the difficulty a lot of kids with SEN face is they do learn very much at their own pace in their own way, so there needs to be a lot of differentiation for each pupil. yourenotkiddingme how would it work with bigger classes? Is that what you mean? Most EHCPs state "small group" work etc and the size of the classes/noise can add a lot to raising anxiety levels. Even in "specialist" settings each child is so individual. I'm not sure there is such a thing as class that teaches specifically for children with his type of SEN One might be severely Dyslexic, another's main needs may be social. I fought very hard to get my son into a class which was "level appropriate" rather than "age appropriate" which has massively helped though, but it's so frowned upon to have a child out of year group. The one thing that's for sure is the lack of funding is the killer.

Ooh - not sure why my previous post has suddenly appeared again!