Email from school that I probably wasn't supposed to see - f**king livid!

[FidgetyFingers]

I requested a copy of DS2's (secondary) school record when he left there a few months ago. He has quite severe SN, NHS paediatrician diagnosed with his assessments taking place at this school.

Enclosed in the paperwork was an email from his form tutor, his form tutor for 4 years, to the inclusion manager, stating that I had been on the phone to her as I was very unhappy about detentions 'again' for minor transgressions in the scheme of things and 'that I expected special treatment for my son due to his 'SN'.

DS has severe learning difficulties with several other co morbid difficulties and never should have been in mainstream school anyway but there was no choice as I couldn't get him an EHCP.

I am so fucking angry as this proves they never took his SN seriously at all which they proved in the way they treated him!

I also found a copy of an email from said inclusion manager to all his teachers outlining DS's behaviour plan and stating that if he failed to get enough points, he would be excluded.

Same woman sat across from me in a meeting with the Board of Governors insisting that I must have been mistaken when I said that she'd told me this on the phone.

I am absolutely disgusted that such people exist and are in authority of vulnerable children .

AIBU?

@Allington my eldest struggles with change and transitions (I reckon eventually she'll be picked up for an ASD diagnosis but at the moment there's no way we'd be taken seriously pushing for it) - but they send her anxiety levels up and her behaviour gets nightmarish to mask her anxiety (basically she becomes a very dinky teenager-in-training with lots of gobby attitude to hide the fact she's worried). School had her targeted with a few other kids and made sure she had brief outings to her new classroom, just 5 minutes here and there for a few weeks - and it put it all to bed so easily.

I'm a returning-teacher by trade myself and I still am ashamed and angry at some of the attitudes on here. They don't represent teachers at large - but unfortunately the attitudes are out here that parents seek out SN diagnosis for an "excuse" for a child who's just not very bright, or that they're just out to make trouble and be difficult for the sheer hell of it and everything else that goes on... and I find the blaming of parents going after EHCPs and going to appeals and whatever else as somehow trying to bleed resources dry and that they should just put up and shut up really absolutely so disgraceful that it almost renders me speechless (not a feat easily achieved).

I try my damndest to make sure that anything I request that will help my child is absolutely as resource-neutral as possible for school, as minimal-impact as it's possible to make it and we have resourced the bulk of things ourselves for the school (the old SENCO was very nice at making promises for things that didn't materialise so we just tracked the equipment down ourselves - and our budget doesn't have much bloody leeway either). I do it that way because I don't want to overload the teachers and I want to make their lives as easy as I possibly can while making sure that I get as much of DD2's needs met as it's possible to do so. I'm not 100% happy with the school in how they're doing that - but they are a hell of a lot better than most in the local area and last year's class teacher was fucking amazing.

I know exactly how shit the situation is from the classroom perspective - but at the same time I'd be failing my child if I just let them sit there and quietly, placidly fail their one shot at an education, and however much work I do with them at home to help them with their difficulties (and at the moment we've got OT reinforcement work, SALT reinforcement work going on plus gently making sure we don't slide backwards too far over the summer, and working on some letter formation habits that aren't right before they get too deeply ingrained) - she needs some support and adaptation in school and I'd be slacking if I didn't make sure that I'd done everything possible within my power to make sure she got that.

There's some shocking behaviour from schools that goes on though - one local to us openly tells parents who ask about SN on school tours that their children aren't wanted there, staff who'll just say vile things about not believing diagnoses that kids have or that parents are making up ADHD for benefits purposes (obviously haven't tried to successfully claim DLA recently hah hah), kids just being set up to fail and those quiet kids with difficulties just left to flounder. The decent teachers are doing everything they can within a really badly fucked up and broken system to try to get kids help - but there are bad apples out there, and an unfortunate few sat up in management roles who really do bring shame onto the decent teachers out there that I have all the time in the world for.

The system as it presently is is absolutely reliant upon parents giving up the fight and just letting things go - everything from benefits claims, to EHCPs, to even getting a bloody referral from the GP to paediatricians... it's all set to the default position of "awww just say no - they might go away and leave us alone; if they come back we might actually listen to them a bit more"

That's the sad thing - DD wants to be 'good' and with a little flexibility could be. Nothing that costs money. Nothing that takes much time. Only a willingness to listen, understand, and be flexible.

But as you've seen from these responses, that's being unreasonable and entitled :(

Totally agree - previous school had genuine open door policy, you never felt a hassle. His SENCO was spot on (and what she flagged up confirmed our concerns - so we sought and got diagnosis). Class teacher very proactive - helped that she has a child with SEN herself so had an excellent insight into strategies and how parents might feel! We had to move - that school only went to age 7 sadly.

My ds junior school had a great attitude. I'd had to go in one day and went into senco office - she took one look at my emotional mood and said "I'll make you a coffee before we even attempt to discuss this"

I don't agree with all his secondary do or don't do and I didn't with his juniors.
However these two schools so suck willing to try and work with me i can see it for what it is.

His original secondary were soooooo adversarial it made it difficult because there was always an undercurrent feeling of distrust.

But for me it's not about trusting a school it's that some do nothing to encourage you to trust them.

And yes, going back a way to the transition discussion. Some schools can't think outside the box and are stuck in the "we don't do this" "we can't do this" cycle.
That's not the issue so much - the issue is when an alternative solution is suggested for exploration and it's shit down with "that won't work" without even going away and finding a way that it may work.

Allington
I am sure many parents would love advice about navigating the system.

Teachers -with the best will in the world-- are not the people to do this.

But so many teachers have come on this thread to tell us we don't understand

Nobody has said that you don't understand, but that willingness to listen has to go both ways.

it's not fair to expect them to do what is legally required, schools can't be expected to provide for our children.

Nobody has said this (all bar one), teachers have said that its hard doing this and there aren't enough funds, time and TAs to make it happen. Which strangely enough is what you are saying.

As has been stated many times --in various ways- teachers have to legally provide for all of the children in the class and its a balance.

But some schools are always going to be able to be more flexible than others.

At our school we were originally in a very good place - we had a healthy budget, plenty of staff, quite a low number of pupils with SEN and low levels of disadvantaged students whilst at the same time as having a fantastic SENCO and a large team of TAs. We were able to support students with SEN quite easily, whilst waiting for funding.

Fast forward a few years. LA running short of money. School heading toward a deficit budget so staffing cut back to the bare bones at the same time as numbers of students with SEN went up hugely as did the numbers of disadvantaged students and these students had some very difficult circumstances so we had to divert manpower to support these students. Staffing was cut so far that we had no surplus staff to provide extra support.

At one meeting the Head explained how concerned he was that we were about to be compelled to accept an in year transfer of a student with SEN who was awaiting an EHCP. He gave us the options - we refused to accept the child or that we accepted and somehow found the money in our difficult budget situation. It wasn't that anyone was being reasonable or entitled. It was that our resources, for existing students, was stretched to breaking point and whichever decision we took someone's needs would not be met.

Honestly, just hearing about some of the situations for some of the students was horrific. The fact that staff were having to deal with child protection meetings on a daily basis, looking into abuse, CSE etc really shocked me.

Our safeguarding lead, who was superb, said that they had never seen anything like it and that the experience was replicated across the borough. She admitted to lying awake at night worrying about students.

It's not difficult therefore to see how staff working under these circumstances have little else to give. They are human at the end of the day, not machines, and none of this takes into consideration their normal day to day workload or their own personal circumstances.

Allington

I am telling you about the (very real) limitations faced by teachers trying to meet the needs of all of their students. Why would you imagine this qualifies me to talk about the actions of teachers in a specific safeguarding situation?

People really do need to stop blaming teachers for lack of support just because they are in the frontline.

I've been through the most horrendous things because of lack of school support etc and had accusations like many.
However, teaches are not responsible for funding echps - the la is.
Teachers are not responsible for using the funds to put in the right support - eg a TA in class.

In fact teaches are often left trying to deal with a whole class unsupported and probe every child has made progress or they don't get their pay rise (which they should get as a year on the job = more experience and expertise)

Teachers are at the mercy of the la and senco and slt as much as we and our kids are.

It's government media propaganda that has made out teachers aren't doing enough with all this.

There are some absolutely crap teachers out there that don't deserve the opportunity to work with our children.
Likewise theirs some absolutely dire till assistants in Tesco but I don't boycott the whole company over them.

I could be wrong, I don’t think many are blaming teachers for lack of funding? I think they are blaming teachers for not understanding/being obstructive?

Which most parents of children with SN have probably experienced. Which obviously does not include all teachers!

What did your paediatrician say to this?? Was they on schools side? I feel all the 'professionals' stick together tbh hope that wasn't the case in this instance.

Paediatrician was on our side and reiterated to school that a diagnosis of xxxx had been made therefore yyyy support was needed. The teacher was not the SENCO, thank goodness, and we did complain but school supported him and said he had a professional right to comment on the assessment process

DS isn't at that school now and his new school seem much more supportive.

I wouldn't expect Peng to comment, she didn't write letter.

There are very clear channels to follow at my school. Going rogue and providing parents with recommendations for charities to help them argue with my employer = big breach of our procedures.

How about doing something constructive and talking to the SENCo and other teachers about including giving parents details of sources of advice as one of those channels? They aren't necessarily going to argue with your employer if your employer is doing what they are supposed to be doing, and in fact often ensuring that parents have the right advice stops them from pursuing pointless or meritless arguments. No school can reasonably say it would be wrong to help parents to become better informed.

Each child receives £4000 funding (roughly). Schools are expected to meet SEN provision up to a certain amount so potentially we were spending 2 or 3 pupils' worth of funding on one child. Sometimes more.

Are you sure, Arthuritis? Because the education funding system requires that the school gets approximately £4000 for each child placed there, plus delegated funding for children with SEN at around £6000. I know that they don't necessarily get the full £6K, but they should be getting much more than the basic £4K.

Particularly if a child needed 1:1 support in class but the LA refused to fund it. This is just untenable.

If that is the situation, the child must be at the threshold for an EHCP which includes the criterion that the child needs more support than is normally available within normal mainstream resources. If the need for 1:1 support is properly specified in the EHCP, the LA has no choice but to fund it.

10-12 weeks x 3 if you get a refusal to assess, refusal to issue then refusal to write a decent plan. That's an extra 8/9 months on top of the 20 weeks minimum (ha!) it takes anyway. A decent EHCP can potentially take well over a year to obtain.

Well, yes, except that when an LA has lost an appeal against refusal to assess they tend to be more careful about refusal to issue, particularly if the first tribunal has given an indication that it considers it likely that an EHCP will be needed. But the point is, obviously, that if parents are put off applying for an EHCP by that potential delay, their children will never get the support they need at all.

It's also fascinating how often schools and LAs suddenly take much more interest in providing support when faced with the prospect of justifying themselves to a tribunal judge, so often there is a radical improvement in the run-up to a tribunal hearing even if the support disappears immediately afterwards

The problem is the delay in issuing the EHCP though. Whilst we were waiting for it the initial funding comes out of the school budget. Add in the general delay of funding not being paid until the April after students start in September and many schools are operating on a financial knife edge.

We had occasions too where assessment recommended far lower levels of support than were actually required to keep the student settled. The school did all that they could to challenge but the wheels moved very slowly and in the meantime school was trying to keep the student in school and receiving an education. Sometimes this just wasn't possible but we all knew that there was not much alternative to being with us.

Guienne

Maybe I would mention it, but can we stop pretending it's my job to do so? We seem to be mixing up what I have to do with what I might choose to do. If I thought these charities were excellent resources then perhaps I would, but as it happens I know sod all about them.

That doesn't surprise me arthuritis. You often need private reports to get decent assessments and thus decent recommendations and provision written in the ehcp. Many parents can't afford that so the ehcps don't fully reflect the childs needs at all. Making them much cheaper for the LA to fund. The LAs are screwing over the kids and the schools.

I think it is your job, Pengggwyn. Many if not most teachers are happy to advise parents if they think an EHCP application is necessary and answer parents' questions about it, and many have it in their job descriptions to keep records as to SEN, the support given and how efficacious or otherwise it is. Parents come onto this and other forums regularly with stories about how a teacher has advised them that an EHCP application doesn't stand a chance. It is not in the least unusual for teachers to provide reports for SENDIST appeals, whether on behalf of the LA or the parents. If you're not prepared to do that, the least you can do is refer parents to statutory sources of information and help which were put in place by the government for precisely that purpose.

Some good points Arthur even more reason why schools should work in partnership with parents. It’s in everyone’s best interests.

Guienne

'Many if not most' according to whom? See how far you get taking the complaint that I won't recommend charitable bodies to mu Head or further.

And yes, of course I fill out reports as and when requested by the SENCO. That IS my job.

Teacher: It is soooo unfair to me that I have so many pupils with SN and no support.

@Guienne: Why not refer them to the bodies put in place to help parents get the support their child needs?

Teacher: It's not my job. And my employer wouldn't like it. But it's soooo unfair to me etc etc

The reality is, there are many, many teachers who do work in partnership with parents, do find ways to accommodate requests (helping tidy up wouldn't be convenient, but DD could come for storytime for example). Then there are those that are outraged and offended and put upon whatever is asked.

Have it your own way, Pengggwyn. You refuse to do anything to help a child with SN to get support even when, on your own account, your school doesn't have the necessary resources - which in effect is the criterion for getting an EHCP. But, that being your attitude, I would suggest you forfeit the right to object to parents who expect you and your colleagues to fulfil the school's duty to meet their children's needs.

Guienne

Your attitude is outrageous, actually. I do a great deal to help the children in my care. You just want to be able to insist that I do things that are a) not my role and b) would cause me problems at work. I don't think that is reasonable and believe you to be incredibly entitled.

Plenty of people want my services, and are happy to pay for them thanks for your concern. No skin off my nose if this school doesn't want them for free - but then it does undermine their complaints about not having enough money.