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?

Plnaetclom - you've spotted that Clairetree has a DD with ASD, have you? Doesn't appear that way from your vitriolic posting towards her.

I believe the OP is particularly pissed off with the fact that the teachers have used inverted commas around the SN in the emails, which EVERYONE should know means that they don't really believe in it and are suggesting that she's made it up, and that the teacher has said that the OP expected "special treatment for my son due to his 'SN'." Which, clearly, he needed due to his diagnosis. So yes, she has every right to be pissed off because they apparently a) didn't believe in his diagnosis and b) made no extra provision to accommodate his diagnosis, followed by c) punishing him for his reactions to the lack of special provision that should have been made following his diagnosis, culminating in exclusion from the school.

I think that's pretty good reason to be pissed off myself.

DD (adopted) has a lot of anxiety around new adults, because of past abuse. I have explained that numerous times to the school and asked that we know her next teacher before the end of the school year and that she has a chance to get to know that teacher a little before hand.

This, apparently, is an excessive demand - although my suggestions for 'getting to know' include helping the next teacher tidy the classroom, taking messages, helping out. In other words, just spend the last few weeks of one school year being included in things that need doing.

Apparently this is completely impossible, I don't understand how difficult teachers' jobs are, DD shouldn't be in mainstream school (despite every assessment saying she should).

" I cannot believe that a child has gone through the whole school system and not received an EHCP if there is an obvious need"

My child does have an EHCP but wasn't funded for full time support for his first 3 years at school. This was a child functioning at 12-18 months level. The school said the LA wouldn't fund the full amount and sent him home when they couldn't cope.

Perhaps I should expect an angry mob, but I don't particularly care. People should be allowed free speech. I'm sure you've said things about other people in emails that you wouldn't want to have to share with them. The teachers have been forced, by law, to share everything now and in the grand scheme of things they really didn't say anything that bad... I'd just drop it. And teachers deal with a lot of difficult parents, not necessarily saying you're one of them, but they need a way to blow off steam. It's not like they were calling you a 'bitch'. Didn't you want your child to have special treatment due to their SN? Surely that is something they need? In which case, isn't what the teacher said true? And the word 'again' means that it was something that has happened for a second time or multiple times. It's not a bad word...

The issue here seems to be quite a big misunderstanding by some people around the restrictions in school.

Yes, children with an EHCP do get funding. But it is not enough to employ a full TA. It is often only just enough to provide the bare minimum. It is totally unfair to the staff and the child because there is an inevitable short fall.

I teach 120 children every week. There is a range of needs and I do my best to provide for them. Some adjustments- enlargement, blue paper, extra time, extra support, hearing adjustments etc are feasible and straightforward to implement in the classroom.

But behaviour is a whole different ball game. I am one adult often totally alone with 30+ students (the thin blue line, as it were). My classroom is a calm and quiet places as much as it can be with that many kids crammed in (cuts again). To get that many kids on task and producing purposeful learning requires creating a calm, safe space where everyone knows the rules and sees them fairly applied.

The issue with reasonable adjustments for behaviour is that it is an ill defined set of expectations. Where and how far is the line? How much of other student’s learning should we allow to be disrupted? How much violence is it ok to offer other students and staff?

There should be no issue with reasonable adjustments. But where does reasonable end?

And to the poster who pointed out that as a nurse they have to deal with violent patients- do they hurt each other? Or is your ward set up to mitigate that risk and keep them apart thus only risking your safety and not that of the vulnerable.

The whole system is a mess at the moment. And there need to be mor places at schools that can appropriately provide for students who need more than reasonable adjustments. Because mainstream schools will never be able to achieve this without more funding.

It is all results based... But that isn't the individual schools fault or the fault of the teachers. Teachers are extremely over-worked and expected, by arelseholes like Ofsted, to just get the results. They are put under immense pressure and penalised if they don't meet the standards that are set, despite those standards not being in the best interest of all of the students. There is a huge lack of teachers because it's a shit job. A thankless job. You do long hours and work very hard not just in school time, but you have to take a lot of work home with you and stay up late at home doing it. Then you come in and get fussy parents complaining that you're not doing enough, or that their child should be exempt from the rules because of some sob story excuse. And you have the head teacher on your back. And you work with TA's who are completely lazy and who have no idea what they're doing.

I'm seriously struggling to understand this. If he has SLD with a devopmental age of a primary school child why no EHCP? And I've read your comment about the school but it doesn't ring true...what about the primary school? What about you? Why did you not apply for an EHCP before the age of 15?

From a schools perspective if he doesn't have an EHCP it's because his needs do not require additional support so therefore I can fully understand how those emails were sent. You wanted your son to not get detentions for behaviours caused by his SLD but from their perspective his sn wasn't severe enough to get an EHCP so hard to understand why he would need special treatment?

Any child is subject to exclusion if behaviour is poor. Permanent exclusion can't happen out of the blue and it costs schools thousands. Your son will have had to be on a pathway of behaviour incidents with internal and short term exclusions before this could've happened.

It sounds like you feel the school let him down hugely and that you were expecting more in terms of support from them. These emails are not u reasonable but have reinforced your feelings about the school.

Honestly? Move on. This anger will not be doing you or your son any good. You can't blame everything on the school either. You didn't apply for an EHCP and neither did the primary school.

I find claretree's posts very upsetting. Struggling to reconcile and comprehend her teacher cold-hearted-ness v having her own dd with ASD, so should have more empathy and understanding?

And her post of the woman who made a complaint, who had loads of time, but it took up loads of teacher time.... sent a chill down my spine. Could have been me. Apart from the fact I work part time!

I complained. Took it to the Secretary of State for education, eventually. Got nowhere. But still glad I did it.

I, like hedgehog was accused of Fii. Unbeknown to me. They never believed ds's ASD diagnosis. I was called an unfit mother, abusive, and it was also said that because I had diabetes (from birth) I probably should never have been allowed to have children.

Never underestimate how powerful teachers and schools are. It shocked me.

AmazingGrace16 most children with sen don't have a ehcp. They are still entitled to reasonable adjustment.

It’s not ‘special treatment’, it’s reasonable adjustments: schools must take positive steps to remove barriers children face due to their disability so that they are not on a less equal footing than their peers. The fact that the tutor referred to the mother expecting special treatment for her son due to his ‘SN’ shows their poor attitude to children with SN/SEN.

The Equalitis and Human Rights Commission have published useful technical guidance in this area for anyone who is interested Reasonable Adjustments for Disabled Pupils

Unfortunately this thread has shown that there is still a lot a ignorance, lack of understanding and contempt for children with SEND and their families.

This, apparently, is an excessive demand - although my suggestions for 'getting to know' include helping the next teacher tidy the classroom, taking messages, helping out. In other words, just spend the last few weeks of one school year being included in things that need doing.

you expected the school to allow you in for A FEW WEEKS! to get to know the teacher? What if all parents expected that? or even if all parents of children with SN expected that?

If you can't see that being expected to be allowed access to the school, classroom and teacher for a few weeks is an excessive demand, then I really can't communicate with you.

That is sheer craziness. You seem to have absolutely no idea the humungous enormous astronmomical burden of planning and supervision you seem to be expecting that poor teacher to take on for A FEW WEEKS at the end of term! to accommodate you.

"excessive" is an understatment

Comments will have no doubt have been made where the teachers felt they were in a safe space - their email inbox - but GDPR has now taken away that arena of "free speech"

This is nothing to do with GDPR. Subject access requests existed under the DPA 1998. It has never been sensible to make unwise comments in email. Whether you are a teacher or not, for goodness sake do not slag people off in emails!

I'm sorry to hear this OP - it does all sound deeply unprofessional.

Poor 'staff' had to write statements and waste valuable time?!

I don't think it was a problem to any of the staff involved, a few hours or even half a day off timetable to give evidence, quite a pleasant break from routine!

What I was saying is that in taking so many staff out of the school to respond to the complaints meant the rest of the school was put under intolerable strain.

We were short staffed without this, then more staff time was taken up on this complaint, even though we easily won every single point, the impact on the education of the other students, and the welfare of other staff was enormously detrimental

@misssusansays you are so right.

I also agree with other teachers who have to try and teach students with EHCPs at opposing ends of the scale.

I once had "X needs a quiet calm environment with no distractions and routine" in the same classroom as "X benefits from interactive and noisy lessons".
I literally could not win.

This, apparently, is an excessive demand - although my suggestions for 'getting to know' include helping the next teacher tidy the classroom, taking messages, helping out. In other words, just spend the last few weeks of one school year being included in things that need doing

I am so so so deeply flabberghasted by the sheer enormity and audacity of this expectation that I have had to come back and reread it to see if I had understood.

This absolutely takes the biscuit!

This one has to go up on the staffroom wall!

To the parent who wanted to come in to help- Do you have a DBS? We cannot let someone regularly in to school without one. All regular visitors (supply, musical instrument teachers etc) have to have one. It is an automatic fail at OFSTED to allow people in to work with the children without one. No matter who they are.

AmazingGrace16 , why should a child be penalised for a behaviour they are unable to help due to their disability? I am not just talking about ‘bad’ behaviour towards other people, but behaviours that result from, for example, poor organisational skills and forgetfulness. My child has a disability that effects his memory and organisation and was given detentions repeatedly due to not handing in work on time / losing equipment etc. The detentions did nothing to help him change his behaviour because he can’t change it. It is a life long disability and giving him repeated detentions will do nothing but make him increasingly anxious and make him feel bad about himself. In the end, he school made reasonable adjustments and now he doesn’t get detentions for these things.

Also, there are many children around the country who require EHCPs but don’t have them - it is not true to say that a child without an EHCP does not require additional support. LAs are cutting back all the time and are continually trying to (illegally) raise the bar on whom they deem it necessary to statutorily assess. Even children with significant SEN are often turned down for EHCP provision because the LA argues their needs should be provided for out of the school budget and do not require additional funding. Lots of parents don’t realise they can appeal or don’t feel able to appeal (it is a lot of extra stress on top of the day-to-day stresses that come with having a child with SN) to the SEND Tribunal and that the majority of appeals are successful.

I do genuinely think people forget that their child is usually not the only one with SN in a classroom. There are usually a myriad of different needs that teachers are trying their damn hardest to meet. Teachers time and resources are limited by budget cuts and the fact they are human with a work life balance.

Most classes I teach have 5+ pupils with SN to the level of needing an ECHP, then there are 5ish more who have SN but no EHCP. Then there's the undiagnosed but need support group as well. It is vanishingly rare that your child is the only one.

That ruling opens a massive minefield and I can see it from both sides and have also had ds is a crappy law breaking academy secondary and his current fantastic secondary.

I don't think it's fair enough to say teachers should put up with being hit and abused (verbally and physically). By there does need to be a general ethos change where you don't exclude a child when it's come from not having his needs met.

Ds crappy school have him a TO card. Yet constantly refused to let him use it and told him different ways of using it. When ds was coming home distressed because he could get out they'd tell me he was lying. Why would he do that?
Eventually their actions led him to develop unacceptable behaviours and he was violent at times (mainly to himself), threw objects (not at anyone but a classroom full of people their were people hit) and running off.
Is it fit for him to be excluded in this case because he had but wasn't allowed to use reasonable adjustments to support him.

He moved to another secondary and remained the same child. (He's not now as they have worked wonders).
If he needed TO he had it. If he behaved inappropriately they'd use ABcC charts to try and work out why. They sorted a room where he could go and told him to shout, swear, punch the pillows in there and throw balls around the room (soft ones).
I worked hard with teachers and keyworkers and always maintained with them I didn't expect them to 'put up with it'

I even had a teacher ring me one day to apologise for sending him home fuming and said it's because another situation occurred and he couldn't follow ds behaviour plan at the time which had sent ds into more of a spin (autistic). Of course I said it wasn't his fault and perhaps we needed a B plan that ds knows about for everyone's safety. It was set up by following morning.

Ds has now been 6 months and he's used TO twice, ran off once and thrown a pencil.

This was originally happening 6-10 times a day.

I'm not saying that students with sn shod have their behaviour penalised when they can't help it. Far from it!
What I meant (and perhaps I worded it incorrectly) was that if his special needs were not recognised by the school I can understand how it has led to them attributing it to solely behaviour and therefore I can see exactly how that email was sent.

I'm aware not every sn child has an EHCP but I struggle to see how a student with severe learning difficulties (a term itself used to describe some special schools) and with a developmental age of at least 5 years lower than chronogical age has not got an EHCP. I find that so hard to understand when EHCPs are awarded for less. My point was about the blame for no EHCP seems to be with the school whereas the op is able to apply independently too.

"Yes, children with an EHCP do get funding. But it is not enough to employ a full TA."

They can get enough funding if the parents get to know the sen code of practice, get solicitors involved and threaten tribunal. Parents shouldn't have to do this to get their child an adequate education.

Sleepyblueocean how much funding do you think the school gets? How much does a TA cost?

Clairetrees The poster wants her DAUGHTER to be allowed to help with odds and ends in her new class-to-be, not herself. You read it twice but apparently comprehension was an issue.

I have explained that numerous times to the school and asked that WE know her next teacher before the end of the school year and that SHE has a chance to get to know that teacher a little before hand.

My emphasis.

Yes, children with an EHCP do get funding. But it is not enough to employ a full TA. It is often only just enough to provide the bare minimum.

Then schools should support parents in tribunal appeals to ensure that support is tightly defined so that the LA has to fund it. Yes, schools will still be expected to put the first £6000 towards it, but that is because they have delegated funding on that basis for SEN. I appreciate that that isn't enough, but the response to that should be taking the fight to the LA and the government, not short-changing a child who needs support.