To think people just forget about kids with SEN?

[LloydBraun]

Labour Party bollocks about abolishing private schools all over the news.
I haven’t yet heard a single person ask them about impact on independent schools providing SEN education -often, with no equivalent state provision being available.
Seems like the only time our kids feature is when benefits are talked about. When it comes to the education which might help increase independence from the state - they don’t feature.
Makes me puke.

There are quite a few possible permutations. There is full on independent specialist education. Most kids there will have the specialist facility specified in the EHCP and fees paid by LEA. But there are kids who are fighting to have the specialist facility specified who are there with funds paid by other sources (charitable funds generally). Then there are kids in mainstream independent who have provision specified in EHCP which state can’t or won’t provide in its settings. And there are kids in independent who don’t have EHCP’s but are there because the state just can’t meet their needs and parents have taken a decision and have the funds to remove them.

When you look at Corbyn (grammar) Milne (private school) and the others, they haven't even been to a state comprehensive and have no idea really. Forcing everyone to go to one isn't the answer, they need to make state schools better for the pupils who are already there first, before a massive influx of more pupils.

If government abolish private schools then parents with kids in private schools would home ed then form in groups with tutors where they felt the state provision was crap. Or is Labour also going to abolish home ed?

But YANBU OP in the case of SEN.
It just sounds like an ill thought through policy all round.

Oh I think that the Tories are shit @Iggly - they have destroyed educational provision. But I also think this is a bad idea (not that it will ever happen because Corbyn is unelectable)

Hi all, if you read my post it says 'should' not 'does'. It shouldn't be utopia to think that sen children also deserve a properly funded, good quality education, just like any other child. And yes I'm aware that no child is getting a properly funded, good quality education here at the moment. Probably not even those in private schools.

Iggly you need to educate yourself a bit more about what’s required to educate kids with SN successfully and the reasons independent provision exists. This is a hell of a lot more complex than the state paying for TAs. Some children will always require specialist provision and current system has allowed parents to come together and pioneer approaches which have transformed children’s prospects. It’s really important this diversity of provision continues.
Google the treehouse school or the jigsaw school. Please, educate yourself before voting at the next GE. Don’t make a choice which could trash kids’ futures because you don’t understand the background

It’s a bad idea in isolation. However that’s not what this is about - it’s about breaking down the social barriers in place.

I don’t think, and I think it’s disingenuous to say so, that labour want to rip apart SEN provision.

I’d trust labour than the Tories when it comes to education policy.

Abolishing private schools goes down well with a certain portion of the electorate - that's why the hard lefties like to wheel it out every now and again to rile everyone up. The simple fact is though that if they closed private schools overnight and all those kids suddenly needed a state school place, the education system would collapse! Not just through sheer weight of numbers, but through all those parents who've been paying for state school places that they haven't been using, suddenly taking them up. It's a ridiculous idea and one that would have to be slowly phased in over decades. The state school system is creaking at the seams through lack of investment as it is, the last thing they need is an extra 615,000 kids to educate.

I have asd and went to a private small girls school that really helped me thrive compared to my state school, where I'd really just stopped functioning at.
It don't think it would break down social barriers, parents would get tutors, foreign boarding schools etc.

Also presumably this would include private online schools too?

I think it's a silly idea.

There is literally zero chance of this getting through parliament if they got into power. It's just headline grabbing!

Great question, OP. And one I often wonder myself.

I have one child at an independent specialist provision (as pp have said, paid by LA), and 2 children at mainstream independent schools because they would not cope in mainstream state provisions.

All 3 would be utterly let down, their education compromised and their mental health severely impacted if they were forced to attend the equivalent state mainstream provisions.

My middle child has severe anxiety (along with other disabilities), and some days even the thought of going into her small, totally friendly, completely understanding school (16 children in her form and teaching group) is beyond her. There is no way she would survive in our local (very well thought of, sought after, etc) secondary, where the intake each year is close to 300 pupils - that’s over half dc’s entire school! And that’s quite apart from the fact that with numbers such as those, the flexibility that is sometimes required to help her get through the day is just not possible.

My eldest has only ever attended independent specialist placements (following a disastrous time at mainstream preschool). She has learned so much from her (admittedly eyewateringly expensive) excellent school, and it is her best chance at even a semi-independent life. Without the ridiculous tribunal we were forced to go through to secure this placement, she would have had a Statement (as was) offering 7 hours help per week from a non-skilled TA. She currently has full time highly trained 1:1. That’s the kind of gulf we are talking about, and is ultimately about providing her with a decent quality of life.

There is so much crap talked about just closing private schools, and the people who arguably benefit most from attending them are usually totally overlooked or ignored (like most areas of life, tbh)

It wouldn't break down barriers at all. The wealth needed these days to privately educate, particularly if you have more than one DC, gives people choices and no one with choices would take this shit lying down. They'd move abroad, send their kids to school abroad, set up 'free schools' that were run on the private school model, etc. Clever people (and many people who are wealthy are also very clever), tend to be rather good at problem solving!

Surely the state should provide quality education to all kids, sen included.

Should but don’t.
Ds is 9, hasn’t done a day in school since he was 5. Turned down by every single mainstream and special school in two counties.
I don’t get funding to help educate it and local authority just says there’s nothing they can do.
He has been let down massively and forgotten about and nobody cares.

They don’t at the moment and we have private provision already 🙄 with almost ten years of cuts in the bag.

I think there has been a movement over decades to integrate state and private in Finland which is what labour are planning (if they get in which is another question entirely) so the wouldn't suddenly close schools and they would also nationalise the charitable trusts many of the biggest schools use to support themselves which could be redistributed to people. I dont think private school users would all suddenly home ed as I think there is a large group who just want their kids to mix with people like them . I think this would translate to state schools with minuscule catchments to weed out a lot of the poor. Also international schools being used more. Families likely to home ed and tutor are those in a similar situation to you who have children failed by the state and who can afford it.

Yes people just forget about children with SEN. They simply dont understand how ill equipped the state is to deal with complex special needs, and how much better charities led by parents are doing education for all sort of needs.
I agree labour put more money into schools but it was very focussed on inclusion which is fantastic for some needs but for others it just doesnt work.

I live in a small city. We have 3 highly regarded fee paying schools in the centre of the city.

None of them will enroll children with SEN.

We have an International School which will take children with mild SEN but not severe.

You need to look at the local offer for your LA area, BathshebaKnickerStickers and the neighbouring ones - or look at the list of section 41 schools, then you will get a feel for the specialist provision in your area.
Its not that all independent schools cater for special needs its that some special needs are only catered for privately.

A quarter of Edinburgh’s school children are privately educated. Closing state schools would have a catastrophic effect on the public sector and that would also have a big impact on SEN provision. It’s the first place cuts are made and nobody gives a crap because they think it doesn’t affect their kids.

Surely the state should provide quality education to all kids, sen included.
Be sure to fight for that next time you hear they are cutting support for learning in your area. Because nobody ever does.

It’s a bad idea in isolation. However that’s not what this is about - it’s about breaking down the social barriers in place.

The social barriers are alive and well in the state system where people who can afford it, move to the better school catchments. All that would happen is, the ones who just manage it now would be priced out, meaning the wealthiest kids are still all at the same school.

Having spent 25 years of my teaching career working with young people with SEND, I can certainly say that it’s a minefield to access the correct provision , whether state or private, for complex needs.

There are specialist schools, which is what is being discussed here, but not every type of need is catered for. In the mainstream secondary school in which I taught, there was a unit for SLCN. Except that many young people with needs other than SLCN were given places, because there was a school that catered for their particular need. It once took me a year and much anguish, to have a boy transferred to a specialist private school, paid for by the LA. LAs will try any provision, rather than specialist private, because of the funding. The cost to LAs is immense. Only when there is absolutely no alternative and multi professional teams all agree that this is so, will they agree to fund.

The difference between specialist private provision and private education is immense. That’s why most independent schools, who rely on their results to attract their clientele, have few or no children with SEND.

I didn’t forget about the young people in my care with SEND. Thats why I spent those years working with them. But I have to say that it became harder and harder to meet the range of need, with an ever decreasing budget and provision.

@Grasspigeons - i’m In Scotland and things are different here. Private schools will not take SEN children.

There are independent special schools in Scotland.

It’s simply not true that most independent schools have few or no children with SN. That might be true of the high profile schools but the sector is far more diverse than that.
As I said the ignorance is shocking. As is the refusal to engage with the facts and just say “I trust labour more than the tories”. I’ve always known the left lied when it claimed to be more caring but that’s shocked even me.

Like many teachers in the state sector, yabbers, you want to reduce this to a question of budget, because it’s politically expedient - evil tories = less money. Throwing more money at approaches which don’t work is no good to anyone. And in fact, I had my most acute difficulties securing provision for ds under labour when money was sloshing about. It wasn’t money which was the problem - it was the refusal to engage with a programme of support which was working, which had an evidence base, which would have cost less than the states plan! But which they were too rigid and inflexible to adopt.
Shoving kids in with TAs is just a job creation scheme for often rather inadequate people, in my experience. Independent provision is crucial to enable approaches which might actually help to be pioneered.