What happens to children starting school with chaotic parents?

[jennymanara]

In England and Wales, what happens to kids whose parents have too chaotic a life to make a school application for their kids starting school, or do not have the level of literacy required to make a school application? Are children just automatically allocated any school?

jennymanara - chaotic parents miss application deadlines all the time. Homeless and chaotic - even more often. Not realising your school age child should not be hanging around at home with you any more, however, is a whole different level - less chaotic or even neglectful and more deliberately not doing anything (unless you are suggesting there is a huge underbelly of people in the UK who do not realise that schools exist and that their children ought to be going to one once they reach a certain age?). I'm sure there are also people who never registered their child's birth, either. Not lifting a finger to find out, though - I question a parent's ability even to keep their children alive if they accidentally fail to do that throughout their children's entire childhoods. There is a huge element of deliberate behaviour involved in never sending your children anywhere near a school their entire lives.

This is something I generally don't get - how the deeply chaotic (say, drug addicts, alcoholics) manage to do the very basics of keeping a child alive, let alone this kind of admin. I remember when DS was a newborn thinking 'but surely if you were on heroin or whatever you'd just not manage to keep this all going?'.

There are a lot of Heroin users who are pretty functional: hold down full time jobs, raise families well, etc. It’s not all being unconscious or too high to function 24/7. There are plenty also whose lives are in total disarray, but chances are if you have an active heroin dependency it’ll have been picked up on at some point during antenatal care and many mums will be given maintenance therapy such as methadone. They migrate still use heroin on top, but the daily reliable dose of methadone is enough to stop withdrawals, remove the need to be constantly finding cash for the next fix, and free up mental space and time to focus on other things.

Heroin addiction tends to become problematic only when you stop being able to find Heroin, and for many people in a relationship where one uses it either both parents do (so one can focus on the kids while the other is sourcing) or the non using partner is aware and can source or do the bulk of the childcare.

Not to mention many parents who are Heroin dependent will spend the first couple of weeks of a baby’s life in hospital while the infant is monitored or treated for NAS, and there’ll be support in place during that period and once they go home as it’ll be on the radar for social services or health services at that stage.

In the past towns would have an EWO (educational welfare officer) employed by the council.

They knew the families, worked with schools, got children up, sorted out parents, dealt with applications, looked into poor attendance, liaised with SS.

It was hard for a child to slip through the net.

Nowadays schools do this themselves and include it with pastoral care BUT they don’t have the local overview or knowledge. Once they leave at 16 no one is seeing if they carry on somewhere until 18 as they should.

Schools tend to work as little islands.

Getting rid of EWOs was not a good move. It helped avoid the problems mentioned at the start.

Fred, in our town, did a really good job, he knew many families often through a couple of generations. He’d visit them and help give children the best possible start.,

@PaganPriestess - you don't have to have a profound LD to be 'disorganised'.
Of course the overwhelming majority aren't known to SC. Even those who once were aren't offered enough support to be checking up they'd filled in a form.

That's before you get into all the people who just don't know how "the system" works. Yes, many people can use IT well enough to fill in a form, but they'd need to have an awareness they ought to be filling in that form to trigger the action of going to look for that form / check out the closing date / etc

If a child goes to A & E and no GP is noted surely this would raise concerns eg vaccinations, infectious diseases and questions would be asked as to child's welfare. At least I would hope so. Or, what's the point of all the questions and form filling at a hospital.

I never applied for my child to start school. I rang the school when she was nursery age and we started the following week, then when it came to reception class time we had letters home but I didn’t have to do anything. I’m in wales.

Children with chaotic, disorganized childhoods still end up being registered for school because often their parents would rather they were out of the house. They can get help with the forms if there are literacy issues. Getting the kids to school is another story.

I think the inequality goes deeper than just the application form unfortunately. I remember discussing school admissions while on mat leave. Lots of my friends checked the criteria to make sure we knew if there were loops to jump through or whether it was just distance. I’ve been googling school readiness so I can help my 3 year old be ready next year. Some kids will just never have that input and their transition to school will always be harder.

Thanks crystalshark - that was a really informative answer to my question. As I'm sure was clear, I don't know much about heroin addiction and I learned a lot from your answer.

In the past towns would have an EWO (educational welfare officer) employed by the council.

They knew the families, worked with schools, got children up, sorted out parents, dealt with applications, looked into poor attendance, liaised with SS.

Local authorities still have education welfare officers, but in the 17 years I’ve worked in education I’ve never known an EWO to get involved with a family unless there was a school attendance issue. In general they don’t carry out the role of a social worker or family support worker by getting children up and into school and helping parents complete forms. In my LA there’s no longer even a truancy patrol and staff who have left have not been replaced due to budget cuts.

Some schools now have family support workers based in the school whose job it is to work with EWOs and children’s services to support families who are struggling.

However I’m not aware of a system for scooping up children who are off the radar unless the family engages with health or education or there are siblings who are already known to those services.

I'm sure you need to apply regardless as you could be given a school out of your area.

When I worked in a Nursery we used to help parents with poor literacy skills fill in their nursery and school applications. They did need to have the child's birth certificate though so we could put in key information.

Even the more "chaotic" parents managed and we gave clear information on start and end times (often a difficulty) and what children needed with them but some had SS support/involvement.

I suppose it would be possible for families to exist below their radar who wouldn't end up sending their children to school.

With my first, I got a letter confirming when we needed to apply and then a reminder towards the date when I hadn’t completed the application. We had, by then, decided on a private school so I just had to email the local authority to confirm that. With DS2 I emailed to say we didn’t want a place as soon as I got the first letter as we knew he would be attending the same school as his brother. I presumed that this system was the same all over the country but reading some of the comments on here it doesn’t seem to be the case which is a bit worrying.

I didn't see my HV after my DD was about 2.5 yrs old. It seemed like a case of 'you are coping, the child is well looked after, we'll leave you to it'. My DD started school the term after she was 5 at an independent school. I never had any communication from the local authority regarding state school provision.
So, I could have fallen through the cracks and could have been home educating or just not sending my child to school at all. .
I assume once she started school there was some communication from the independent school to the LEA to say she was in full time education. Who knows but she is currently in yr 9 so maybe things have tightened up since regarding chasing children not wanting a state school allocated place. Luckily I wasn't keeping her in the cupboard under the stairs and feeding her gruel once a day 😀

No problem LisaSimpsonsbff! I didn’t intend to be patronising so glad it didn’t read that way. There are so many people with active addictions living normal functional lives, you just wouldn’t have a clue to look at them!

@raybay the independent schools in my LA contact the admissions dept to tell them who has started each year in every year group.

When I've been in hospital with DD we were asked to specify her school, I assumed this was to identify any kids who weren't in the system at all.

I had an email and a letter reminding me to apply for school places this year . I have no intention of doing so since we homeschool but somehow they found us

The sad thing is that since the nationwide cut backs in local services "austerity" many more children with parents who have chaotic lives are slipping through net and don't get picked up until they've gone past the point when they can be turned around. Then, those children go on to have there own children and cycle continues.

I assume it will take a tragedy with a child who has slipped through the net

As has been pointed out, there have been numerous such tragedies. Dylan Seabridge.

It would be hard really to claim filling the form was too taxing, when most adults with school age children, easily use social media

Not everyone in the UK speaks, reads or writes English confidently.

It would be hard really to claim filling the form was too taxing, when most adults with school age children, easily use social media

Not everyone in the UK speaks, reads or writes English confidently.

Plus, many just are not aware they have to fill out a form, so don't even get that far. Or, were aware, but then some major life event takes over and the cut off date goes by without it registering on the radar of the family caught up in bereavement or hospitalisation or whatever.

There seem to be quite a lot of MNers who struggle to understand that there are a LOT of people out there who aren't "like them"