To think they may as well say "don't send children with additional needs back in September"

[drspouse]

The current plan is:
All in bubbles of 30
All in the classroom together
All facing the front (WTF has that got to do with virus protection)
No use of shared spaces except at your rota time and after it's been bleached.
Teachers at the front, 2m away
AND focus on behaviour.

My DS has an EHCP and needs a space to escape to when the classroom gets too much. He's often been using a work space outside the classroom. We just looked round a lovely mainstream primary that has a behaviour base and a nurture base. Oh and a library and an ICT suite that children can access at lunchtime.
His previous school had very little space and the corridor was the library etc.

So how are schools supposed to cater for children who need time out of the classroom to prevent meltdown?
This includes children who are having a hard time at home, can't cope with playground noise etc. Not just those who have a diagnosis of SEN.

And children like my DD who have small group teaching outside the classroom most days - you can't do that with 2m separation and all facing the front even if you can disinfect the break out area.

So I'm guessing nobody really wants a child like my DS in their child's classroom if he's not allowed to go out to his calm down area when he needs to?

Well, I guess I knew the government didn't really want to deal with inconvenient children who don't fit their mould, but this confirms it.

I really feel for teachers, yet another impossible task.

I think @janicewebster that what you aren't grasping is that for many children with SEND they are experiencing the loss of learning mand mh issues as well because the majority haven't been in school throughout. The special schools local to me closed early and before that were not having children they deemed risky in. Your experience isn't unique. Your child has missed four months of school many children with SEND miss years of schooling and nobody says a word.

So you think disabled young people don’t also have issues with mental health? Or with physical health?

Nobody has denied for a second that all of this has had a knock on effect on most young people. However you seem to think that those children with disabilities are in some sort of highly privileged position and your unwilling to actually read people’s posts to realise that you couldn’t be more wrong.

If you go on the special needs forum on here @JaniceWebster there is an ongoing thread I have been posting on for years, the title has the word autie (autism)

I'm not sure why your offended by the word normie? Personally it hasn't offended me speaking as neuro typical person myself.

Anyway, what @hiredandsqueak said i agree with, your child has missed a few months worth of school, when my child was forced to do 2 hours a day for the full reception year nobody batted an eyelid! Even the LA weren't interested.

His day at school is 5 hours a day and that's standard whilst his peers stay an hour and half a day more.

He misses almost a full day at school every single week when you add it up and that's in normal times. (!) no one gives a shit about that..

Janice-i am truly saddened to hear that your child has struggled during the peak of the pandemic with being at home and only having oak academy, bitesize to lean on. I recognise that home learning support has been varied and i am lucky that my mainstream child has had quality remote learning. It must be a very difficult time for a lot of families. I have no doubt you are delighted the government has confiremed its plans to have all children in school every day from September. This will be a real life line for families like yours and the curriculumn particulary mentions helping mental health issues as a result of lockdown.
The only thing i dont understand is why you are so angry with parents of SEN children pointing out some issues with the guidance that might bar them from coming back too? These issues will be particularly pertinant to the 'not disadvantged enough' who might struggle on return as well but not have the protection of an ehcp. The points people are worried about will help them access learning too. An inclusive school helps every child - particularly ones on the cusp.
As an aside, just 20% of children with SEN were able to access school during the pandemic peak - so the vast majority of us are keen to get back too..

I wish that Mumsnet wouldn't delete posts, just catching up with this thread and frankly it makes it hard to know what's going on when the arseholery is deleted.

My DS missed about 5 weeks of school between exclusions and part time schooling between Sept and Jan so maybe I should add that in?

@drspouse be sure to complain through the complaints procedure through to LGO if LA didn't make provision for your child when he was out of school. LGO just awarded me nearly £2000 for failing to make provision. It helped pay the legal bill anyway! Next complaint to LGO when they are back to investigating should pay some more. I like the irony of the LA funding the legal action against themselves.

It was all in periods of a week or less so it doesn't count...

Sometimes where possible it pays for mothers to work full time to pay school fees.

@Xenia yes I suppose it could only children with SEND are generally better served in maintained mainstream provision and independent specialist provision don't generally offer places for parents to fund and with fees of £68k pa as my daughter's are parent funding is unlikely. Add into that the lack of SEND provision outside of school hours many parents of children with SEND's careers take a massive hit because of the times their children aren't provided for in education

And not just that @hiredandsqueak ,my son has significant learning disabilities ,he can't just to to a child minder as he would need 1:1 supervision,and probably always will ,.

So add the 'trauma' you think the vast majority of NT children are undergoing to the pre-existing issues...who looks more disadvantaged now?

Xenia I’m guessing you don’t have a child with SEN. I used to have a pretty high flying career then my child got cancer when he was 1 then got diagnosed with autism at 3. There is no way I could go back to my previous career and the hours it needed. There is no before/ after school clubs for most SEN kids, never mind coping with school holidays. My diary is chocka block with various appointments for my son- oncologist, gastro, SALT, LD nurse, continence nurse, dietitian, paeditrician, SENCO at school and it go’s on.
As mentioned above there are no independent SEN schools unless those that are funded via the LA. We looked for places for dd and ds at a local prep and we would have had to pay fees of £12k a year then a TA on top of that for ds and it wouldn’t have met his needs anyways.

And nannies/childminders to provide 121 support for a child with SEN are like hens teeth and around £15 an hour minimum. Would rapidly add up over the school holidays.

From what i can gather from responses and attitude of some posters is that they see SEN more from a mainstream view than a special school one. I think most people (excluding assholes) would see children with a physical disability in mainstream schools as deserving of any extra help they recieve. I think the problem is probably that most parents experience of SEN in mainstream schools is that of children on the autistic spectrum and children with behavioral problems. When a child comes home and tells a parent that Bob was screaming in a lesson and had to be removed from class or Bill threw a chair at the teacher the parent will often only see that child as someone who is disrupting their own childs education and is "naughty" not as a child with a disability that deserves help. They see that child taking away from the school and not any of the positives that child may bring to the school. Getting help for these children is a long process (2 year wait for CAMHS round here) and many of the children i've worked with have thrived once they got into the local special school but too many are stuck in mainstream with schools doing their best without extra help.

Sometimes where possible it pays for mothers to work full time to pay school fees.

"Where possible" being the operative phrase here as a child's care needs impact on the career choices of many parents of children with disabilities and/or SEN.

I had to give up working as DS could not cope with childcare and my employer, while understanding, could not realistically manage with me having g to leave early several times a week as I'd gotten a call from the childcare provider telling me that DS needed immediate collection or that DS was not welcome back and no notice period could be worked or school to say he needed to be collected as soon as possible as he was refusing to leave with the childminder.

Then finding a SEN school is the next battle!!
Mine ended up in PRU for his education because none of the schools would take him as in secondary he became too violent and was a danger to everyone.

Also hope all you informal carers out there have got your discount card. We don't save a lot, but it all helps.

Sometimes where possible it pays for mothers to work full time to pay school fees

And the fathers?

Putting that aside have you seen the costs for boarding sen schools?

I'm another who had to give up their job and put their entire life on hold.

Xenia I mean in an ideal world that would be perfect.

But reality is there is no chance I could work. I did and always had, worked right through pregnancy, went back when ds was a few months old then had no choice and gave it up when he was 3, my mum used to help with childcare whilst I worked when he was a toddler but he was getting too much for her to handle (2 yr old at this point & a woman who's had 5 kids couldn't manage him) & the fact he had x amount of appointments a week, cdc centre, salt, portage, weekly SN parent & child sessions which were mandatory to attend at the cdc centre, consultant appointments, appointments with the nursery, there were some weeks when he was smaller when I had something to do with him every day, I had no choice but to give up work.

Now he's nearly 7, I don't think or don't see how I'll work again (Hopefully when he's older this will change but I just don't see how right now as it's getting harder not easier.)

His hours at school are 9.30-2.30 not much I can do during those hours and even if I was lucky enough to find something then the half term holidays every other month what do I do with him then? Ds cannot go into ordinary childcare. I wouldn't earn enough to cover the £15+ an hour specialist 1-1 childcare he requires. He's not allowed to after school clubs as his ehcp doesn't cover the 1-1 for this, ditto for breakfast club and since he needs the 1-1 he cannot attend. I wanted him to do the summer sports club last year but there wasn't a way we could figure out how to work it out with school because he needs the constant supervision, no issues for other children, you put your child's name down pay and send your child in!

Dh works full time, more than full time anyway, he works extra to try make up a bit of shortfall from the income I can't earn.

Evening work would be good if ds didn't scream for me all fucking night, dh won't do, he wants me and only me. I'm in and out of his bedroom like a yo-yo sometimes until past midnight carrying him back to bed for the millionth time, even after his melatonin which is about as useful as water, it's exhausting.

Weekends dh works.

No family support at all, nobody can manage him.

So I'm a bit unsure how I'm supposed to get this full time job?

Me too no childcare provision for ds, no childminder would take him, breakfast club and after school club couldn't manage him, multiple appointments during the day, couldn't manage school lunchtime for years so I was always on call Ds is now 25 still can't be left unattended so the time when I might have worked because of childcare issues being resolved never came.

YANBU, bit honestly, I don't think anybody's children are going back in September. Or not for long, anyway.

Ds is under 15 different consultants. His attendance for last school year (until they shut obviously) was 84% which is pretty good for him.

I would love to work but it’s simply not possible

I’m getting so angry reading this thread.

In an inexplicable burst of efficiency, one of my DS consultants noticed that another one he's seeing can deal with all three of his main conditions. So instead of 4 we now see 1, and another one annually.