primary school reception class and SEND support

[user1468863258]

I appologies in advance if I offend anyone as this is not my intent. I merely am trying to educate myself on childens rights and parents expectations in the primary school.
To summarise my question: my dc started primary school and it looks like we have 2 kids with special needs in the class. Of course, I don't have much information about their diagnosis but gathering from what my dc and other kids in the class are saying the 2 kids are getting continuous support throughout the day from TAs while the teacher is left to tend to the rest of the class. I am not familiar with UK primary school system and not entire sure if this is expected/acceptable arrangement. I would expect to have a designated person to help provide any additional support a child needs? Am I being too naive to expect that?
From the little research I have done on this topic it seems that there is a law that requires schools to provide support and physical adjustments as necessary so that your (SEND) child can participate fully in the school. It looks like in the case of my school this support is given at the cost of the rest of the class loosing their two TAs.
Is this soemething we should bring up with the school? Is it common to have no additiona support in the beginning of reception while the kids get adjusted/settled? Any other advise i could get on this topic I would really appreciate.

My daughter is in year 1 with 32.5 hours 1-1. A lot of parents think she's the class TA but she isn't, she's specifically there for MY child.

In reception at her school each class has a class TA and any additional are for the funded children. I believe there are 3 funded children in her year including her.

Our state primary school reception has two ta’s (and two teachers for that matter).

The TA’s are not automatically designated 1:1 for the SEN kids.

Funding for SEND has been cut massively in recent years. In my last school the head made it clear that there was no longer such a thing as 1:1 support. We had more SEND children than funding and every TA was pulled in every direction to make sure each child got what they were earmarked in their ehcps. If that class has 2TAs there will be a reason for it.

@IHateCoronavirus 1-1 support absolutely does still exist.

The TAs are there to support children with SEN. Their salaries will be paid using the school’s SEN funding. If there were no children with additional needs in the class, the TAs would not be there (or they would be there for much fewer hours).

But sure, persist with this myth that SEN kids deprive their classmates of TA support. How dare they even exist in mainstream schools, etc 🙄

Our school have 1 TA between 6 classes as standard who help the teachers with paperwork / printing / boards etc but don’t normally work with the kids directly unless needed for a science experiment.

The 2 TAs in the class are probably 1:1 TAs so in no way shape or form are they taking it away from the class.

@Haworthia I would love to see the response of parents if my DD was unleashed in their class without her 1-1. No child would receive any form of education! Her 1-1 does benefit the rest of the class indirectly massively.

The others have said it all, but at our school reception has two teachers (part time but cross over) and three tas. So three members of staff at any one time. This tends to be because a lot of children don't have ehcps in place when they start but the support is needed.

On the class I am in there is one teacher and one ta for the class. We then have three children with ehcps requiring a 1-1. It is a tough balance, my role is specifically to support one child, bit obviously as and when possible I will help others.

I'm not sure what your query is? A teacher is well able to cope with their class in the main. Are you wanting the tas freed up? The children to be elsewhere? I'm not sure what you are wanting from the school?

My DD has a TA 1-2-1.

The funding for additional support is very complex. She had to "compete" for Emergency Needs Funding and the SENCO had to present her case to a panel.

I'm sure the TA pitches in with general help around the classroom but her main role will be to support my child.

If your child is NT and in Reception which is largely play based learning I'd not bring this up with the school.

At my child’s inner city state school each infant class of 30 has one teacher and two TAs, and each junior class has one teacher and one TA. DS has only just started in reception but as far as I can understand it from his descriptions of his day the TAs are supporting the whole class and will e.g. hear individual children read. It doesn’t seem as though they are assigned to an specific child or children. It sounds like that is quite unusual though.

[quote Mumofsend]@IHateCoronavirus 1-1 support absolutely does still exist.[/quote]
Tell that to my ex-head. Arguing with him and the business manager about the lack of support for the SEND kiddies in my classroom was one of the reasons I left!

An inner city state school is more likely to be able to afford that level of TA support because they are more likely to have a very different level of income than a more suburban/rural school. A generalisation obviously but inner city schools tend to have far more pupil premium pupils for one which brings in a huge amount of money compared to schools that have low numbers of pupil premium children.

@Mumofsend This idea that non-SEN children (a clunky term but I refuse to say “normal”) are disadvantaged in comparison to SEN children is laughable. And yet these attitudes exist: how dare SEN children receive all this extra adult attention, to the detriment of the rest of the class.

Children with SEN are entitled to support. It’s not extra attention, it’s more like levelling out the playing field FFS.

And this is exactly why we use a private school. The children in our class with SEND pay for their own extra support leaving the teacher and TA to help all the other children.

The U.K. state system is terribly underfunded it is very unfair and sad.

If a child has serious special educational needs a TA will be funded specifically to provide support for that child. Inevitably the TA will also get a bit involved with the other children in the class - a bonus for them all. So, rather than taking attention away from your child, it is likely that she/he is benefitting from the extra person-power in the room.

@Haworthia 100% agree. To even be able to enter a classroom takes my DD significant support. She can't follow what's going on in the classroom. She can't sit still or focus. She can't even speak clearly. Her processing systems are hugely out of whack. To be able to access the classroom takes such an unbelievable amount of support without even considering learning too.

If she is deregulated or overwhelmed in class. If she doesn't have support with her SI and the fact she can't sit then the whole class suffers. Parents complaining about why her 1-1 isn't hearing their exceeding, well developed child read three times a week because she is dedicated to my DD are selfish.

@IHateCoronavirus lots of LAs are trying to pull 1-1 but parents need to know their rights and schools need to make sure they get the appropriate LA funding to fulfil EHCPs.

In primaries I’ve taught in and others I know, reception classes often have at least a part time TA to support with toileting issues etc but any other TAs are usually there for running groups/supporting children with additional needs. 1:1 assistants only come with children who receive high levels of funding and have 1:1 support detailed in their EHCP.

To be honest, if there are children with severe additional needs in your child’s class, I’d be grateful that adults are there to support them. It means that the teacher’s attention will be able to be fully focussed on teaching the rest of the class.

YABU every child that has additional support will need it. Think about the bigger picture as others suggest.

Op has every right to see if anyone can shed light on this!

Op the whole thing is a nightmare. As pp said it could be their designated ta and if so it's good they spend their time with the dc.
I've heard that 1:1 are actually utilised by the whole class when really they are funded for that dc and if needs are high its much more beneficial for that whole class to have the dc looked after.

Sometimes the school does everything to surpres sen diagnosis because they have to self fund the first part of the special ta...
It used to be about 6 grand, so if they can get away with their own support they might try...
With two tas, I'm sure your own dc, if they are fairly able should be able to get plenty of attention from the teacher, two tas should leave the teacher freed up.

Mum, I suppose there are data protection issues, but if you were happy to let others know that ta belongs as it were to your dd and is funded for her.

We have Nursery Nurses in our Reception classes, not TAs. One in each class. This year we have a high level of SEND need in the year group and managed to secure funding to appoint an additional TA.

All schools have different ways of deploying adults. However the children with SEND in the class are still the most disadvantaged, even if they get support that others don’t. In the current education system they unfortunately will likely have a long hard road ahead of them.

I'd say it was more unfair that the parents of children with SEND need to pay extra to get their children the support they need tbh @insertfunnyname

Bigger problem is parents who fight for 1:1 then their TA are used for the entire class.

There are two TAs in my DS’s class who are funded as support 1to1 for a child each but most of the parents don’t know that, I only know because one is his!

My son is SEND, in Reception and his 1-1 care is from one of the already existing TA’s so it’s normal HTH