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.

One of the TAs could well have been supposed to be a "general" TA as reception classes do often have one. But if a child starts school with no EHCP in place and it becomes quickly apparent that they need 1:1 support, school can't even apply for an EHCP without providing 1:1 support themselves (to prove they need it...). So as there's no money the only thing is to reallocate the general TA until the funding eventually comes (months, a year later...) Even then the funding only covers approx half the cost. It's a crappy system. (This is how it works in my area. I'm sure other areas are different. )

Be grateful you don't have a child with SEN and keep your nose out. I am a mum to special needs twins and I'd be pissed off if there was a mum in the class questioning our funding arrangements.

My son had a funded 1:1 purely for him, this was in addition to any general classroom TAs. In reception if the children donor yet have an EHCP then the school may not have received funding yet. There may also be some restrictions on numbers of staff in a classroom currently due to COVID, Most children in my sons class benefited from his TA as she wasn’t constantly glued to his side so did offer other children support as well and she stayed with the class from reception to Y6 so knew all the class very well.

It seems to work well in my dc's school to tell parents if TA's are for the whole class or a specific child. Not mentioning names but just saying Mrs b - class ta (mornings only), Mrs c - 1-1 ta, Mr d (volunteer). That way other parents don't moan that Mrs b is always taking the afternoon off, Mrs c is always working with one specific child etc. Maybe parents at my dc's school gossip and speculate more than average.

Our head teacher also puts reminders in the school newsletter that could parents please not park in the staff car park unless they have permission from the head. We have permission because dc4 can't walk far and dc5 is autistic and a bolter. My friend had permission to pick up her ds from the reception area instead of outside because he gets overwhelmed with the loud noises and crowds of everyone coming out of school.
Other parents decided they fancied waiting for their dc in the warm too so the head teacher had to write another reminder in the school newsletter about that.

I totally agree that looking after the child is the easy part of parenting a child with SEN. It's a battle to get anywhere close to the support your dc needs. I've done a tribunal and it was horrible. Trying to explain my 12 year old's needs while 3 professionals dismissed everything as normal for his age.

We are starting the process of trying to get my 7 year old an ehcp and I'm dreading the battle already. It doesn't help that so many people seem to think it's easy or that all children with SEN get the support they need and if mine aren't I must be exaggerating their needs.

In my ds's school, the reception class has 2 TAs - 1 is a general TA and 1 is there as there are 3 children who are in the process of getting additional support, and fortunately the school have been willing to put this in place until extra funding/support is found.

When ds (who has complex needs) was in the mainstream part of the school, he had a dedicated 1-1, and there was no class TA (This was year 3) - his TA ended up acting as a general class TA and it was disastrous for ds - he became extremely isolated, had several accidents when he was left alone at break times, one of which ended up with him having to go to hospital, medications were forgotten, he was frequently left in an unchanged nappy, the AAC talker he needed to communicate was frequently left in the draw, he became extremely anxious, withdrawn and unwell. It was awful.

Please don't resent the TA time a child has, it will usually be the only way that child can access education.

In our infants school there was a "class TA" for the F1 class (year before reception) but she was clearly focusing on one child. She did help out with my DS as he obviously needed help too, although the TA was provision for the other child through his EHCP (or Statement as it was at the time). The following year my DS had her as his 1:1 TA (the other child had gone into specialist provision) although he didn't have EHCP then and still doesn't, although his school (Y8) want to apply for one for him as he isn't progressing .

I don't know if any of the other parents resented the TA sticking with my DS all the time but I'd told them of his diagnosis so they were aware of that. Maybe that made a difference? There were a few children with SEND in each class every year and autism is supposedly occurring at a rate of 1:60 now (I remember when they thought it was one in a hundred children, they must be better at diagnosing), so it's not going to get any rarer.

Schools have to provide 50% of the cost of a 1:1 TA from their own funding pot allocated for SEND, the LA provides the additional 50%. It's not buttons...

Many schools cannot afford to fund many, if any, general class TAs anymore. The Tories effectively declared war on general class TAs as they believe they are not necessary.

Many primary TAs are now linked with particular children as their posts will be at least partially funded by the additional funding supplied for the SEN child.