AIBU to think this can’t be true are SEN numbers

[Marmite2021]

My dd’s school had pretty dire SATS results a year or two ago and they explained this by saying 20% of that year’s class had special educational needs and that the rest of the class had achieved above average attainment. Their ofsted report suggest they had below average numbers of SEN children and that the ones they did have were being fully supported and making good progress.
For starters 20% SEN pupils in one mainstream class seems extraordinarily high, and it that is “below average” what on Earth is the average??

I worked out that this was mathematically impossible.

@Whiskeylover45

I once worked in a school where 60% had EAD needs (English as an additional language) on top of that I would say 20 - 30% of the class had additional needs on top of that ranging from hearing issues to dyslexia. Added in behavioural issues for a small 10%. I also worked in another school (both were long term supply) where 60% of the entire primary school had special needs ranging from 1:1 autism to spinabiffida. They were the only school in that area who would take children with that level of Sen because, as you said, the results would be affected. Ofsted don't in the main care what the home lives are like, what the SEN needs are. All they care about is results and making you feel like a shit teacher because a child in your class, who was being bumped around the care system, and for whom it was an achievement to just focus on the lesson, can clearly, with all that emotional distress, attain the national average result of a child from a wealthy loving family who can afford extra tuition. The system is fucked up, basically.

And that is the sad but true state of affairs.

And why you often hear send parents complain about how awful the outstanding schools are with send pupils.

Because quite frankly they become outstanding by wheedling them out.

Children have always had SEN. There is more awareness now which helps and also children with SEN are more likely to be in mainstream schools these days.

Also there are children like my 6 year old who was born prematurely. If he'd been born even 10 years earlier than he was he probably wouldn't have survived. More babies are surviving at 23, 24, 25 and 26 weeks but they have high chances of having SEN.

These figures will be 2019 outcomes- they say very little about a school today.

Low progress scores can indicate a number of things including over assessment at KS1. What was the attainment?

It could be correct OP. My DD's class had 6 SEN children out of a class of 30, but the SEN percentage in the school as a whole was well below average. As pp says you can get clustering in a single class.

23% of boys age 9 have SEN

QuantumJump
www.naht.org.uk/news-and-opinion/news/structures-inspection-and-accountability-news/progress-scores-2018-methodology-changed-to-reduce-the-impact-of-outliers/

Wow my ds year nearly half have some form of extra support my ds 1 of them this year group has alot with behaviour and speech delays, reading delays ect is basically because they are not classed as the naughty kids and kicked out of schools anymore they have become a bit more understanding, these issues have always been around but now they are not excluded, and kids results work is hard for them compared to when we were kids my ds is 7 and the work load is stuipid

@Marmite2021

DressingGownofDoom Two issues. Why is the school blaming SEN kids for their poor results when mathematically they weren’t to blame? And why do so many children have SEN? I mean in reality. Why do so many of our children have cognitive and/or physical issues that affect their learning? Is this just accepted as a normal level of disfunctiin in a population of children? I find it shiocking!

I don't think it is. I think it's just now they realise children can learn and be helped to overcome issues.

My son has hereditary spastic paraplegia. It's a degenerative physical disability. It affects his ability to grip and pen which then in turn affects things like learning to spell which is done through connections in brain through repetition .

So he's on send register (actually has an ehcp). He needs specific support that's not usually level required in schools.

But his IQ puts him up in top 3% and his college want him to take part in a national competition for coding.

I think in your case it's the fact the school are equating sen with low attainment.

Pupils have low attainment for all sorts of reasons. My ds has always been top for stem subjects so his sen respirated stays would have pulled their maths and science results up!

And why do so many children have SEN? I mean in reality. Why do so many of our children have cognitive and/or physical issues that affect their learning?

The first thing you need to realise is the SEN and SN are not the same thing.

SEN refers to Special Education Needs, it means a child has an identified learning need requiring additional support.

SN refers to Special Needs, in other words a disability, medical condition, or long term illness requiring specific care and support.

While there is quite often an overlap between SEN and SN, they are not the same thing and are not interchangeable, it is possible to have SEN (an identified learning need) and no SN (disability/condition), and visa versa too. Not every child with SN will have an EHCP either and, while it can aid the process, a child does not need a diagnosis in order to have an EHCP.

With the lockdown last year impacting on learning it may be that there are several children in the class who have fallen behind significantly enough for them to have been identified as having a specific learning need and to have been added to the schools SEN register, meaning they need additional support in order to progress or catch up.

Government says that 14.9% of students have SEN.

@itsgettingweird just curious but how are the outstanding schools wheedling the SEN children out? I've heard about this happening but I've found it really hard to get my dc a place in special needs school. Sometimes I wonder if I should just try and get him into an outstanding mainstream school and wait for him to be wheedled out to special school.

Very interesting how flat the EHIC line is - do they have quotas or targets?

itsgettingweird yes they clearly are equating SEN with very low achievement but this is supposedly based on the specific SEN children she knows, and she would therefore also know if some are high achievers and therefore not blame poor results on them as a group. I am sure she was just using it as an excuse for poor progress generally. It may be that they over estimated achievement at KS1 but it would be better for her to admit that than blame 12 year 6 kids for bringing down the average so much.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachmentdata/file/814244/SENN2019Text.docx.pdf

Here's the actual link

Why do people have SEN? Maybe ask god?

This isn’t something to be outraged about it is the human condition. Some people have Sen, some are physically disabled, some are geniuses, some are all three of these. This is life. I can only marvel that you have made it to adulthood without realising this.

I think perhaps you mean why do we “see” more sen now. Well 1000 years ago someone with severe intellectual disability would possibly have been left to die as a child or kept chained up as the village idiot. Then as attitudes because more “enlightened” these people were confined to institutions and kept hushed up. Those with mild sen (and I count myself in this category as I have adhd) pass quite well in mainstream society but have had our own struggles (if I was a child now I would be hopefully diagnosed as a child rather than an adult saving me a lot of emotional trauma).

But if that’s not your question and you a actually outraged that people with sen exist I can’t really help you. Sorry my existence is so outrageous!

FoxyTheFox these results predate lockdown and the headteacher used the term SEN.

But the outlier measure only reduces the negative score, doesn't it? It doesn't remove the child's result completely. So rather than being -21 it becomes -14 ( if I recall that happened one year) . This is still a massive hurdle to overcome with high achievers.
I'm not saying this is the case and the head may well have exaggerated the impact of the children with SEN but it is not beyond the realms of possibility.

Toomuchtodo21 oh for goodness sake, you know that is not what I mean!

how are the outstanding schools wheedling the SEN children out?

From experience, it ranges from being wishy-washy about providing additional support right through to telling the LA that they cannot meet the child's needs. There is also the practice of off-rolling which isn't allowed but happens anyway, this is when parents are pressured either directly or indirectly and the child's position in school made so untenable that they end up deregistering their child.

[quote elliejjtiny]@itsgettingweird just curious but how are the outstanding schools wheedling the SEN children out? I've heard about this happening but I've found it really hard to get my dc a place in special needs school. Sometimes I wonder if I should just try and get him into an outstanding mainstream school and wait for him to be wheedled out to special school.[/quote]
They don’t end up in special schools, the provision is just poor enough that parents make the choice to withdraw and take them elsewhere (another mainstream school.

I once taught a class with 50% SEN. 3 were high functioning autism and academically they were fine. Others needed support in class. Numbers of SEN in the school were average, but that class had high need.

I don’t think any children’s SATs results are removed. One kids in that class was so low ability that he didn’t even sit the papers (he’d have got 0 on every one), but he still counted as a child who hadn’t met the standard for each subject.

spanieleyes even if all 12 got -14, the class would not have been able to achieve -5 if (as she said) the rest of the class had an above average score.

these results predate lockdown and the headteacher used the term SEN.

Even then, SEN simply refers to learning need and not disability/condition.

By class I mean two year 6 classes.