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??

And, I haven’t said anyone is dysfunctional.

In one of my childrens classes, these are the ones I know of 3 echp, 4 asd diagnosis, 2 possible adhd diagnosis, 2/3 with dyslexia. And that's only the ones I know about.

BiBabbles
I know, but why then is it the SEN kids showing (According to the headteacher) lack of progress?

P8 is really designed to indicate progress over time, rather than progress compared to a standardised test- she isn’t wrong, in that sense. However, certain groups have quite individual patterns of progress. As some PP have mentioned, ‘SEN’ is not really a homogenous group. Some in that category may have exceptionally high levels of achievement and progress and some may struggle throughout their school career with standardised testing- even with really good support in place. In a group of 14, you will not see a consistent pattern on P8, as you can never have a group that will consistently represent the huge variety of data in the category of SEN. It’s not accurate to suggest that low P8 for this group represents neglect or a poor outcome, unless you know that every single student achieved poor P8 when compared to other students in the category SEN- you can’t use averages here.

I'm not 100% sure what you want from this thread, tbh. If it is that you are concerned that in YOUR school the head is overseeing a learning environment in which it appears that those with SEN are not being assisted to progress and achieve to their fullest potential, then that's something to take up with the school. But as you don't have a child with SEN, it will look... odd. Do you have concerns about the school?

I don't think you can generalise from this one email about a particular cohort's SATS year that there is a big problem societally. Which is how it appears to come across - and I accept that perhaps you don't mean it to, but nonetheless.

I worked at a school where the % of SEN in the upper years was about 5% (and mostly what used to be called high functioning Autistic or Aspergers), but a change in the intake demographic for 2 years running following the opening of a couple of fancy new academies and a new head (in their first year of being a head) who liked the idea of taking every child from the fair access panel meant that by the time the school closed - as a result of being crucified by Ofsted/falling applications - it was a novelty to print off a class list where there was a child who didn't have SEN and FSM boxes checked.

Burnshersmurfs I agree, but I was just showing that if the worst case scenario we’re true then it still wouldn’t explain the poor progress scores of the class.

So you think the head is lying to massage the figures?

If you have an issue with what the headteacher said - either that you think he's not ensuring support for children with SEN or that he's blaming SEN children for their own incompetency, I'd suggest looking up the complaints procedures for your school. Like I said before, there are procedures for this that should be on the school website or able to given to you.

Children with Special Educational Needs tend to have slower progress in some academic areas. Part of qualifying in most areas I know is having significantly slower progress or widening attainment compared to peers/academic levels expected.

I find the confusion and flaws in progress scores or any other score from the average makes them undesirable - we cannot make all children average or above average & having a negative for less progress is disheartening for those who have worked really hard but not reached the average - but we're stuck with them as part of things for now and HT will give reasons for scores.

NoSquirrels I do have a child with undiagnosed SEN. She is super bright and high achieving in some areas but very low in others. She has some indicators of autism but not “bad enough” for CAMHS to assess her according to CAMHS.

Jellycatspyjamas

So you think the head is lying to massage the figures?

Yes

She’s a nice head. I have no other issues with the school or how she runs it, but it’s a pretty big issue if she thinks (or says) SEN kids are responsible for poor progress scores (which is how I read it).

@Marmite2021

Burnshersmurfs

This isn’t the message that I read from what you tell us she has said. She is (to me) trying to contextualise the data, and explain one of the major contributors to a low P8 score across the board.

But even if all 12 kids got the lowest scores, that doesn’t explain the low overall score. It really doesn’t

It can do. And her data in no way suggests that all 12 kids got the lowest scores. P8 is not a categorical score- it takes the average of all children across the country. SEN is a categorical grouping, and schools use a whole other range of categorical groups to understand their data. If I use a made up example: Children in the country are made up of 50% blue-haired children and 50% green-haired children. Children as a whole make x+5 progress between KS1 and 2 in school. However, due to a range of factors, it is known that, across the country, children with blue hair tend to make x+7 progress and children with green hair tend to make x+3 progress. It is also known that the SD of the green haired group is much larger, indicating that scores within this group are much more varied. A school notes that 75% of its students have green hair. It would not be reasonable to use the average progress for that school compared to the average progress of children as a whole. They have to contextualise. If you can imagine expanding that example to about 20 different hair colours, each with a very different profile, then you are closer to understanding how school data works, and how averages within small data sets don’t really help you to make a clear inference about the school’s strengths and weaknesses.

One in 10 children have dyslexia. Some say 1 in 5.

Well, in one respect she is right. The majority of children with SEN will have lower SATS progress scores than non-SEN children, one of the definitions of SEN is slower than average progress. It's because of the way SATS measure progress. In an ideal world, children with SEN would make the same rate of progress, from their own starting point, as non SEN and some will, indeed depending on the circumstances might make more. But the majority won't.
What is wrong is to blame them.

Burnshersmurfs
But the school progress scores are calculated by taking each individual child’s score and dividing by the number of children. This gives an average score of -2.75 for the 80% who don’t have SEN, and assumes that the SEN kids all got lowest scores. If any of the SEN kids did better than lowest then the average for the other 80% would have to have been even lower than -2.75 for the average across the entire group to be -5. It’s specific to this group. Their individual scores are related to the rest of the country, but this puts them (on average) well below the rest of the country.

The primary school my children attend has under 100 pupils in total (reception up to year 6). They have a high amount of SN and SEN numbers.

My eldest has SEN along with 5 others (that we know of) in his class of 23. My youngest does not have sen but there are 8 children (that we know of) who do have SEN/SN in his class of 27. This ranges from developmental delays to an Autism diagnosis (Asperger's, Sensory Processing Disorder etc).

Unfortunately I cannot answer your question regarding why numbers are "'so high'" however I can tell you that SN/SEN children are able to access intervention, help and diagnosis much more easily compared to 'back in the day' when so many were left to struggle through the education system or sent to 'naughty schools'. Thankfully there is a better understanding and awareness and significant research has been carried out over the years. Teachers and Early Years workers are also trained to recognise signs.

It is not ''accepted as a normal level of dysfunction'' as you have worded it. There is nothing 'dysfunctional' about my child. He requires a high level of support in order to access the curriculum which he is entitled to access just like every other child in his class.

To answer your other question asking ''why so many children have physical or cognitive issues that affect their learning?"

My son does not have a physical or cognitive 'issue' and neither do his friends who share the same diagnosis as him. It is neurological and present from birth with no apparent reason or scientifically proven reason. He was born completely naturally on his due date. I was a very health conscious, non smoker or drinker prior to his pregnancy and during.

My youngest who is neurologically typical was born 6.5 weeks prematurely following a very traumatic birth due to lots of complications in pregnancy. He has always been very advanced for his age. Walking without help at 10.5 months, toilet trained day & night before aged 2. Reading and writing fluently at 3 years old.

🤷‍♀️

Her being nice doesn't mean something shouldn't be flagged - if anything, it clearly needs to be re-clarified with parents if you think she's lying and SEN kids are being unfairly blamed or left to flounder.

I'd recommending looking on the school's website for their policies on raising issues to the Governors or whoever would investigate this situation and the effectiveness of the SEN and Equality policies. I imagine other parents with SEN children will have similar concerns.

Partly because CAHMS and similar are so underfunded right now, many schools are defining Special Education Needs with concepts like 'significantly slower progress than peers'. With that definition, it's not surprising they have less progress against the academic standards given. They shouldn't be chucked under the bus, but it can be a reason for a school to have lower results particularly if they are not getting appropriate additional support for those students. Budgets are really tight right now, so part of me wants to give the benefit of the doubt that it might be more aimed at trying to get help with that, but with the concerns given, I think this is something they should be made aware of through whichever procedures there are at the school.

Olemis again, I mean cognitive dysfunction, not dysfunctional children. There is a difference. There is clearly a high number of children with cognitive and/or physical challenges (is that a more pc word?) and I don’t see a high level of support to match it.

•BiBabbles* I definitely will raise it. I don’t know why I didn’t at the time.

@Marmite2021

Burnshersmurfs But the school progress scores are calculated by taking each individual child’s score and dividing by the number of children. This gives an average score of -2.75 for the 80% who don’t have SEN, and assumes that the SEN kids all got lowest scores. If any of the SEN kids did better than lowest then the average for the other 80% would have to have been even lower than -2.75 for the average across the entire group to be -5. It’s specific to this group. Their individual scores are related to the rest of the country, but this puts them (on average) well below the rest of the country.

You are assuming here that the profile of the school only contains the categories ‘SEN’ and ‘Not SEN’. There are a whole range of other factors that impact student progress and these are then separate (obviously frequently overlapping) categories. These include (among many others) FSM, gender, number of summer born-children, cultural groups. Each of these groups has its own distinct P8 profile. The school may be heavily weighted, having a high intake of a group who tend to have a distinctly flattened P8 profile. They may do better than the national average in this group for the P8 scores for this group. This may still be below the P8 score for children as a whole. Do that make it clearer?

I mean will raise it with Ofsted, not with the head teacher.

Of course there isn't a high level of support for children with additional needs, just ask any SENCO!

I think there is more awareness these days, and therefore more diagnosis. And just because you have SEND does not mean you need academic support. DS1 has high functioning ASD. He is VERY academic and needs no academic support. DS2 has a hearing impairment. Not as clever as his brother but also in top sets. They may need support in other ways but not academically.

Burnshersmurfs I am not making any assumptions. I am just looking at the numbers and can see they disagree with what the head said. No matter what way you look at it, the overall progress scores are well below average and the head explained it by saying 20% of that year group had SEN. The numbers tell me that isn’t true.