To ask if a teacher can teach their child at school?

[Tylila]

Do some schools/councils have policies against it?

How are situations handled when the child is involved and the teacher has to look at both sides without favouring?

Are there other considerations to be aware of?

I really feel for you. Moving up to secondary school is such a huge step at the best of times without having the worries you do.

I think the school are probably doing all they can though, they can’t hire someone too early, they won’t have the funding. Its a great shame there isn’t someone there to help with transition days etc but with complex needs there just isn’t always the staff on hand.

I get why the job advert doesn’t fill you with confidence but I really do think it’s best as they will get far more people apply and they can hopefully find a good fit for your child and the school. I worked in a school a few years ago, started off just being a parent reader in my dc’s class, I wasn’t qualified when a job role came up even though everyone thought I would be a great fit for it so they gave it to someone else and she just didn’t gel with the team or the role and they ended up finding a way to train me on the role and I worked in the school for years supporting children. Basically what I’m saying is they will hopefully see lots of people and can really choose who they think will be the best fit and provide any training needed, if they are too restrictive they will reduce the people applying too much.

Keep communication going with school, offer to be there to help whenever needed (you do know your child’s needs best) try to keep an open mind and have a staggered start if you don’t feel ready to send him full time from the start.

Hi,

I know of a situation where a parent was the 1 to 1. It was a short term measure until someone could be trained appropriately and the parent worked at the school in another capacity (much less hours) - so was a slightly different recruitment scenario.

Both the school and the parent were concerned the child didn't become overly reliant on the parent. When the parent was replaced then they stood back.

Not ideal for anyone involved and should have been handled better.

I think the best thing for you is to have a transition plan drawn up with the new senco - so you can see what will happen for your child and where you may need to support them. It may be the school have it covered as a school nurse (who already works there) might provide some of the support to start with until the LSA is fully up to speed.....but you would have to talk to them to find out.

I may have misunderstood but it sounds like he's very severely SEN. When you say his non-verbal? I'm just not sure what he's getting out of being in mainstream. I've taught kids with very complex needs in mainstream and felt terrible that their needs aren't being met. Luckily they were all moved to special schools after months/a couple of years where they could get the support they needed to achieve

The needs are definitely being met by mainstream education. As I’ve said before, all professionals involved support this path for DC.

Our head of year had two children in the school, including one in our year. No issues really, we all just knew not to slag her off in front of her daughter .

I understand your drive for your son to get every chance for this to work for him, however I’m afraid you have been ‘spoilt’ in terms of the provision he's had, and it's lead you to not realize a needs review should have been completed some time back.

IME Secondary schools tend to work very differently with a very different take on what's needed, or is desirable, and aren’t generally too keen on specific velcroed 1-2-1’s, even when clearly needed.

The school doesn’t legally have to provide what isn’t specified in the EHCP, even when obviously needed. (IE: one handed or use of, children who just had 'touch typing program' as a requirement rather than 'specialist touch typing program able to meet specific needs' or 'touch typing program designed for L/R hand use only' would be given and expected to use the free MB two handed program. Under Covid legislation it became ‘make reasonable endeavors’ rather than ‘legal duty to provide.’)

I suspect Spikeyball has correctly identified that your Ds’s ECHP isn't properly worded for transition to secondary.
My legislation knowledge is out of date, but I think the question you should be asking is how to get an emergency ECHP review/wording change through fast?

To get what you feel is needed in place, I think you need to be urgently addressing the wording of the ECHP with one hand, while working with the new SENCO for an acceptable solution while you get it amended.

Secondary really is different. Our students with 1:1 support don't get the same person each lesson. This is to increase their independence and learn to communicate and work with a variety of other adults.

One thing jumped out at me about your posts when you mention that part of the reason for picking this placement was due to a strong friendship group from primary.

I think you need to be prepared that as they enter secondary that this support group will probably melt away. They may have been close when younger but as they grow, mature and meet a wider pool of people, his friends will probably chart their own paths. The increasing complexities of teen social structure, peer pressure and their increasing independence may mean that his current friends will no longer want to spend time with him as the gap between their ability and independence widens especially if he has a 121 with him a lot of the time.

Your ds may meet other friends but the teenage years in mainstream can be tricky for kids who cannot fit into the crowd and have the same experiences as their peers.

It may all work out fine but try to stay open minded about the best setting for your ds once the realities of the school experience become clear.

When I was at school they always managed to avoid a member of staff teaching their own child. It occasionally required a big of rejigging, I was in the same class as a child whose father was a teacher and we ended up having the same teacher for two primary years to avoid being taught by his father.

There were some discipline and bias issues when the father was on playground/lunch duty. Many of the other staff seemed aware of this.