AIBU to have told DS he can ignore teacher on this one?

[OverExpectantParent]

DS is Yr6, has SN and a 1:1TA 6 lessons a week.
After reluctance to go to school, he finally said why. Yr3 teacher is ill and his TA is covering for her. He has been told he will have to go into the Yr3 classroom for his maths lesson today.

I told him he didn't have to, he could ask to do his work in the corridor or stay in his classroom. That I will back him on refusing to go into the Yr 3 classroom, but he must do his work. He's worried the Yr 3's will laugh at him and ask why he's there 🙁
AIBU to have told him that?

I know, I was just giving a simple explanation to counteract the posters assertion that nothing would happen. Although usually parents find it easier to focus on enforcing the LA’s absolute duty to provide se tips F rather than trying to enforce the best endeavours statutory duty.

My DDs school did close a class and move them to remote learning instead of removing EHCP mandated 1-1s. Why should disadvantaged children always be shortchanged? It is never just a one off

So the school sent a whole class home so that one pupil shouldn't have their 1 to 1 provision interrupted?

Hmm...

What would happen normally in the absence of the TA allocated as 1-1 to a specific child?

Would the child have to stay at home or would they try and find another member of staff or supply TA?

What would happen if there weren’t enough teachers or Tas to fulfill minimum quotas?

In our department, at that point, inpatients would be prioritised and outpatients cancelled. The frustrating part for us is that our managers do not help out “on the shop floor” and are conspicuous by their absence. Are head teachers like this too?

You can’t imagine a situation where a full time ehcp mandated 1:1 stays with their child instead of teaching a class for the day? I certainly can. Plenty of the 1:1 TAs I know wouldn’t be able to teach a full mainstream class for the day anyway. That’s not a slight on them. It’s just not in their skills set.

You implied this when you said "the other class is irrelevant."

But it is. There is nothing in the Children and Families Act 2014 that says the duty to secure special educational provision disappears when it's more convenient to the school to reallocate the person delivering that provision.

In addition, I don't see you offering an acceptable solution to the staffing problem.

Sometimes schools have no option but to use the available staff. The needs of the rest of the class have to come before those of one individual pupil, especially in an emergency situation such as staff absence through illness.

Why on earth should any poster on here offer a solution? Having staff being off sick is hardly unusual and shouldn't be an emergency situation. Schools should have tried and tested procedures in place that don't involve breaking the law. Where I'm a governor, for instance, they have a number of good supply staff on their books, many of them people who have worked there previously and retired - and insurance for agency supply cover. They never take away allocated 1:1 SEN support. It's a bog standard state school with no special funding.

I do agree that the OP's child might feel awkward at being with a year 3 class, but it can't be helped, and it's not forever.

Why can't it be helped? Why shouldn't he be left in the Y6 class and have his 1:1 time on another occasion?

Bless him, good he felt confident in telling you his concerns though. I don't see what the school are aiming to achieve with this one, it's not like he will get his 1 to 1 session whilst the TA is keeping an eye on the year 3 class so what's the point? Surely they should contact you when this happens?

What would happen normally in the absence of the TA allocated as 1-1 to a specific child?

Would the child have to stay at home or would they try and find another member of staff or supply TA?

In my experience, it depends on the child. First port of call would be to try to move another TA known to the child to support them. For a child like the op’s son who is unsupported a lot of the time anyway, they’d most likely just be unsupported for the hour they’d usually have someone with them and that would be made up another time. The classroom teacher is still there and responsible for them anyway. For children with greater needs, a supply might be brought in if they could find one. If there was no one to ensure the child could be safe in school, they wouldn’t be able to attend. That really should be an absolute last resort and there would need to be back ups put in place to really try and ensure that that never happened.

What would happen if there weren’t enough teachers or Tas to fulfill minimum quotas?

Classes get condensed or closed. If you can’t safely staff the school, the kids don’t come in. This has happened a lot through covid.

In our department, at that point, inpatients would be prioritised and outpatients cancelled. The frustrating part for us is that our managers do not help out “on the shop floor” and are conspicuous by their absence. Are head teachers like this too?

It really depends on the head. Some I’ve worked with have been brilliant. Others much less so.

I clearly said the TA doesn't support DD or the class (if the class doesn't normally have a TA ) she is just there. In this instance she filled her time by cutting out letters for a display, but had a child needed one to one she could have done that.

How do you suggest she will support him when she has an unfamiliar class to teach? The EHCP clearly indicates that he needs 1:1 support, not 1:31.

And if he will have the support at a different time, why does he need to go to the Year 3 class?

Yes, a dose of realism is indeed necessary. Properly run schools have cover in place that means they don't have to break the law.

I do worry about the appallingly low standards some people on MN seem to be prepared to accept from schools - and the alacrity with which they are prepared to accept that, rather than inconvenience a school, a disabled child should suffer. If this was a matter of, say, a child in a wheelchair being told that he couldn't go to lessons or the toilet or the dining hall because they needed his TA to go off and look after another class, would people be quite so relaxed about it?

I really can'tb think how you believe your DS 1:1 trumps leaving a class of 7 and 8 year olds unsupervised where a teacher has had to disappear at short notice.Yes he has a legal right to his support time, but this can be caught up on, leaving the class unsupervised is , i assume, also unlawful, but can't be done at any other time

With DS3 the schools (primary and secondary) have still always provided 1:1 (he has full time 1:1 including break and lunch). Sometimes they rearranged staff or part time employees worked extra hours, sometimes it meant a supply filled another position so a member of staff who at least had some knowledge of DS3 could cover the 1:1. One time the HT of his primary rearranged their day to provide the 1:1 themselves and on a couple of occasions the HT provided the lunch cover for him.

But what's the logic of asking him to join the class for maths? 1 to 1 provision it is definitely not, so OPs advice to him to not go is completely logical.

Absolutely no one on this thread has suggested the Y3 class should be left unsupervised.

If DS 1-1 is off school have to find someone else to cover it. If a child has a wooly ehcp like many are then they may get away with leaving the child without sadly but with a watertight plan their is no leeway (as it should be)

No, what is utterly ridiculous is claiming this is a one-off emergency safeguarding situation.

OP had been told before he went to school today that he would be in the Year 3 classroom. That must have happened yesterday at the latest. So no emergency, no safeguarding risk. Plenty of time for the school to plan.

To be honest, I wouldn't like to be confident that this is a one-off, either. This is the first time OP has been told about it. How do we know the school doesn't make a habit of using 1:1 TAs as supply cover? I'm quite concerned about what other duties this TA is being taken away from - are there other children with EHCPs being equally shortchanged?

I clearly said the TA doesn't support DD or the class (if the class doesn't normally have a TA ) she is just there.

Read what you said again. You did not clearly say this. You said, “They will try to put a TA in with her just to give her moral support.” Does that not count as support? What happens if your DD’s class go off the rails? Is the TA supposed to intervene or not?

The TA is now doing both moral support and 1:1. Except you can’t do 1:1 and morally support a teacher at the same time.

And best practise is generally for the child to be used to a couple of different people to stop problems. So Ds has 1 TA for most of the time but 3 others are trained in him and have worked with him so they understand his support needs.

Whether the TA is teaching the class alone or with another staff member is irrrelevant. The point is that she can't carry out her responsibilities in terms of 1:1 support of OP's child at the same time.

This is not the situation described in the op at all.

Even if it is a legal document, I’m sure the health and safety of the year 3 class would over ride this?

No, it doesn't. It 's an absolute duty under the Children and Families Act 2014. And it's not as if stealing this TA was the only way to keep Y3 safe, was it?

If that's the plan, why would he need to go to the Y3 class?

It's pointless and impractical for people to bang on about breaking the law. This was an emergency - no action would be taken against the head for making the best of a difficult situation.

Some posters seem to think supply teachers grow on trees and can be instantly summoned. They can't.

It wasn’t an emergency. They knew about it the day before.

As a TA I supported 2 children who each had 20 hours so already they were not receiving their mandated support.
I was routinely taken away to work with children with severe behaviour difficulties for weeks at a time, cover teachers' PPA time occasionally and then to support another class all morning for a whole half term.
The two children made no progress at all.
When I did (after a year) finally get to work with one of the children for her allotted hours, she made amazing progress. (I am an experienced teacher too - so no - class teacher had little input though I kept them informed.)

It. Was. An. Absolute. Disgrace.

Unfortunately Mum had SN too so would never realise or challenge.

I doubt my school was unusual.

I don’t disagree that supply is a nightmare, I just don’t think it would be an emergency.