As a teacher to be surprised at how many in my class have SEN?

[Floatingcactus]

I teach a reception class of 26. 4 of them have an EHCP plan, 6 are waiting assessment and at least another 4 are showing possible signs of SEN including speech delay.

I’ve been teaching for 10 years and I personally believe there is an increase.
I don’t know if lockdown plays a part or whether it’s down to other factors.

A friend of mine is a Reception teacher. She has also commented that this year she has a far higher number of children with additional needs than in previous years.

There is definitely a school of thought that the children affected most by Covid lockdowns were those born 2017-2021 and lost out on early health checks, time in nursery/pre-school, etc.

@Rufus27 I just googled FASD, because I didn't know what it was. Are you referring to foetal alcohol syndrome?

I think it is hugely likely that there is something environmental having an impact. The huge increase I’m seeing, as a professional, is in children with profound difficulties, non-verbal, huge sensory needs, incontinent. Screen time, parenting etc isn’t causing these needs, these children were born this way, but why? I’ve got a horrible, horrible feeling in 50 years time well find out something we all use, every day, massively increases the liklihood. I’ve already seen a couple of studies about paracetamol having an impact. Interestingly, having a high fever also increases the liklihood.

But in addition to those children, there’s also an increase in the number of children with what might have been called ‘lower level‘ needs once upon a time. For these children, lack of support, over stretched resources, technology and poor parenting absolutely do have an impact. I see it every day in my job - people would be astounded at the parenting that goes on. If you’re on MN, it’s probably not relevent to you. I also see lots of parents with their own significant needs, some who attended specialist school themselves, who naturally genetically have children with higher levels of need.

Controversially in my field, I’m massively pro specialist provision. I think every primary school and secondary school should be required to have a ‘specialist base’, and we should built more specialist provision. But the LA isn’t allowed to built new special schools, the Tory government only allows for new ‘free’ schools. We have begged for funding to extend our existing specialist provision but the government says no. So we’re stuck.

Foetal alcohol spectrum disorder*

”Loosely you can not get a ehcp until your needs can not be met within school budget which again loosely ( ie not the law),£4k plus 6k) and that is how ehcps work unless you join reception with one.” did come across as though you thought whether an EHCP or not was granted was based on unlawful practices, especially the use of “can not get”. And quite different to saying LAs often act unlawfully because X,Y,Z but you can challenge their unlawful practices.

A lot of it is parents being glued to their phones and giving tech to their children, with a knock on impact on language development, emotional connectedness, attention span and behaviour.

Yes. It’s massively more prevalent than people realise. My children are adopted but it’s common in birth children too. It presents very similarly to autism, so many parents push for an autism diagnosis instead. Our paediatrician told me this is one of the reasons the ASD waiting lists are so long.

You don’t need a diagnosis to be classed as having SEN or for an EHCP. Schools must legally make their ‘best endeavours’ to meet a pupil’s SEN regardless of whether they have a diagnosis or not, and they must make reasonable adjustments. To not do so is disability discrimination.

Yes they cannot be supported out of a diagnosis however, by law schools need to adapt to be able to support that child's learning. So if that child has trouble communicating due to asd, that will be a barrier to learning. So speech and language therapists will come in and support the child with communication. They won't force the child to speak and magically cure them but they can support the child and school with for instance, learning sign language, understanding how to use visuals to communicate, making choices by pointing. Children may not automatically know how to do that.

Aside from that with specific condition additional needs, I have another theory if you zoom right out that might explain the more immature behaviour.

Increased life expectancy stretching the stages of life out. I think we see this throughout age groups - from younger seeming 60 year olds, to increased maternal age for first babies, from boomerang 20/30 living at home after university, to university students not being as sexually active. And yes, children's behaviour at 4/5 seeming less mature.

I'm not exactly sure what the mechanism for this would be - but maybe just put social expectations of children's abilities have changed quite a lot? We heavily supervise and plan activities for primary kids that a couple of generations previously would have just played out with their friends for hours.

A long childhood is not necessarily an awful thing - I remember seeing a charity film of a 6 year old orphaned girl who was responsible for her toddler brother in a slum in India and thinking both how capable she had managed to be but also what a shame it was that she had to be, and how vulnerable both were.

But maybe expectations around formal academic schooling need to move a year or two later. Rather than trying to stuff them with more head knowledge earlier and earlier, giving them extra time to develop physical and social skills before expecting them to sit still and pay attention would be time well spent.

I guess for birth parents, even considering possible FASD would really mess with their heads.

When my 8 yo was born, there were loads of family centres locally with different classes and activities. It was lovely. When my second was born 4 years later over half the local ones had lost funding and been closed. Then Covid hit the remaining ones so hard that my youngest who is 1 didn't have any baby classes offered by family centres who now seem to be only able to do the most bare basics of hearing tests and weigh ins. You can't take that much investment out of the early years and expect it won't have an impact.

Nobody said anything about screens causing Autism though?? 🤷‍♀️

But not enough time interacting with adults or other people can be part of speech delay in young children .After all if you don’t get to converse with anyone how do you learn to talk? I’m currently supporting a year one child who has poor speech and limited vocabulary. The whole family (and both mum and admit this) are addicted to screens. Dad said to me “we know we need to talk to him more but we forget”.

If it’s just one year group then it could be complete chance, it’s only if it’s every year that there’s an indication things have changed. Also depends which year group you teach as numbers of EHCP would be expected to increase as children are identified through the school years. And if your school is disability friendly people may be choosing it preferentially. The class size is small so people outside the catchement can obviously get places. EHCP is also the only way to get help for many as poor school funding means that little is provided otherwise

Some of these posts don’t match what I’m seeing. Which is highly engaged and motivated parents, who are very active etc but dc have specific needs.

I think it’s a disservice to them if it’s all said to be lack of parental engagement. I see how they are and it’s not that.

Absolutely. Our birth parents won’t admit to it so we can’t get a diagnosis. They’ve admitted to drugs and smoking through the pregnancy, but refuse to comment re alcohol. Only ten percent of children with FASD have facial features, so without evidence it’s hard to diagnose.

More positively , more research and awareness raising is starting to occur:

www.salford.ac.uk/news/funding-new-parenting-course-help-families-living-condition-more-common-autism

@Floatingcactus The percentage of children with EHCPs in your class far exceeds the national and LA average. Have you analysed how your school compares with those across your LA - all this data is in the public domain. I wonder if you are a particularly strong, experienced and effective classroom teacher who has been allocated more children with SEND to take pressure off less experienced colleagues.

It really hasn't.

I don't think you can say that children won't have additional needs (educational or otherwise) have anything to do with parents being motivated or not. Some needs are totally aided by cotton wool parenting and others are obviously caused by external factors.

I totally agree with the OP about the huge increase in the level of need in young children. I have been a teacher for 15 years and in the last 2 to 3 years the level of need has exploded. Last year out of 27 kids in my class (8 and 9) 17 of them had some extra requirements. This year I also have 17 and the numbers would be similar. I teach in Ireland so it's definitely not just a UK problem. I've no idea what is causing it but in certain areas screens are not helping.

I am very interested in what will eventually come out in relation to the cause of it.

*I also have 27

Screens and autism in infant boys

This study noted a statistically significant association between screen time and in infant boys and a subsequent ASD diagnosis though. I posted it upthread.

It may well be that babies with ASD are less settled and are put in front of screens more or there may be another confounder

I know it’s not right to make blanket statements but just to go against idea it’s a type of parent. As what I see makes me feel that’s unfair on some.

I think “parenting” Is definitely contributing to some of those lower level sens. And I think the way the world is in terms of what you described in lack of provision is exacerbating this in terms of you just don’t have the resources to “school” this out of children.

but for sure the higher level “born with” issues (sorry for my crass wording) - this is a whole new ballgame and has to be something environmental. would you say you are seeing an uplift in numbers of these kids too? X

Why did they miss their 2 year review?

I’m sure I saw an article about this this week, saying that there’s a lot of marrying relatives in some ethnic communities and it’s causing a disproportionate amount of SEN