Heartbroken and totally let down by education system

[Amatueuragonyaunt]

I'm after advice (and a bit of a vent). Ever since the start of the COVID fiasco, my two children (then 5 and 8 years old) have been totally failed by the state sector. My daughter is bright, but was not being pushed and was losing self confidence because of a lack of feedback and attention, so we moved her to a selective independent school where she is now thriving. The finances were (and are) a stretch, so we left our DS in the state system with the plan to see how things went and then move him at the same age as we moved our daughter (10). However, his needs are at the other end of the spectrum. It became apparent to us during pandemic home learning that there was some issue going on, but it took a further year before the school took it seriously enough to commission an assessment and another year after that before we got the report. It turns out he has severe dyslexia. This came as a both a surprise and not because we had suspected something, but generally his school reports were good with just a few weaker areas. Anyway, fast forward a few months when a load of interventions have supposedly been put in place - we don't feel confident that he's making much progress and we're aware of other children in the class with severe behavioural issues which were taking up the TAs time in entirety (so no support for anyone else). As such, we brought forward our quest to go independent and arranged taster days at a local non-selective school with good SENCO provision. Our boy loved it. However - here's the rub - the school won't offer him a place because he is more than two years behind the other children in that class. Needless to say, he's feeling pretty despondent about it, but what I'm fuming about is how his current school let it get that bad and not even tell us. Everything that has been put in place for him has only come about because we forced the issue and, when we were doing it, we were made to feel like we were overreacting and we're even told that actually our son was a bit lazy. This was before the report came out. This is an 8 year old who has been turned down for entry at a non-selective school that we are prepared to pay for because he is too far behind his peers. How is it that we have to send him in taster days just to find out how bad things are? The fact it's all come to light in a way which has left our son utterly gutted is the final straw. We didn't see it coming so couldn't manage expectations. We now have a situation where one child is flying and getting tons of opportunities while the other is completely shafted and there seems to be nothing we can do about it except give the current school a rocket (and what difference will that make?). To say I am fuming is an understatement. Anyone had similar or have any words of comfort or advice?

PS - the current school is supposedly 'outstanding' according to Ofsted, but it's not worked at all for our kids.

We thought something was up, so it's not that we didn't notice, but every time we tried to discuss it with the current school we were reassured it wasn't that bad and they had mechanisms in place.

op I am guessing you andyour husband are professional and highly educated

I have to ask - what were you so easily fobbed off. We “tried” to discuss it.

Which part in specific?

@neverbeenskiing The private school did offer him a place in the year below if you read the thread.

What adjustments were needed?

Absolutely accept the year 4 place if it is an option, it’s an opportunity that can’t be passed up! You have said yourself that his mainstream school don’t have the resources at present to be able to intervene effectively.

If your child was recently diagnosed perhaps the school don’t even have the funding for him yet. The government scrapped GRIP funding for students with severe needs and replaced it with something else last year so I imagine there is a backlog with that too.

Are his new school able to tell you what reading intervention packages or strategies they use? How do they assess what his skill gaps are? Do they have the staff and the time to be able to deliver them? Blanket intervention won’t work, the intervention needs to be specific to his needs. These are all questions that need to be asked. Do they have a literacy lead/ coordinator or intervention specialist? Not all schools do.

One of the most significant barriers in mainstream at the moment is that we don’t have the staff to be able to deliver the interventions as support staff need to support students with the most severe needs (EHCPs) as the amount of children coming through with them is significantly increasing.

Also, post pandemic, many SEND staff are leaving because the job has become more and more challenging and the money is shocking! Therefore people are leaving and schools then can’t recruit highly skilled practitioners because of the low salary for support staff.

I have read the thread thanks. But having worked in Education for many years now you often hear of independent schools finding reasons to either outright reject SEND kids, or discourage them from applying. While this particular school may be genuine in claiming OP's child is 2 years behind and not trying to put them off, it's certainly something that happens.

Nefarious its all been covered?

Very minimal hints and tips an outsider had to give me to unlock dd learning.

All I used to get from the they school was generic sheet on basic spelling stragety that didn't work for her.

All we had to do was approach everything in a very slightly different way.

To echo what others have said: it’s very easy at this age to catch up with tutoring. It won’t take that long. The lack of input from the primary school is very annoying but it’s fairly typical and it’s not a disaster.

If this private school is offering him a place then take it. Organise some additional tutoring over the summer holidays. Don’t panic and don’t catastrophise. He’s still very young and his needs can now be effectively addressed.

@Tgirl19 and... When staffs a re there trained and ready to help other staff and heads are suspicious of their methods and won't let then use them.

You often hear blah blah. You often hear of state schools failing kids totally and completely. So what is “often heard” is by the by.

There are 1000s of private schools of different types - some that specifically specialise in SEN kids, some that specialise in kids with lower academic abilities, some in higher academic abilities, some that specialise in providing for kids who don’t fit into mainstream schooling.

It’s not one size fits all.

Yes, but who was going to provide that very different way? This is 100% a funding issue.

So what changes were needed?

I understand where you're coming from, and I just wanted to clarify that I didn't mean to imply the issue is solely about funding. Of course, having more resources and staff could be helpful, but the core problem lies in the system itself.

Funding constraints have led to larger class sizes, which makes it harder for teachers to cater to each student's unique learning needs. But this has come along with an increase in students with additional educational requirements and more frequent diagnoses for their learning difficulty, which only adds to the complexity. There's such little training available to qualified teachers about what these diagnosis mean or how to cater for them, but coupled with the volume of children in the class and the amount of material to cover I think most just don't find it possible to consider diversifying far from the standard lesson aimed at the average student.

Moreover, the ever-changing curriculum and being moved around year groups doesn't do teachers any favours. It forces them to constantly revise their lesson plans, preventing them from refining and improving their teaching strategies over time. This situation can be frustrating for teachers, as they may feel reluctant to invest time in creating tailored lessons, knowing that their hard work might become irrelevant in the near future. If they knew the lesson would be taught again the following year then after teaching it you might realise some obvious improvements or ways to adapt it to different needs, but now there's no point.

I think like a lot of services now teachers are becoming burnt out just trying to get by and ultimately parents need to have realistic expectations about what a school can provide. It's tied with the failing economy and living standards - unless we radically improve how education is funded to reduce class sizes, more teachers, more TAs, more specialist in SENCO provision, putting experienced teachers in charge of the system not government then things are only going to get worse and that's my expectation that things will continue to get worse and the average school is only really going to be supporting the top/middle sets whilst the lower ability depend on what their parents can make up at home.

It's like healthcare, not properly funded and policies set by government so failing standards , if you wish for a good service when you struggle with poor health (akin to struggling with poor educational ability) you've got to be prepared to pay for it separately.

@Sherrystrull

Why are you asking? I don't mind if you are a parent of a. Child who heads help...

It sounds like they are asking for a completely different curriculum in regards to the way reading is being taught. So yes, arguably free for the school, but not free (timewise) for the teacher and they fail to understand that what they are actually asking for is private tuition.

🤨

I'm a very experienced teacher. You've made it clear that only small changes were needed.

We have to take your word for that.

If you tell us what they are I can help other parents to understand how such changes can be achieved in a classroom or why they need careful consideration by staff and parents.

Hi my ds had a similar experience in primary school. We had a family history of dyslexia and I was a primary teacher at the time, so knew early on that he was struggling. However, the school refused to accept this and he was labelled as lazy. Unfortunately his school put a heavy focus on teaching reading and writing through phonics, which is not always helpful to children with dyslexia. I worked with him on using other reading skills such as contextual and grammatical clues. I also read to him every night and then he would listen to stories on audible.

I paid for a private test when he was eight and he was diagnosed with dyslexia. The assessor was amazed at his ability to read a passage of text, in contrast to his lack of ability in reading single words out of context. His primary school still didn't help much, but he seemed to flourish when he went to secondary school. He is now in his GCSE year and predicted good grades.

My advice would be keep pushing your primary school, go in and talk to the class teacher and the head. Read up as much as you can and if you can afford it get a diagnosic test and a good tutor.

The SEN system is a shitshow. Schools identify who should be on the SEN register and because of lack of resources, they have to prioritise and because they trained experts, the approach isn't always evidence based. Your child may be doing relatively ok compared to the rest of his cohort, and therefore doesn't stand out as needing as much extra support as others.

The government has sold a lie. Quality first teaching is apparently going to be enough and can plug the holes left by no money and no more special schools. All children need is good teaching apparently. The research that comes out supporting these claims reeks of the governments cost cutting agenda. Blatchford's research on the impact of teaching assistants was such an obvious justification for the big cull that followed. Children don't need teaching assistants when their needs can be met by QFT. It's so transparent what the motives are.

@hawesmead5

My dd failed the phonics test.

Thankfully I got yer reading without it.

It's a shackle and barrier to so many dc with literacy issues.

@hawesmead5 how much can anyone push when no one you talk too understand any sen though

I’m so sorry your little one is going through this. I’d also recommend a meeting with the head, class teacher and SENDCO to put a proper plan in place. I’d also supplement with tutoring for the basics but most important subjects: English and possibly maths if that is also a concern. I appreciate it shouldn’t be the case but I assume you can afford it if you’re looking to privately educate both children. And I’d be seeking guidance about everything I can do at home. But I’m sure I’m already preaching to the converted about reading regularly etc.

This thread has already completely covered the challenges schools are facing. This is why we should not be outraged when teachers are striking as the gov has offensively offered an unfunded pay rise (also not in line with inflation), further stretching practically nonexistent funding for provision for our children. It’s despicable.

Unfortunately the state system is failing a lot of children (not just because of funding, but also because of bad behaviour, and teachers having to spend time doing crowd control rather than teaching).

You mention that private school fees will be a financial stretch, so just bear in mind that, if the Labour Party get in, they have said they will remove charitable status and add VAT to fees, because apparently a decent education is a luxury……. (a whole other thread!)

I’ve privately messaged your partner. Please have a look at it. It may help

YABU to feel let down by the education system. The education system has been let down by the tory government and their voters. Those are the two groups any anger or frustration should be directed towards.

Although in saying that, the issues in education are the result of deliberate mismanagement and underfunding so maybe saying the system has been let down is wrong, as this is exactly what tories and their voters wanted.

My DC is in an independent school and they have always had one or two children per year that are outside their usual 'state school' year, either moving up or, more usually, down a year. It honestly isn't that unusual. Please reassure your son a lot of indies do it. ( I don't think state schools are allowed?)