Inclusion policies are not working

[somewherbetweenHoneyandTrunchbull]

I am an experienced teacher. And every year budgets are being cut and more and more children are being chucked into mainstream. Non-verbal, extremely sensitive to noisy kids being put into an overcrowded open plan mainstream school. Some have a little speech but couldn't hold a conversation. Many not toilet trained. Many cannot control their emotions and anger. Some where English isn't a first language. Many with social work involvement and living through ongoing trauma at home.
Meanwhile support staff numbers are being cut, year on year.
I had been managing just about. Spinning many plates. Constantly juggling. But then they enrol another two kids with complex needs into my class on 28 individuals. I just can't do it any more. This week I've been bitten, scratched, hit so hard I thought they had cracked a rib. Violent incident forms all filled in but reality means not much will change as I can't get more that 2 20 minute slots of teaching assistant time each week.
I love my job. I love the kids. I love those lightbulb moments. But at the moment I can't do my job of teaching children. I can barely keep them and myself safe in my class. I try. I'm exhausted. I'm worn out working day and night so that I'm super organised so everything can go smoothly but it never does. If it was just one child having a meltdown I probably coolyld cope. I just do t know which firework will go off when. I don't know what is setting them off and once they go, others follow.
I cry most days at how hopeless it feels. I have some really bright and eager children too. They are also being let down by this system. I'm not sure who the current education policies help. It doesn't seem to help anyone except desensitising children to daily bouts of violence and the language.
I'm very broken tonight. I'm so sleepy but won't help x

Thanks polly. I was lucky in that I know send law (it's my job!) and my ds wasn't violent so no evidence could be used to try and "even up" the violence towards him.

He ended up in another Ms school with an EHCP and doing extremely well. It was a fight to get it and made me extremely unwell but he was entitled and got an education that met his needs.

He's now in software development at just 19yo and competes for the country in his sport.

And that's all parents want. Not their child to be hurting others or be hurt. An education system that meets need and gives everyone opportunities to be the best they can be and reach their own potential.

Yes of course the disabled kids get attacked and tormented. I was the ‘quiet, socially awkward, completely uncoordinated’ kid who was assessed but who was too clever and too female to receive a diagnosis in my school days. I was bullied relentlessly by all of the perfectly intelligent, socially competent ‘normal’ kids. It really was merciless, calculated stuff, not fight-or-flight gone haywire. Should they have all been expelled, and left me to enjoy school on my own in peace? I would have loved that!

It sounds as if you have a crap school that isn’t dealing with the problems. It’s not the fault of disabled children as a population. The hatred on this thread is unreal.

Setting aside changes in the language, it's remarkable to see how much of the discussion here is in line with the Warnock Report from 1978. I have relatives who were teaching then and they would recognise so many of the difficulties here and would say that they were predictable if, as so many teachers said, the inclusion strategies were not funded appropriately.

https://education-uk.org/documents/warnock/warnock1978.html

You were not violent. That should not have happened to you no more than my nephew getting his nose broken. I am not talking about disabled kids on a whole, I am talking about the ones who display violence, destruction and physically hurt other children and nothing can be done because... you know....special needs. I will say it again, no child that has the capability to break another child's nose in a meltdown simply because he was near him should be in a mainstream setting.
I do understand that some kids with special needs are horrifically bullied and that is overlooked aswell.
My point is when ONE violent child can come into school and affect 29 other kids AND the teacher by breaking the place up and hurting the other kids on a daily basis, they should not be there.

Education is a shit show.

Our school is in such a massive deficit they're talking about reducing class numbers next year and having classes with three year groups together, while also cutting ALL support staff so the teacher is left to teach 36 children between 6 and 10, about a third of which have special needs, with 0 support.

I'm getting out before that happens. That's one less decent, experienced teacher in the system. All that will be left is young, inexperienced ECTs who won't last a month.

I feel sorry for the children, but I'm not killing myself doing that. I have to put myself first. Life is too short.

My point is when ONE violent child can come into school and affect 29 other kids AND the teacher by breaking the place up and hurting the other kids on a daily basis, they should not be there

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

"I cannot understand parents who willingly sent their children into school knowing they are a danger to others"

The parents of those others have sent their child into school knowing they are in danger from others.

What an absolutely STUPID thing to say.

Education is a shit show.

Our school is in such a massive deficit they're talking about reducing class numbers next year and having classes with three year groups together, while also cutting ALL support staff so the teacher is left to teach 36 children between 6 and 10, about a third of which have special needs, with 0 support.

I'm getting out before that happens. That's one less decent, experienced teacher in the system. All that will be left is young, inexperienced ECTs who won't last a month.

I feel sorry for the children, but I'm not killing myself doing that. I have to put myself first. Life is too short.

@Ylvamoon if you are implying your DC have it worse than mine you are welcome to swop for a while and find out what it’s like. The pain of seeing everything they can’t do and everything they are excluded from is magnified by awareness of the hatred and mistrust from other parents. For the record, the only person my DC is violent towards is me. So I suppose that makes us lucky.

To my shame, I remember my naïveté and embarrassment looking for a nursery place all those years ago. I actually said ‘We have funding for a two year old placement because DC is developmentally delayed. I don’t know if that’s a disability you can accommodate?’ I was so nervous expecting rejection and so pathetically grateful to the nursery that said ‘of course we can accommodate that.’ I know better now- almost everyone will reject us, and my job is not to care and not to give them an easy out.

You don’t have to ‘suffer in silence’ though. If your DC is hurt, advocate for them. Find a better school that has better ways of handling issues. Just don’t blame disabled kids as a group, or inclusion as a concept.

You want 29 other parents to keep their children at home because there is ONE violent child who hurts them? Should this child be in a classroom breaking it up and attacking the teacher on his own with no other kids there and nobody else comes to school?

Absolutely stupidest comment ever.

Also I take my hat of to school staff dealing with this day in day out, no one should go to work and be faced with violence but it seems some of you are told its part of the job and get in with it. In my role (front line nhs) we come into contact at times with abusive patients, we have a zero tolerance policy, the patient would be removed by security/police and ‘red carded’ from the hospital so barred from the premises, it seems you need something similar. And yes I know they’re children and yes they have special needs but is their right to an ‘education’ more important than the safety of other children and staff? Staff that are just trying to earn a living and the innocent children caught in the crossfire? Not in my opinion.

"What an absolutely STUPID thing to say."

All parents have the choice of home educating.

Yes they do but it should not be because there is ONE child causing mayhem. 29 other lives affected, 30 if you count the teacher. Will you cop on.

I am so sorry OP. I have no answers other than a LOT more investment in education and making sure kids actually get what they need, not what is cheapest. But thank you for what you are doing.

"Absolutely stupidest comment ever."

You are expecting other parents to put your child before their own. That won't happen.

I think the difference is that in education any violence is often the result of unmet need.

So teachers and support staff are expected to find out what that is and meet it.

That actually does work. But not in MS school where there isn't the staff, funding and resources.

We see children come to my SS from MS 2:1 on heavily reduced timetables with a history of extreme violence.

And we often see no violence at all from them or it stops very soon after they arrive and start to feel safe or have support to learn how to communicate using a different way.

So many times these children don't start school violent. But they get kicked out eventually because of it.

I can't engage with stupidity. Sorry.

You are expecting other parents to put your child before their own. That won't happen

Exactly. There is one child in that class who is my responsibility. If I keep him out of school, I’ll get even less traction from the LA, risk prosecution and have a child who struggles even more. Not going to happen.

Just let him go in and break noses then, attack teachers and affect 29 other kids.

So is the original suggestion that parents of children with SEN who can display violent behaviours should keep their child home.

No. My child is as entitled to education as every other. He deserves the right support. It is not our fault that this government has designed a system that meant it took 6 years to get him out of mainstream.

Knowing parents of other children complain 'he shouldn't be in this school' about your child, like you actually have a choice, is soul destroying.

With an EHCP, it is harder to HE. Like any other child, we are punished (often financially) for non-attendance.

The system is utterly broken and we desperately need more special schools. But, actually, we also need mainstream not to be such a toxic environment. Because even if every child with SEN was educated in specialist provision, children would be destroyed in mainstream.

Tories, especially Gove, have broken state education. And every single person who voted for them is complicit. As is every single person who will continue to vote for them because they're blinded by a single issue.

Unsupported inclusion hurts everyone and let’s them down.

The worst I’ve had it has to be my youngest cohort out of my three. Sending my child into school to come home daily bitten by the same child, yet there was nothing the school could claim to do because the child is sen.

That child let down clearly but my child and many other in the class harmed and scared to go into school.

No teacher or Ta or child should be being abused or harmed or have things thrown at them be that just a naughty child or a sen child. Schools don’t seem to be allowed or want to do anything to protect children from harm nor to support child.

Just let him go in and break noses then, attack teachers and affect 29 other kids

I do. Because there is no other realistic choice. This is a failure of 40 years of education policy, not the fault of individual SEN parents.

So what do you say to the child who has to be taken to hospital to get his nose reset and is terrified of going to school every day because of this child and every other child in the class is the same and the teacher can't cope.

Tell me what you would say to that child..those children.

Sorry...special needs........ just keep taking it because he is gonna keep doling it out?

"I can't engage with stupidity. Sorry."

I think you mean reality. Everyone puts their own child first. Human nature. People might say if it was their child doing it they would keep them home but in reality unless they thought it was better for their own child, they wouldn't.