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

Don't dc go for check ups at the clinics and are asked by HV how they are getting on at certain stages or has that gone out of the window?

I'd like to ask the school staff and ex school staff if they openly say in annual reviews or in reports that x child has communication needs and requires slt input or more slt training for staff to support child (same for ot or pt) admit maybe in writing that they can't meet their academic needs, point out that they don't have a peer group etc. Wrote the provision that x child needs with detail, specificity and quantified.

I have talked to the SLT and SENCO until I'm blue in the face about the unmet needs in my classes. I log details,I request training. The response is always that we don't have money for anything. All the support which used to be provided for free from the LA now has to be bought in.

I'm a parent who has battled the LA, sometimes with unsupportive schools, sometimes with supportive schools. The LA has very little respect for what a teacher says. They dont regard them as professionals. I had one school where a head teacher came to an LA mediation meeting with me and the LA asked if i had any professionals supporting my case. I said i had brought an educational professional with a masters qualification and many year experience. They actually laughed and said 'no, a professional not a teacher'

Rather than asking or speaking to other professionals if you put it in writing to the parent/ Carer they can use this to have it put in the ehcp or get an assessment as part of the ehcpna. It doesn't matter about cost once it's in section f provided it's worded so that there is no doubt as to what must be provided as the parent can go to judge review to enforce it, usually a pre-action letter is sufficient and the LA have to fund it. If it's for the needs assessment and the commissioned service say it'll take more weeks than legally allowed the parent can insist on the commissioning independent reports. By not putting it in writing for the parent you're denying them the evidence they need to get the provision you also want.

This is all compounded by the collapse of NHS services. In the area where I work for pre-school children there is an 18 month waiting list for speech therapy intervention. The intervention will be five sessions. That's it. Once they get to school you're dependent on what speech therapy service the school buys in, the NHS offer is visit once a term and give the staff some advice. Occupational therapy threshold is ridiculously high. None of this is the fault of the staff working in the services, there are just far too few of them. Even if the funding is available for new posts recruitment and retention are a massive issue.

We have a child with Spina Bifida, she needs daily physio therapy, we have been sent a PowerPoint to follow . That's it, apparently there are only 2 therapists in the county and they are " too busy" ( not surprisingly,) so it is now down to us to provide. Speech and language, when we can get it, is a video call assessment ( ever tried that with a four year old?) followed by a series of activities to follow. The child is then signed off. We have a profoundly deaf child with NO speech therapy despite 15 months of asking. All this therapy has to be carried out, in school, somehow by someone!

Problem with la is they don't want to spend any money unless forced. And this requires the parents spending a lot of money on reports to say child needs more support. The waiting lists for slt and educational psychologist reports is getting longer and services more expensive. The system is broken.

The proportion of children with speech and language difficulties has no doubt increased over time, so unless funding and therapists increase annually in line with that, waiting lists will grow. Surely the most fundamental question is why the number of children needing speech therapy is rising at this rate and what can be done to stop and reverse that.

Speech and language disorders occur at a pretty standard rate of around 1:10 children.
Speech and language deprivation and delay varies from area to area and is very much linked to socio-economic status, parental health and education levels, and ACEs. It has also been exacerbated by Covid.
The problem is if the children’s speech and language needs are not met at a very young age they get further and further behind, and this then becomes a special educational need.
Children are starting school with the language levels of an 18 month old. Almost impossible for them to access the curriculum for year R.

@Elisheva is that for nt kids? I'm on salt waiting lists private and nhs for my 5 year old autistic son and getting no help. I just keep talking and talking to him reading books and hope he's learning. I know his receptive language is improving but his speech is still so disordered I'm getting very worried.

You mean it's always been 1:10 and hasn't increased? That would be extremely surprising when as far as I know all other SEN categories have been increasing but I suppose it's possible.

Children with autism always have language difficulties associated with the autism, usually with social communication. Some can also have language difficulties. It can be tricky to unpick.

Do carry on talking as much as possible making sure he can see your lips too. We lip read far far more than you think, face masks certainly didn't help all the incidental language development in toddlers.

Actually I don't see how it's possible that speech and language problems haven't increased when autism certainly has. Even if only a portion of autistic children had speech/language issues that would still increase demand.

The 1:10 is for developmental language disorder. Other SLCN has definitely increased.

Ok I wasn't talking about any subcategory though. I was talking about overall demand for speech and language therapy, whatever the cause.

Yes, the overall demand for speech therapy has increased dramatically.

In my area the NHS speech therapist will see a child once a term and give the school advice. It’s appalling.

What's your theory as to the cause?

I saw a little chap this week, he has ASD with no speech. Discharged by the NHS because he is autistic.
Recommended PECS, but no one in the school is trained and have no money for training. Makaton, as above, and bucket time, which is delivered by a TA who watched how to do it on YouTube.

Poverty.

It's a combination. The increase in children with ASD and the associated communication difficulties, the number of children with developmental disorders including language, as has been mentioned previously, the lack of interaction with adults and other children, all add together to increase the need for speech therapy intervention, which, yet again, isn't there.

Well that's a new one. Is that just on the usual basis that rates of SEN, and need for SLT more broadly, correlate with socioeconomic class? Because ASD, as far as I know doesn't correlate anything like so cleanly and by some analyses is more common in wealthier classes (possibly due to their being more likely to spend a long time in education, prioritize careers and have children later in life).

You'd also have to be claiming that speech and language problems were more common in the past when everyone was poorer and that they've historically increased and decreased in line with the poverty rate. That's some claim.

Yes but what I'm asking about is what's causing the increase in all of those factors, not what's causing speech and language problems.

Yes why are there so many more SEN Dc.