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

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.

In part it’s because speech and language ‘problems’ are relative.
When you live in a society where nobody can read or write the fact you are dyslexic doesn’t matter.
Poor language skills become a learning disability when the language expectations of the classroom are above your abilities. We have a saying which is ‘A language difficulty in KS1 become a learning difficulty in KS2 becomes a behaviour difficulty in KS3.’

But why are they illiterate in the first place

That's pretty specific to reading and writing rather than speech and language. Also I wasn't talking about times when almost everyone was illiterate.

Anyway you haven't engaged with the vast majority of what I've said at all. I was really hoping that people who work with this at the coalface would be able to point to lots of research about the causes, but it sounds to me like it's not much discussed at all. Maybe it's considered not hugely relevant because when you're helping the child in front of you, the bigger picture doesn't really matter.

Well, we are not the experts, we are the ones that have to deal with the outcomes as best we can. I have no idea why the need for speech and language has increased. I could hazard a guess- lack of parental interaction, being handed a tablet in the pram and left to get on with it, sat in front of a tv for hours at a time, reduced social interactions, fewer social groups for children, and so on. But I'm sure there are other, medical reasons too, you would need to try to find a speech and language specialist to advise- good luck with that!

It’s not about reading and writing, it’s about language which is the medium used to access the curriculum. If you have poor language skills you can’t learn, you can’t understand, there is nothing in school that is not affected by poor language skills. Only about 20% of children with SLCN achieve GCSEs. 80% of unemployed people have poor language skills, in some young offender institutions it’s close to 100%
People with poor language skills are more likely to smoke, drink and take drugs. They are more likely to be in low paying jobs, their life expectancy is reduced by 10 years.
These children don’t start with a learning disability, but it becomes one when their needs are not met. The vast majority of pupils in PRUs have SLCN. It is a huge, huge problem in school.

So some of it is down to nurture?

I can't imagine working in a field and not wanting to know the causes of an increase in my workload! Especially when the field is underfunded and the dominant conversation is about how more money is required. There seems to be no discussion of how much money will be required if the current rates of increase persist, or how that's even sustainable as society's overall capacity decreases continually.

Yes, of course. If you don't talk to a child, they don't learn to talk back. We have one child who was literally left in a cot for the first 2 years of their life, until removed from parents. They have the language and vocabulary of a 2 year old now, speak in single, sometimes 2 word " sentences" That's due to nurture- or lack of it.

Yes, of course. If you don't talk to a child, they don't learn to talk back. We have one child who was literally left in a cot for the first 2 years of their life, until removed from parents. They have the language and vocabulary of a 2 year old now, speak in single, sometimes 2 word " sentences" That's due to nurture- or lack of it.

Can I ask teachers to what extent the standard school disciplinary policy can be brought into effect? Some of the behaviour here would be punished by a suspension of exclusion? Are there variations in these policies for children with SEN? If a certain subset of pupils are excluded from the full disciplinary policy will this not lead to a more general behaviour issue I the school as it appears that appalling behaviour has no consequence?

But you were saying that some of the historical increase is just an artefact of increased literacy. Never mind, you're still not explaining how poverty is causing the increase.

Yes. If you are a parent with learning difficulties or limited language the input you can give your child is reduced.
Poor vocabulary is a huge problem, and very very hard to address. The difference in vocabulary in Year R can be 2 or 3 years.
If you struggle with reading you are less likely to read to your child at bedtime, they are then in a class with a child whose parents read to them daily. That’s 1000 books difference.
Child B picks up reading much easier, Child A struggles, they then start to avoid reading because it’s too difficult, they start to have behaviour problems. Child B reads at home, is read to and starts reading harder books so their vocabulary increases.
Child A is stuck on boring books and doesn’t want to come to school because it’s boring and hard. By the end of Year R there is a 4 year difference in their vocabulary.

Former SALT here. I agree with a lot of what you said. I started working with children in 1983 and the rise in poor receptive and expressive language difficulties rose exponentially. Also the rise in autism. I used to work with children with articulation difficulties till they had improved but then Blair's government brought in six week packages of treatment. Of course there could be all sorts of unknown factors for this rise in autism such as environmental and nutritional factors.
I ended up working in schools dispensing advice to TAs. My main purpose though was assessment and helping the SENCo to get a Statement of SEN.
I then trained as a teacher because I wanted to actually work with children. I ended up in a very small school and we often had children in the classroom with autism, ADHD and dyslexia because the parents wanted small classes. I was lucky in that I had some fantastic TAs who delivered programmes diligently and managed behavioural problems well.
Sorry if this post is muddled and disjointed.

Poverty like cultural deprivation too not just material, it's not just having no books in the house it's having no concept that it is normal to read 2-3 picture books at bedtime every night from pretty much birth to 10 years old encouraging your child to tell you the story. It is not playing basic games such as animal noises and colours with your toddler so they go to school not knowing what colours and animals are. It is not talking to your child as they can't speak yet so you don't get the point. Generational as your parents were the same. School is making odd comments to you and you Don understand why. Misinterpretation of what the school says and the level that is normal and expected.

I don't think you can conclude that's 100% nurture. Very few things are. Given the parent's behaviour, the prenatal environment was probably terrible - malnutrition, smoking, infections, lack of attendance at prenatal care, prematurity alcohol, drug use. That's environmental but not 'nurture' in the sense that most people mean it.

Anyway, this begs the question why the rate of inadequate parenting/neglect is increasing. Or are people who are inadequate parents having more children on average than people who are adequate parents.

https://www.paediatricsandchildhealthjournal.co.uk/article/S1751-7222(17)30287-1/fulltext

https://www.rcslt.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/CSJ-Social-Justice-Commission-Submission.pdf

https://www.rcslt.org/wp-content/uploads/media/Project/RCSLT/rcslt-social-disadvantage-factsheet.pdf

https://aggslanguage.wordpress.com/2010/06/04/bernstein-elaborated-restricted-code-1971/
Also restricted code and elaborated code

But why would that kind of behaviour be increasing? And the same questions apply as I stated above about the poverty hypothesis.

One aspect of my daughter’s EHCP is that consideration needs to be taken when applying the disciplinary policy. Because she is disabled and covered under the Equality Act, and not doing this could be discrimination.

Excluding a child because of behaviour caused by their disability would be discrimination. It also doesn’t help the child in terms of their education.

It’s increasing because the issue in education have now been going on for more than a generation. So yesterday’s children with special educational needs are the parents of the current children.

I suspect even quite young children in problem classes can understand that some children fall into the category of those allowed to be violent and others don't? A few parents here whose children have been assaulted were told that the violent child had SEN, so I presume their child was told too.

I don't think you're getting the issue of rates and proportions. Anyway, you're not answering any of the questions I asked so this is not very interesting.

Have you read the links I posted?

It appears and feels like you are failing the kids because you can't do it all. But it's not you at all. It's those who think one person is able to do three people's work.

Back in the last century, the NASUWT used to strike over these issues of individual teachers not getting support and getting attacked.

Those were aimed at me?! Haha, no, I'm not ploughing through a bunch of links if you can't be bothered to either answer the questions I've asked, summarize the point you're taking from the links, and ideally take a short quote from them. That's really not much to ask. I'm not engaging with you any more.