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

Then they tried to just strip it from his EHCP as he wasn't making fast enough progress.

Yes this seems to be some warped current thinking.

"What we're doing isn't working so we'll do nothing"

There's no willingness (or probably funding) to actually try something else that will/May work

It is not fair on the children with SEND. Simply being in a mainstream school is not inclusion. Working in the corridor with your 1:1 all day is not inclusion. Having your own table inside the classroom with different tasks from everyone else is not inclusion. Sitting nicely on the carpet, but being unable to understand what the teacher is talking about is not inclusion.
Having to work with the same group of children all the time, even if you don’t like them or your needs are not the same is not inclusion.

It's kind of academic to be honest. If the numbers of disruptive children and children with SEN keeps increasing at the rate it has recently there is no society that can fund the number of trained adults necessary to take care of them and educate them as well as all the other children, even if it wanted to.

Of course your children have the right to an education. But surely it's better that it's tailored to their needs. I don't think the OP is talking about a child with dyslexia. She is talking about a child whose needs are so severe that they cannot follow basic lessons or classroom instructions. Surely those children would be better off learning in an environment that was completely structured to give them the education that meets their needs?

My LA seem to be going down the route of resourced provision, special needs classrooms within mainstream schools, which sounds promising. However, early signs is that they aren’t going to fund them properly either. The one I visited this week has one teacher and two TAs to 10 children, which means that when they need changing there is only one member of staff left in the classroom.
The current plan is to grab a TA from mainstream to help out during toileting times…

This all day long. It doesn't matter where you sit on the political spectrum, those in the position of power will not be sending their kids to the local comp...unless it happens to be selective in someway.

Sometimes inclusion- or at least the semblance of inclusion does work. We currently have two year 6 children in school. One has Downs and one is severely autistic. Both have been through the school since Reception, in theory they are included, they sit in the classroom, they go out to play at the same time, they have lunch at the same time, in effect they have a parallel school life to the other children- they have their own curriculum. The other children have grown up with both and they are kind and caring towards them( for the most part) . They and the other children in school have benefited from being together.

What they are not is violent, aggressive and disruptive. Inclusion doesn't work when it impacts adversely on both this with additional needs and those without.

@spanieleyes only two with additional needs...round here, a third of the class seems to need special consideration in one form or another.

It’s starting to filter up to Secondary and looks like it’s going get increasingly difficult to manage and meet need. Our school is completely over capacity in providing safe places for children with EHCP, we have SEN provision attached to our site. The LA have sent far more children than there is capacity for and we’re told to cope. The students who attend mainstream rarely have TA support because they are needed to provide personal care for wheelchair users, peg feeding, administering meds, OT etc.

We have a robust behaviour system but this then leads to students with EHCP being removed from classes and their learning. This could then lead to failing an Ofsted inspection as we are failing to meet the child’s needs. So put them back in the classroom, with no support and said child can run amok, being violent, shouting and screaming and destroy any meaningful lesson for the other 30. Within the other 30 there will be at least 5 with SEN needs that could cover ASD/ADHD/dyslexia/ DCD/ VI/HI

So we’re set up to fail! Unfair on everyone 😓

I agree. It's a brilliant idea and as a parent of two high needs children I love the idea. As someone who also works in a statutory SEND service for some reason the resource bases just don't seem to work. Pop-up self contained specialist classes do better but they have zero mixing with the school they are located within. They are basically off-site specialist classrooms

Oh no, I didn't mean we only have 2 with additional needs, we have two year 6s in the same class with EHCPs where inclusion has been possible, we have SO many where it is a daily battle!

*Sometimes inclusion- or at least the semblance of inclusion does work. We currently have two year 6 children in school. One has Downs and one is severely autistic. Both have been through the school since Reception, in theory they are included, they sit in the classroom, they go out to play at the same time, they have lunch at the same time, in effect they have a parallel school life to the other children- they have their own curriculum. The other children have grown up with both and they are kind and caring towards them( for the most part) . They and the other children in school have benefited from being together.

What they are not is violent, aggressive and disruptive. Inclusion doesn't work when it impacts adversely on both this with additional needs and those without.*

Do they have proper friends? Not just people being kind to them? Have they ever had a lead role in a school production? Been on the school council? Taken part in a classroom discussion? Won a race at sports day? Spent any time in a group of children without an adult hovering nearby? Had a girlfriend/boyfriend? Got to choose what game was being played in the playground? Fallen out with their mates? Been invited to a birthday party? In a specialist provision they would be able to do all these things.
Where are they going for secondary?

For many, it's mainstream. Lucky kids get a TA, which means their main support is not from a qualified teacher. We're always told to make use of calming breakout rooms. Great, how can 5+ children all use the same room at once? Not to mention our school was built in the 19th century, not exactly a time when they were thinking of inclusion.

Ultimately, being in the same room as children your age, with whom you're incapable of learning alongside, is not inclusion.

There is also a large question mark over who these ‘Trained adults’ are. We had an EHC agreed for a pupil whose mum assumed this would give him a full time autism teacher. What it actually funded was mornings only with a mum from the school playground who was the only person who applied for the job. She had qualifications at all, aside from a handful of GCSEs.

I think there are a lot of people in government who think inclusion is just ‘attending school’. There is no thought about what that actually looks like for that child.

The thing is by identifying and supporting needs properly from a young age, and by regularly reviewing and being open to change then everyone wins. The problem at the moment is the vast majority of children with additional needs don’t have needs met, and often it’s those with the “lower level” needs who come off worse.

ds has had an ehcp since year 1, in year 3 we hit crisis so I fought to get the support right and had a fantastic school onside. Since then he has had full time 1-1. He is now in year 9 and mainstream he does à reduced timetable that works for him. Because he is supported he is doing well, his 1-1 knows him well enough to know when to step in so he doesn’t disrupt the class at all.

but I had to fight to get that and that shouldn’t be the case.

@feralunderclass - the OP is talking about the before children are given funding and spend years at home because schools reject them as cannot meet their established & documented needs.

You should know, diagnosis and putting a plan in place takes years not days. During this time the child is pushed into mainstream schools because parents (rightly) want their child to be educated.

It's often when the school turns around and says we can't meet the child's needs, that things get moving.

Or a school looks at the plan and believes they can help the child only to find out later that the child is struggling with sitting still or the noise of 150 kids in the playground. Situations, the child hasn't been exposed before. Then what?

@Elisheva

Which is why I said the " semblance " of inclusion. Because it isn't really. All the things you say they probably haven't experienced, to a greater or lesser degree. Not through want of trying but because they simply can't. The child with Down's syndrome can't run as fast as the others, the child with autism doesn't have the same interests as others, both have different communication abilities, different personalities and different needs. By the time they get to year 6 the chasm between them and their peers is huge. Both will ( if we can get it agreed- it hasn't been yet) go on to specialist secondary . We have done the best we can, it's not good enough but it's all we can do.

I was driven out by this. I taught Textiles in secondary. I had 3 visually impaired kids with no support. They were using sewing machines which have dangerous moving needles which they couldn’t see. I could either sit with them or deal with the other 22. And these had ASD, ADHD, anger management issues, behaviour disorders, speech disorders, disruptive behaviour, absconding behaviour, anxiety issues, sensory issues. It was just crazy.

Meaningful inclusion could mean partnerships between special schools and mainstream, sharing of sites, facilities and events for example.

We are lucky to have outreach and offer this. But sadly parents have to facilitate bringing their children themselves. The truth is so many (usually mums) if disabled children can't work and so it's expected they are available during school day for shorter days and/or taking their children to stay and play outreach sessions in a school that can provide what they need.

I don’t know a single teacher who doesn’t want to leave-it shouldn’t be like this. I loved teaching so much when I first started. The job is simply unrecognisable from then.

Yes. People could maybe kind of cope with the unreasonable workload or the behaviour problems, but dealing with both is untenable long-term.

I'm not a teacher but have several friends who are. There was a disruptive violent pupil in my son's class who hurt kids, and the teacher, on a daily basis, causing the classroom to be evacuated several times when he had a violent meltdown. Nothing was being done by the school.
One day my son was hurt. The teacher spoke with me, promised to keep him safe etc, said they are working with the child (no name given obviously, but DS told me). My teacher friends, who all had direct experience of similar issues, advised to complain directly to the school asking what measures exactly were being put in place to protect my son and others, and to encourage other parents to do the same. Some already had, but others whose children had been injured did so too. Apparently it's the only way any meaningful can be done.
The child was allocated a 1 to 1 support worker in the classroom, time out of the class to do other things to help them, and monitored/supported closely at breaks and lunch. It was exactly what the child needed and sorted out the disruptive, violent behaviour in school.

It shouldn't take multiple violent incidents resulting in injury, and many escalated complaints to the school head for enough 'evidence' to be gathered to justify the cost of an additional support worker, or other adjustments appropriate to the childs needs, but sadly that's how it works.

Is it a similar state of affairs in other countries does anyone know? Are there other countries that we could learn from?

I have at least 4 in my class that 5 years ago would all have had 1-1. We are in Scotland. I only have extra support for 20 minutes twice a week. My class also has 3 half hour slots of SFL time. Where a small group of kids get some extra support.
The rest of the time it is just me, trying to get everyone learning whilst also stopping the violent ones throwing chairs.
I've bought more ear defenders and with my own money so that most kids can have a pair to concentrate as it gets very noisy.
If someone needs a nappy change I have to radio through but often I have to leave the next door teacher keeping an eye on them to go and change them myself.

It is also awful for the children that don't need support but are having their education disrupted on a hourly or daily basis or are being assaulted by SEN children. The whole education system is a mess.