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

Yes, you are told by the LEA that there is no money so ‘something has to change’ to meet those children’s needs. That ‘something’ isn’t ever something sensible though, like…changing the curriculum to make it more inclusive, is it?!

The results can’t change. There are still league tables, expectations about levels, PMR to justify why your cohort didn’t achieve as they might have done (without the CT single-handedly trying to provide personalised curriculums for 5 very different children with SEN, alongside teaching the other 25 so that they ALL meet their targets). There’s also Ofsted who want to see results and then that very same LA who want you to justify at the end of the year why your results have slipped despite being the very same people who have just said ‘something has to change’.

That ‘something’ just appears to be teachers poking up with horrendous stress trying to do the right thing and children poking up with their needs not being properly met.

One of the problems in my opinion is that special schools are viewed as only being for children who can’t cope in mainstream. So mainstream is the goal, and the special school for ‘failures’. As opposed to special schools being a school in their own right, with an environment tailored to the children’s needs and staff trained and experienced in meeting those needs. Different, not lesser (to quote Temple Grandin).
Children with Downs Syndrome are often successfully included in mainstream settings, with a 1:1 adult to support them. But in the special schools I have worked in a child with Downs would never get a 1:1 because they are fully independent within that environment. They have a genuine friendship group, they experience bullying, they can be bullies! They are just kids, not the special needs kid, there to teach the other kids to be accepting and kind.

I agree with many of the points raised - I've worked alongside education for many many years and see successful and unsuccessful mainstream placements with and without the appropriate support. The best bit of my job is seeing the kids flourish and grow in the right environment for them

Whats telling is how different authorities view EHCPS. Some seem to totally ignore the Health aspect and won't issue purely on health grounds and some authorities have much easier processes and routes in. However we under value what some of the teaching support staff actually do (same for carers) - the skills and tasks they complete are often complex (and life threatening- don't forget we have ventilated children in special and mainstream schools) and yet we don't recognise this.

As well as there being not enough specialist schools and not enough variety of special schools I think there is still a big stigma around attending a special school so many parents want their child to go to mainstream because it’s “normal”

in my dream world the whole education system would be massively overhauled though to cater for everyone not just the academic few.

I’m a TA. I’ve worked full time in the same mainstream primary school for over 23 years and used to say I had the perfect job.Not any more- I’m absolutely fed up with the constant back chat, total lack of respect from all but a few children, refusal to work, being shouted at, called names, having unkind ‘pranks’ played on me and giving up so many of my (unpaid) lunchtimes to deal with rude and unruly children- and that’s all in addition to my general classroom duties and supporting a child with an EHCP. I’m lucky that I love the staff in my year group, it’s the one thing that keeps me rocking up to work each day but I’m totally disillusioned. I’m due to retire in 2 years - if my pension was better (23+ years of very low wage doesn’t equate to an adequate pension), I’d leave today… no hesitation. As a nation, we are letting the children down; it’s great to be all inclusive, but that needs to be right for all 30+ children in the class.

What a disgusting view. Everyone should be entitled to care and an education suitable to them.

Do t know why you think SS is funded any better?

But these kids deserve an education as much as the next. That's a horrific thing to say about people who happen to be born disabled. And fwiw many can and do work when they receive the right education. Many do "low skilled jobs". Lots of them which were considered vital and keyworker during the pandemic

Agree with you about deskilling pupils when their learning is disruptive in MS though.

Can you move to a school that has far fewer of those children?

Only if you can move them back in time…

Thanks for everything you do. I think it really is at breaking point and I'm not sure there's a solution that won't take years to see a change 😢

The frustrating thing is, a lot of parents ware fighting so hard for specialist provision to meet their child's needs and it just isn't there. As a parent of a SEN child a don't believe most want their children in mainstream: it's heartbreaking to see them not coping.

Our LEA seems to be taking the position of shoving them into mainstream with no support then - when absence is to high - pushing parents to withdraw and home-school them, leaving vulnerable families with even less support

Things are also dire in special schools. I have a DC in one with profound non verbal ASD, and I work in a different one. This year class numbers have gone up but staff numbers have stayed the same or decreased. The school I work in are desperate for staff, the students in my class are meant to be 1:1, some 2:1, but that is just not possible. So it's all very well saying these children in mainstream need special school places, we need to make more, but we foremost need the staff.

My mother in law works in a special school. If I'm totally honest it stresses me out how much resource is focused on kids who will never work or even live independently while other kids make do with basically nothing. Who will keep society running in the future when we've deskilled a generation?

Based on the above post, I’d bet my house that my disabled autistic son’s IQ is significantly higher than yours. Have a word with yourself.

It is very common for children with high level needs to be in mainstream without 1.1 support.

I agree with you OP. I don't know how anyone keeps going in teaching at the moment. I did have an illuminating chat with a friend who's been teaching for 30 years in a European country. They have exactly the same issues, and she's thinking of retiring early as her job is becoming undoable. No-one knows what the answer is, but it's really not sustainable for anyone involved.

I teach in a secondary school but my head told me recently it is partly in relation to better NICU care keeping very premature babies and babies who had very traumatic births etc alive. I can't remember the exact statistic he gave me but a very high % of these babies will eventually have an ECHP and survival rates are much higher now than even 10 years ago. Obviously it's not the only cause and it doesn't apply to every child who was born very prematurely but there is a link.

We spend hundreds of thousands of pounds keeping these babies alive but we aren't willing to spend similar on the support they need during education.

The 'problem' is that SEN is a very broad term, so this is where the problem lies. My dd with ASD is on the SEN register. She's very quiet, not problematic in any way (the school often give her 1:1 hours to higher needs students) but has a 1:1 due to dyspraxia as she needs a scribe. She has no intellectual disabilities. If we are saying inclusion is wrong, then she would need to be in a specialist school for children with ASD, who are often non verbal and have severe behavioural problems. This environment would not meet either her academic or social needs. My son on the other hand is severely disabled and has complex care needs. He would get nothing from being in a mainstream classroom, but they are both under the SEN term. OP is even including EAL children in the inclusion category.
Scandinavia seem to do inclusion very well. Up to 50% of their nursery pupils are identified as having some type of additional need, whether due to disability, language barrier or just 'behind'. These children receive 1:1 help in their first and second years and by the time they enter their third year the number deemed SEN has dropped dramatically. The remaining ones of the register stay on in the school with 1:1. Children with severe cognitive/physical disabilities have their own schools from the beginning.
The way I see it, inclusion and being included doesn't mean every child can do the same thing (this would never happen in a classroom, even without SEN). It's about every child having their needs met and having the opportunity to thrive in a way possible for them. I don't see that it's just a governmental problem. We still have attitudes that those with disabilities shouldn't be included, even if they pose no 'problem'.

I have been 11 years in an infant school. The level of need has increased so much. Its so hard for the teacher and the class, but its also down right cruel on the children. They get nothing from the experiencenve except trauma. And miss out on therapuetic environments that could help them develop.
The cuts are making it impossible.
I really feel for you.

I agree. There are some children who shouldn’t be in mainstream education, it isn’t fair on them or those around them at all.

I had to move my DC from his previous nursery (I paid a lot for it but many kids just went using the universal hours) because they’d taken on far too many SEN children they couldn’t cope with. The SEN children attacked my DS on more than one occasion including an incident where a child jumped on him whilst he was napping, hit him so hard it bruised his face and he clawed his face open too. The staff just played it off as ‘well the boy has SEN so can’t help it’. Another boy with SEN pushed my DS over because DS tried to play near him… Again ‘it’s not his fault, he has SEN and doesn’t like other children going near him’. If your child can’t physically cope with other children playing near them without attacking them, they don’t belong in mainstream education.

I've just retired from being SENCo in a mainstream school with some very high needs children. This all sounds so horribly familiar! I couldn't wait to get to 55 so I could jack it in. I loved my school and my job but it very nearly broke me. The system is not fit for purpose and is letting so many people down-children and staff alike.

This is an important point.
I was 'lucky' enough to get school to agree to allocate funds to a 1:1 each morning for a little boy in my class.

1 applicant. A 19 year old girl who has tried various jobs and college courses already and has not currently achieved maths /English gcse but is studying for them too.

It's not working. She is a kind hearted and warm person but is not suited to working within education.
If other children ask her for help she will say 'just try,' or give them a wrong spelling.
It's frankly embarrassing when adults / professionals from other schools / agencies are in school.
This is not her fault and I'm not trying to be mean but no one wants the few jobs there are and I don't blame them. The money is woeful and the work is hard!

The form of inclusion we currently have just doesn't work. Education has sleep walked into the system we have now. Special education has been eroded and underfunded for years and our children pay the price.
I worked as a special needs teaching assistant within an onsite unit for children with speech and language issues. The unit was brilliant, highly trained staff, 20 children, five specialist teaching assistants and an excellent teacher. The children were involved in mainstream in everything except class based teaching. Many children made such progress that they eventually joined mainstream classes.
It was closed last year and is now used as extra classrooms. Such a dreadful waste.

My sympathy goes out to all teaching /school staff in mainstream schools that didn’t expect to put up with violent behaviour or be changing nappies.

Violence is the one thing I won’t tolerate. I was a HLTA for children in care and I didn’t experience any of these things back in 2012. I didn’t witness any children doing these things in the mainstream schools I used to visit as part of my role so I assume things have gone downhill in the last decade?

As part of my current job I occasionally do workshops with children and tbh haven’t noticed any child me like the ones you describe, but I do feel a lot of children are struggling to understand and retain instructions. I always write them clearly on a board, and then discuss what I’ve written but yet many still don’t understand. However that could be because I’m a guest speaker and they’re excited/distracted at the break from the routine so aren’t taking in as much. But I do wonder if concentration levels among kids have plummeted.

I do feel teaching staff should vote with their feet and head out of these situations if possible, because if you are in the mainstream being bit spat on or changing nappies of someone in year 2 or above should really not be normalised. But I appreciate it’s difficult to just leave your job especially when you still love aspects of it.

What I don't understand is why we have so many more kids like this.

Back when I was a kid my area had one special school, it took not only the nd and ld kids but those in wheelchairs (and other physical disabilities)as for some reason people didn't accept they had the capacity to learn in mainstream. The school wasn't very big, the "normal" schools had a few quirkier kids which now we would recognise as autism but they coped in mainstream without teaching assistants as they didn't exist. A few expulsions which I now suspect were adhd related as they were unable to concentrate or sit still but rare.

Now every 4th kid has problems, the numbers in "special" school have ballooned yet "normal" school is overflowing with children who can't cope with mainstream. We can't blame covid as this started before, for some reason children are not able to cope in classes en masse, the numbers with complex mental health issues from young is staggering.

Schooling is just the sticking plaster, I'm wondering why and wish I had the scientific and medical expertise to really research this because I see a generation of children struggling to cope with life, why? They deserve better as do the classmates affected.

That's my tirade ... something is wrong and I think our young people's futures are at stake if it's not investigated and measures put in place. My personal hunch is extensive use of child care from a young age and within the home and beyond not enough personal interactions as everyone is on devices but correlation isn't causation (we didn't have personal devices, not even videos when I grew up and all but 2 kids mums were at home when they finished school)

If we are saying inclusion is wrong, then she would need to be in a specialist school

No one is suggesting inclusion is wrong.

The the use of the term is being used to put children who need a specialist education into MS schools - often unsupported.

Inclusion should be about including children where it's in their best interests to be. Where there is an education they can access and a peer group.

My own ds (neuromuscular genetic condition and asd) went through Ms with an EHCP and 20 hours funded of TA support. But he has a high IQ so academically it was best, can have reasonable adjustments made for physical needs and had a peer group to the level of socialisation he wanted.

I think it's very fair (and obvious) to say it's not inclusion to put a non verbal child functioning at 18 months into a Ms classroom unsupported and expected them to be doing work alongside their peers. It fails everyone.

Inclusion does work when the disabled persons needs are out at the heart of decisions and funding matches meeting those needs.

I completely get what you’re saying but the trouble is that the 1:1 will not have been fully-funded. When it’s one child in a year group that requires such intensive support, the school can take usually take the extra (majority) of the cost of the 1:1 (including on-costs such as pension contributions, paid holiday etc) from the school budget. Multiply that by up to 10 high needs pupils in some classes (I’m not exaggerating - see my earlier post) and the school is bankrupt. Schools have to set a balanced budget, therefore we have to cut essential provisions to fund the 1:1 support. Around 80% of a school’s funding is spent on staffing so there’s really not any fat left to cut to pay for intensive support without increased funding from the government.

I feel for all parties btw, nobody is thriving under the current arrangements and a whole generation of children (all of them) is being failed.