To not understand how a third of Y1 has SEN?

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I mean of course it's possible but statistically wouldn't this be very unlikely? My daughter is Y1 in a mainstream state school, 2 form entry so 60 kids in all. I have a friend who is a governor and she has told me that there are 20 kids in the year with SEN and that she learnt this last year when they were in Reception. I have to admit that I wasn't totally sure as to what counts as SEN but even after looking at the definition I'm puzzled as to how so many kids had recognised SEN in Reception - if they had ADHD or dyslexia then this wouldn't have been diagnosed at this point would it? What counts as a SEN diagnosis - could a parent just state that their child is anxious on an entry form and this go down as SEN?

I have to admit that I am a little concerned about the impact of my child's teacher having to deal with all these additional needs and teach the kids who don't have SEN at an appropriate level. I know that they have to tailor the curriculum accordingly but I'm worried my DDs progress could be hindered somewhat.

Am I being unreasonable to find this level of SEN shocking and be concerned about the impact on my child?

I would be concerned that this school governor hasn't simply said "SEN is increasing, there's twice as many children with SEN in Y1 compared to Y6" . She's said 33% and about the year group that the OP knows. I think when you know information from a confidential setting you should be careful not to repeat it, even if your audience could learn it elsewhere. What happens if another day she casually mentions that "so many girls have speech delay starting school" or "only 5 boys in that class don't have SEN" or whatever and the knowledge the OP has about her daughter and the daughter's friends leads her to identify children?

EHCP's don't just cover SEN. They cover underlying health conditions. Not all disabilities affect the child's brain. Children who have been through trauma or in foster care might also need extra support in school..

There has also been a lot of children born before and during lockdown with speach difficulties. So will require more support than the average child in school. Your friend had no buisnsses telling you that info anyway.

We really need to consider the impacts of letting our kids catch covid multiple times. It is proven that covid infection, even mild, causes neurological damage, like brain atrophy and cognitive disfunction. Unless we seriously start to address the unlimited spread of covid, we are just going to end up with more and more children with SEN. It's absolutely disgraceful that we are letting this happen before our eyes when we have the tools to limit it: keep sick kids off school (forget 100% attendance), HEPA filtration in classrooms, ventilation in classrooms, monitoring CO2 in classrooms, and masking when you have symptoms. And vaccination for children.

This article has lots of links to the research on covid impacts on kids. There is plenty more evidence, and yet we are blindly reinfecting our kids countless times.
Long COVID Is Disabling Kids. Why We Ignore It | The Tyee

More evidence:

"like adults, children recovering from COVID-19 were more likely to be diagnosed with some conditions, including seizures and psychotic disorders". Increased risk of some neurological and psychiatric disorders remains two years after COVID-19 infection | University of Oxford

"COVID-19 induces mild to severe neurological problems in children, such as stroke, encephalopathy, mild shortness of breath, and myalgia. The development of these conditions is associated with pro-inflammatory responses and cytokine storms, which alter the physiology of the blood–brain barrier and allow the virus to enter the brain." Neurological complications of COVID-19 in children and the associated immunological responses - ScienceDirect

Long Covid kids reports that they deal with children who have been diagnosed with PANS: Paediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome

A sudden onset of:
OCD symptoms and/or severe eating restrictions
Cognitive, behavioural, neurological symptoms (at least 2)
Symptoms can be:
Anxiety/depressive moods
Aggression and/or irritability
Severely oppositional behaviour/regression
Sensory & motor abnormalities
Hallucinations and/or psychosis

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do everything you can to protect your children from COVID. Make your school act to reduce risk!

That is entirely wrong.

An ehcp is legal document that outlines a child special education needs. That is literally what it is. If you don’t have SEN you don’t get one.

https://www.ipsea.org.uk/faqs/ehc-plan-quick-guide

Having SEN is independent of having a diagnosis. You are quite right that most y1s won't have reached the top of the queue for diagnosis yet.
YaBVU to be assuming that kids with SEN are inteinsically going to be taught at a lower "level" than the kids withoit SEN. A lot of the kids with SEN will be very intelligent and able, but they just need their teachers to be aware of their needs so that they can be taught in a context where they are able to learn. 40 years ago they would have just been disciplined and punished for failing to fit into a cookie-cutter mould. An education system that trears children as individuals is better for the kids withoit SEN too.

I am not surprised at the numbers. There must be a lot of research going on about the impact of covid on this cohort of kids who spent their toddler years in lockdown. I have no idea of the stats but would not be ar all surprised to see a bulge, and it won't be easy to untangle what proportion of that bulge is due to the negative effects of lockdown trauma on developing brains and how much is earlier detection of issues due to dramatic changes in working and childcare practices.

There should be a report on SEN on your child's school website. I can't remember the exact details off the top of my head but it will say the number of children with an ehcp in the school and also the number on the SEN register. If the school governor just told you the percentage in your child's year group that's not confidential information.

Also, although children with conditions like adhd and dyslexia are unlikely to be diagnosed at the beginning of year 1 they may still be on the SEN register. My son is waiting for a referral to be assessed for autism and adhd. He's nearly 13 and will probably be nearly 16 before he gets a diagnosis. He has been on the SEN register since reception though.

There are loads of children who would have been in SEN school when I was at school who are now in mainstream. Also people are encouraged these days to embrace their differences and disabilities where as not that many years ago it would have been shameful to admit that you have a child with SEN.

In the last generation and the one before, there were ‘naughty kids’, and there were the ‘dumb kids’. Probably a number had additional challenges, but it wasn’t thought of, and definitely not addressed. In my schooling experience, they were sat outside, in a corner or in the principals office. From year to year until they aged out. Whether SEN is more prevalent now, I have no idea. But, for a society to identify and educationally assist a broader range of children has to help that society. At the same time, extending brighter kids is also very important (some who are SEN, some who are not). I’m not making any assessment of whether there’s enough funding or resources provided - I don’t know.

TBH, I'm not sure you're seeing SEN in the same way as the schools are.
DD has had some residual anxiety after the covid lockdowns, this lead to her being added to the SEN register at school, despite being pretty bright- 1st set maths, 2nd set sciences-out performing set 1 but is in second set so her main support within the school can keep an eye on her.

Aside from one member of staff trying to help her integrate into the wider school community, there hasn't been a great deal of support required or given.

Maybe lots of these children are just like my DD.

It may also be possible that these children are all requiring extra support given that their early years were quite disrupted by the lockdowns and couldn't attend the usual things like baby groups where they gained their earliest socialisation in other years- whilst at work, one of the men were saying that his wife is a teacher, and last year was a very strange intake because children's socialisation skills were far behind what was usual and educational skills were all over the place, some children had far outperformed what was expected, whilst others were nowhere near.

Because the school has identified those children have a need that goes beyond standard teaching. That could be accessing school counselling service or needing to have additional resources/services.

Is it a problem if these children are getting additional help?

Hmm.. for me my concern is if the state school has the additional support for the SEN children. My DD is neurotypical and went to a state school whereby they proudly took on a number of SEN children and had all of the badges and certification to show that they were open to taking in children with SEN.

the issue was that they didn’t seem to allocate the money properly to ensure the children thst needed it had the support. The good thing about her school is that they are very reactive and put measures in place when the parent demands it but unfortunately it seemed that after covid there was a spike in behavioural issues and that was the biggest disturbance.

The parents of the children had to have had a handle on it in order to communicate their child’s needs to the school and often this was too late.

My DD was in a situation where she was harassed by a child with additional learning needs - and it took a few months to sort it. When we dig deeper into the situation (a collaborative effort between myself, his mum, his support assistant and the teachers) - he, the other child did not have the support he needed throughout the school day. However the school allowed an obsession to become out of hand to the point my DD was physically harassed.

This is a rare case but I would say I am way more concerned about behaviour than SEN. And it’s the lack of support to tackle increasing poor behaviour that may be a combination of a mixture of factors, that has been more distractive.

For those saying that the governer needs training in confidentiality etc....what rules has she broken? She hasn't identified any of the children, she hasn't said what the SENs are, she hasn't given any identifying information whatsoever.

Oh for heavens sake.

Dyslexia affects 20% of pupils.

One in ten students have dyspraxia - diagnosed or otherwise.

That’s before you’ve considered autism, ADHD, relative executive delay, hearing loss, vision issues. Plus neglected children will be on staff’s radar as they can present with SEN symptoms.

SEN pupils aren’t a blob.

My child is autistic, with ADHD and dyspraxia. It took leaving the country for us to get a diagnosis. The gate-keeping in the U.K. is mind-blowing, and part of that gate-keeping is convincing the rest of you that people like our family are using the education system as a cashpoint. Don’t fall for it.

I think SATs are a big part of this. Schools are being judged on getting everyone across an arbitrary line. They have no incentive in stretching the brightest ones. I'm not sure what the answer is. I ended up sending my son to private secondary school as my elder child was so unstimulated at secondary school. As a PP said a lot of my friends' kids had SENs additional support. They're all at university now and doing really well.

As a governor in a SEN school, we are in England now in the situation where central government wants less ehcps and more kids in mainstream. Things can only get worse for everyone.

You have zero chance of speech therapy or OT unless you have a ehcp where I live, and zero chance with one. No therapy to improve the situation. My dd ehcp extra funding goes on the roof.

I'm surprised your surprised. SEN kids have alway been treated with contempt in my county by the LA. You reap as you sow. Under invest and it spills over.

Closing sure start centres, stopping early intervention, covid school and nursery closures.

My non verbal child was the only child in a class with 5 non verbal kids getting speech therapy. Aged 7. These problems was always there but no one saw or cared. With this new white paper is just becoming more visible, its not a new problem. It's just coming to a reception class near you now where as those kids should be having their needs met by a SEN school.

Totally agree! All my SEN kids do is cost me a fortune in extra support and medical needs. Costs that parents of regular kids don't have to pay personally. Never got anything useful from the diagnosis and would pay anything for them to not have SEN so their lives can be less difficult!

Its a very high percentage.

If you extrapolated that across the population, no, 1 in 3 children aren't outside of the range of what's normal in terms of their educational needs.

I thought my DCs school was high - there are already 5 children out of 30 in an infant class with diagnoses, but 2 of those have dad I know well who diagnosis shopped for adhd & asd diagnoses. In both cases the school saw no issue with the child, ed psych via school said no, NHS doctors said no, and both sets of parents saw 3 private specialists each, 2 of which said no diagnosis, before finding one who said yes. The dads have told me this openly. Make of that what you will.
I know most of the parents of the kids in class and have found it absurd how many have said to me they suspect their child is autistic. It's like we can't tolerate a normal range of personality diversity without a medical diagnosis any more.

One in 30 kids typically has a speech disorder so that usually accounts for 1, I think most classes have 1 child with dyslexia. I'd usually expect 1 more with autism or adhd although its becoming more and more prevalent.

Dyslexia affects 20% of pupils

Since when?

I think that information should not have been shared due to confidentiality, that said if I had heard that about my child's school I would also be concerned. I've thought about it and would concern me would be if or how that changed the nature of a classroom and also the emphasis in lessons. I don't know the answer - this thing is once you know this sort of information you can't unknow it and if it is a concern it is a concern.

From a medical article:

Common estimates of the prevalence of dyslexia fall in the range of 3 to 7 percent when specifying a criterion of scoring 1.5 standard deviations or more below the mean on measures of reading (Fletcher et al., 2019, Peterson & Pennington, 2012; Snowling & Melby-Lervag, 2016). Prevalence estimates are higher when the cut-off used for identification is less stringent. For example, by applying a cut-off of scoring at the 25th percentile in reading (which corresponds to approximately two-thirds of a standard deviation) and/or an IQ-achievement regression-based definition of 1.5 standard deviations, prevalence was estimated to be 17.4 percent of the school-age population

To get anywhere approaching 20% you are including kids because they are under the 25th percentile/are lower iq - that's not dyslexia, some people just aren't that academic or aren't the most amazing readers. Its like having a statistic that says 1 in 5 people are in the bottom fifth of the class academically, its meaningless. There are always going to be some children of lower ability than others in any group, SEN or otherwise.

This is what happens when you create a society in which a diagnosis of ‘disability’ ‘ADHD’, ‘SEN’ etc etc unlocks access to a plethora of lucrative benefits, entitlements, additional funding & preferential treatment.
Of course people are going to want to jump on the bandwagon to ensure they don’t miss out on all the free stuff. Why should they miss out?

Oh, don’t be ridiculous. I’m no expert on SEN but you only have to spend about 3 minutes on Mumsnet to see how desperate and exhausted most parents of children with SEN are - fighting for diagnosis with waiting lists of 2 years+, fighting for ECHPs, fighting for places at specialist schools (which are like hen’s teeth because specialist schools are expensive and being cut to the bone, and kids with all sorts of needs are being shoved into mainstream to the detriment of everyone concerned).

Anyway, do tell us more about the lucrative benefits and entitlements and preferential treatment and additional funding. I’m sure parents of kids with SEN would love to know about them.

DD’s former school had over 15 in a class on 30 on the SEN register. When I say over 15, I mean that there were 15 that I knew of feom knowing the parents. There could have been more.

The result was that the 121 TAs (there were 4 in the class) and the teacher were all overwhelmed, no one was supported to the level they needed to be and 1/3rd of the class changed schools by year 5 (my DD included) because they were so behind on learning.

Aren't some of you embarrassed at so openly displaying your intolerance of disabled children?

You should be.

If 1 in 3 human children was being born with clinical levels of disability what would that say about us as a species?