To not understand how a third of Y1 has SEN?

[Powersout]

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?

100% this

How is it a confidentiality/ GDPR issue if the teacher did not identify specific children with SEN? I thought this was the kind of thing that was on public record (% of children with SEN, % of children having free school meals etc).

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.

Well hundreds of thousands of children receive disability benefits.

Then there's ECHP funding for additionsl support in school. It is a fight to get it but many do indeed get it and have 1 to 1s in school.

Then there are ad hoc educational adjustments like being allowed to drop a child to school 15 mins early, getting funded access to various activities, typically being allocated a higher proportion of small group time with the normal class TA at your table. The teacher often has to give a greater proportion of his/her attention to supporting children with ECHPs. Their time is not finite.

No one is saying these things outweigh the obvious disadvantages of SEN but they are valuable benefits nonetheless.

Your governor friend is the one being unreasonable, I’m afraid.
I presume she realises that being a school governor is a big responsibility and that she should not be sharing the confidential information.

School statistics on numbers of children both with echps and with SEN support are published as part of the dfe league tables.

Across england & wales, 2.5% of children have ECHPs and 13.5% sen support.

Was on a dog walk the other weekend with two TAs in state schools (I don’t know them).

In thr course of general chitchat, both said that in their separate schools, there are this school year more SEN kids than non-SEN.

they attributed this to the inability of the local authority to get many such kids places in specialist provision, becuase there aren’t enough places. They said that thr system is totally broken.

when they described the needs of some of the kids, it was really bad. Clear that they would benefit from full-on specialist support.

this is northern England.

sorry OP that doesn’t help.

In my experience my heavily funded (top up) EHCP awarded son acted as an extra resource for the class as his alleged dedicated 1:1 would frequently help other kids who were academically challenged or not so bright but had no EHCP. Sadly it was hard to prove but my son just told me. Also his scribed notes were minimal/ barely there. In essence, SEN means more money for the school via top up (high needs / low incident ) which may or may not be directed at the kid with funding. Many times the LSA will leave their pupil and help others especially as younger children just ask for the help. Also, the LSA will wrongly be told to help other kids as well as their own SEN student despite clear 1:1 dedicated wording in the EHCP. In other words, having kids with EHCPs (combined with top up) can be a good thing in the class as there might be 2 LSA’s in class instead of 1. As a parent of a kid with SEN I resented this piggy backing onto my son’s resource. Kids with severe enough SEN (ASD/ SLI or severe motor) come with 1:1 funding so should not impact other students. It’s kids who don’t have SEN but struggle a bit and who take away the disabled kids resource that’s an issue. My child would leave class with inadequate scribed notes as the LSA had been engaged elsewhere.

My daughter is registered sen at school , she is visually impaired in one of her eyes , medically her condition can’t be cured , she receives no extra help at school , she actually thrives at school , but they have an ehcp for her so they can get extra funding for the school , I never labelled her sen , her teacher asked if they could put her on an ehcp to get the extra funding and I agreed , so she would make up the schools percentage of sen children but she actually receives no additional help , but it allows the school to get a little bit extra money which helps all the children in the long run . Disability’s arent always visible and just because there’s a high percent of children registers as Sen in your child’s year it doesn’t mean that will take the teachers attention away from her, very small minded post in my opinion.

The intervention a child needs on the SEN register can be very different. This can vary from 5 minutes with a TA a couple of times a week to needing full-time support. So the question is not just how many children have SEN but how many need a lot of support.

they have an ehcp for her so they can get extra funding for the school

This isn't how it works.to actually have any funding attached to it, an echp has to say why and what the funding is needed for. So any money they are receiving will be because there was a clear specific need identified in the document - it could be for example for visual aid equipment or software subscriptions that make the curriculum more accessible for a child with impaired vision.

These aren’t ‘benefits’, these are adjustments to enable SEN children and their families to have a chance at living a full, happy life as their neurotypical peers! How can you not see that?!

It completely depends on the cohort but, yes I've had this.

I've had classes where I've had 7-10 with complex SEN. You should be worried about how your DD's teacher is managing her workload. It is very, very worrying the amount being piled onto teachers right now. However, with the correct support the numbers of children with SEN should be a non-issue. Unfortunately, the government doesn't recognise that.

Why shouldn't the friend have said that? It's not like she's sharing information about particular children...nothing wrong with transparency and is something that all parties should know about in my opinion.

When I first became a teacher in 1991 we had children with SEND in the classes. We also had classes of 30. We have more children with SEND now and we still have class sizes of 30.
Throughout my whole teaching career the two things I can honestly say I have seen work to help all children are slightly smaller class sizes, 20 not 30 and slightly fewer lessons for the teachers.
Both of these cost a lot of money. As a country if we want to help SEND school children and non SEND children we need to pay more taxes.
Or we need to collect the ones we already have.
It is a massive red herring in my opinion to look at how many SEND kids there are and what impact they do or don't make.

What ignorant rubbish. Many of us have been driven to home schooling to give our children something of what the schools can't provide. We give up our careers, jobs, social groups, exercise classes, relationships and become isolated. Instead we get to pay extra money out of our single income (if we're partnered) to fund what our children need. Spend hours sitting in hospitals. Develop health anxiety because god only knows what happens to our children (who may be quite dependent) if we die. Our hearts get broken over and over again. We get told their activities can't be funded because what they need doesn't meet the criteria. But what does fit the criteria doesn't meet their needs. So you get nothing. Your own health suffers. That's my life anyway and my kids aren't as severe as many. I wish I could be ignorant of all this.

I believe it.
Im a reception teacher and my class last year (now year 1) were the hardest year I’ve ever had. I would 30% of the class have specific needs. 25% of them are in the process of diagnosis/assessments. These range from general learning difficulties, emotional and behavioural difficulties, adhd, autism. The year 1 teacher is having a really hard time with them as so many are needing support!

They went on strike.

I thought you were concerned for the wellbeing of this 20 kids when I started reading, but no, you are concerned about the impact on your child, I see!

As others have said, this information shouldn't have been shared with you, first because it's confidential, second because assumptions would be made exactly as you have done, since you don't fully understand what SEN means.

Your child will probably be fine, we all have to learn about difference in life.

Your friend is not fit to be school governor if she feels it acceptable to share confidential school data on such a casual basis.
Such figures are compiled by the school as the statutory requirement for internal processing and answerability to local authority requirements, and the garden fence understanding you are attempting is devoid of any understanding or context.
If it is something published ie by the school for the public, that's different.
Your friend is a rubbish governor.

Sorry, I realise you were asking something else, its just what leapt out at me.

What do you expect in a country that's hugely overpopulated, and SEN departments that are hugely underfunded.

One of my sons attends a SEN school and it was extremely difficult to get him into it, they had to over subscribe his year group because so many parents applied!

The issue here isn't the mainstream school, or your friend who clearly shouldn't be a school governor, but the government.

This kind of information should not be kept secret. The capacity of children to learn is a key to improving standards.

Indications of totals of SEN, free school meals and other social markers are vital if parents are to make informed decisions about the education of their own children. Note totals NOT identifying individuals.
Parents denied this information will have to rely on the school to do the right thing. It is getting a bit close to "The state knows best. Rely on us." Which might be politically inspired or a social experiment like bringing in Drag artists to demonstrate sex lessons.
Keep the light on. Tell us all.

My son is in a mainstream reception and absolutely should be in specialist (he will from next year), there's another boy in his class who should be too. You don't realise the fight for specialist schools it's crazy.

I think years ago many children would have just struggled and been ignored. There's just better awareness now

It varies from area to area I live in the northwest of a England with a child in a special.school ,in my LEA we have two.special needs primary schools and two special.needs high school
One of the primary schools and one of the secondary schools cater for children with moderate to severe learning disabilities and the latter two cater for children with severe to.profound learning disabilities
There are also various hubs ,for children with autism whose needs cannot be met in mainstream school.and some pupil.referral units
I realise the provision is better than a lot of places

What would it say to you?

If a child needs a one to one to provide their basic work. How is that a benefit? It's not benefits for a child to be able to access curriculum and do bare minimum with extra support. I am a special needs parent with daughter woth high needs, I'm certainly not getting any benefits for it and wouldn't wish this life on anyone . I've been 'given 60 hours respite a year and cannot actually use it as no where has space. I also have younger daughter I rightly don't get any respite care from her as I don't need it!
If a child needs x amount of support to get from a to b and another child doesn't need any extra to get from a to b , the first child isn't getting anything extra th3 2nd child doesn't need it. They are getting what they need to access the same curriculum! I hate this whole would wouldn't want to jump on bandwagon! It's so disingenuous , anyone want to swap with me if be super happy with! 🙄

SEN children don't necessarily impact the learning of non SEN children but children with behavioural issues can and do impact all children in a class. The last couple of cohorts have had much higher needs than years before.

At preschool level there is little additional funding to support children with more complex needs but we do start the ball rolling with starting EHCPs etc.

We can manage the needs of children with speech and language delays and ASD etc within the group unless it comes with more difficult behaviours such aggression nd meltdowns. This is where they need constant one to one support and we simply can't have one person tied to one child without it impacting on the rest of the group. These children often then follow into mainstream because it can be difficult to get places in schools more suited to their needs until schools can also evidence their needs. I think you get more complex SEN needs in reception and Y1for this reason too.