To be so angry that people like this are in charge of SEND budgets

[Dalmatron]

Has anyone seen the thread on twitter/X about the Warwickshire Councillors at the scrutiny panel for SEND spending?

I am so angry!

Some quotes:
(Talking about institutions) "They had better ways of dealing with them at that time. Let's go back to those ways"
"I don't know what the fix is, I just look back at years gone by those people by whatever means, it was right at the time".
"Is it something in the water?"
"Families are swapping tips to get diagnosed"
"Why are there so many people jumping out with these needs? Where were they when I was at school?"
"Why do so many people have this badge of SEND and special needs?"
"To stop this spend fix the problem at source"
"the plea of a Mother saying Little Willy has ADHD when Little Willy is just really badly behaved & needs some form of strict correction"

How can people like this be in these positions? Why has nothing been done to remove them or apologise? I felt sick watching these clips.

Warwickshire Council thread

Sadly, every time I see a "family granted £X000 for council failing to give a school place for 18 months," I see why the councils do it.

The amount granted in compensation to the parents is always less than what it would have cost to fund a suitable EHCP for the length of time in question. Suitable support is very expensive.

Councils are broke and can't afford to support the children appropriately.

There needs to be a better system, but I don't know what it would be. The EHCP system is stressful and screws up the whole point of early intervention. It hurts me to see the children in mainstream not getting the support they need. The same with SEN schools who don't have the staffing levels needed to support the needs of the children in them.

hes right on the point about the issue needed to be tackled at source. However this means better early intervention and Sen funding when it’s first needed for low level interventions rather than nothing and letting things escalate. I don’t think this is what he was getting at though

I think SEND costs and provisions have to be removed from LAs.

a massive drive for send schools being built or repurposing a few main stream schools and funnelling provisions that way.

but there has been a massive increase in numbers and cost and it’s both unfair and unrealistic to place the logistics and costs on local authorities.

these comments are heavy handed and ignorant but there is a ticking time bomb going off in regards to send provision and central government needs to wake up

It sounds awful of me but I was dreading my youngest child getting a dx of Autism (I have 2 other children with Autism also).
I can see people roll there eyes, speak about my children behind my back that I must be doing something to them for them all to be like this.

My middle son was DX at 3 and they go to a sen school.
My youngest wasn't dx until age 5 because the paediatrician wanted to make absolute sure that Autism was what my child had and not anything environmentally was contributing.
It's hard enough having to parent Children/adults with Sen, fighting for everything that a lot of children wouldn't have to without people that are supposed to look out for these children basically implying parents are making this up!
Do they not realise how hard it is to be heard in the first place.

And can I just say, even if you are lucky enough to get an EHCP for your child.
Most schools are so short staffed they have no way to fully implement it!
I feel for the schools,the parents but mostly the children.

Well disabled children didnt have a right to education until the 70s and the warnock report was late 70s which lead to more inclusive legislation in the early 80s. Since 1997, 120 special schools have closed. so some of the older counsellors might have seen very little sen and assumed it didnt it exist.

I think one issue is austerity. There is a focus on schools which have been stripped bare in staffing levels, but the support around them has vanished too. Try getting timely speech and language therapy. We used to get children starting school and their notes would say they had weekly salt for 6 months and had been discharged as they had improved. We now get children who are on a waiting list - they might get to the top of the list by year 2 and then its an assessment and a TA delivers any recommendations and the salt comes back to review progress next year.

I spoke to the head of Sen services at our council recently due to ongoing issues getting issued with EHCP (thankfully all sorted). She said that the world won't adapt for my son (diagnosed adhd and autistic) and he doesn't need to be in a special school as life "isn't like that". I was flabbergasted that she said that! I made a complaint which was upheld, son now has a place in a special school after a 2 year fight! How do these people get these jobs with these views?

I feel like this has been the attitude for a long time.

My DS had a joint assessment with an NHS physio and OT about 9 years ago. They both decided that DS was fine, I then presented them with the private report from an OT. The physio walked out of the room.

A few weeks later I was at a book
club. A physio was there (she worked with the one DS saw) and she was complaining that parents were paying for diagnosis, paying to get support their children didn’t need which was putting pressure on their services. I had known her for years and was really upset by her comments because she didn’t take into account that parents were paying privately out of desperation to get their child’s needs met.

Im mid forties and can now see which children in my class had SEN such as ASD and ADHD. I remember spending a lot of time on projects, we were able to work more at our own pace.

@Dalmatron I can explain exactly why the number of people being diagnosed with ASD (not including the self-iding who just want to be special (yes we all know atleast 1)) is increasing, its the fact that up until the 90s Dr's believed that women and girls could not have autism! Even after they accepted that we can and do have it, they didn't bother to change the assessment criteria which completely ignored asd traits in girls/women and only focused on males. It's only been in the last decade that they've started to change the assessment to include the female asd traits.
What this means is in the real world is that up until the 90s zero females were diagnosed, from the late 90s-mid 2010s only the most severely affected females received a diagnosis. Now we are picking up the majority of girls who are assessed (and they are actually being recognised by schools and sent for assessment) which is a automatic 100% increase plus all of the women who were misdiagnosed as having BPD or were just never given any diagnosis other than hysterical etc.
Realistically all we are seeing is asd being shown at its true rate of about 3-4% of the general population rather than the 1-2% that was believed to be the rate when you only diagnosed half the population ie the males, by measuring it against the whole population. This is a good thing and rates of diagnosis in females will eventually lower to be roughly comparable with males once they have caught up with the women in their 20s-80s who weren't diagnosed as children.

I can't say why there is more SEN in mainstream school nowadays. I am sure there is no one single reason. We have people becoming parents older, more chemicals in things, children not being beaten into submission any more and higher levels of disability being included in mainstream classes. I certainly never went to school with anyone nonverbal.

I do know that my children are struggling massively and being let down at every turn. The mainstream school environment is overwhelming at primary and I imagine that will get worse in secondary, if they make it that far. I am not in this for the benefits, of which we currently receive none apart from child benefit. They won't be doing exams for years, so it's not about getting them extra time. At least if they were dumped in a remedial class of old, they would have smaller classes!

It's the same old story that the most vulnerable are being failed, as they have been for the history of schooling. There aren't the resources given to mainstream schools and special school places are reduced. Everyone loses as the children who can do well in mainstream have more disruption and less resource availability.

I think there are so many factors at play.
I know our local specialist school is being rebuilt but even though there is currently a waiting list to get in, the new school won't have any additional capacity because more children are expected to be in mainstream school.

I work with some non-verbal, highly sensory children in mainstream settings. They have very limited language and are unable to access any part of the curriculum.

I also work with a lot of teens (many autistic) who seemed to lose their ability to mask whilst in lock down. They are struggling to cope with the noise and behavior of other students and are dropping out of school because they are too anxious to function in that environment.
I also work with young people who have parents who appear to be looking to use their children as a meal ticket. And currently I have a large number of parents asking me for the same piece of equipment. This feels very fishy and I'm sure there is parent collusion going on. I will only prescribe if there is a clinical need and, in the case of restraint equipment, have all other avenues been explored because restraint has to be the last resort l, not a quick fix/easy option.

When I was in the 3rd year at Secondary school in the 70's/80's, my form room was opposite the Portakabin which housed what was known as the 'Remedial' class. So there were most definitely children with SEN in mainstream school back then. Furniture throwing was definitely evident on a regular basis.
I agree that there are clearly more DCs with a diagnosis, or trying to get one , now but looking back I can recall a number of children at my Secondary who would have an ASD diagnosis now (who probably didn't then).

I'm afraid I have witnessed all sorts of prejudicial comments against parents and DCs with SEN amongst both elected representatives and employees (in commissioning jobs) at the LA. All said in the name of protecting their budgets.

My daughter has dyslexia and is on the SEN register and the provision just for her low level needs has been appalling. I’m having to pay for private tutors and private assessments just so she can maintain some level of parity with her peers.

I do think part of the issue with escalating SEN is the draconian conditions in schools these days. If you are neurodiverse and being forced to be a round peg in a square hole for 7hrs a day, it’s going to take a lot out of you. The insane sanctions for anything from looking out of a window to taking longer to read a passage to even taking your jacket off because you’re hot - of course that’s all going to make even low level SEN diagnosis almost uncomfortable to bear.

if we allow children to be individual at school, rather than forcing everyone to conform perhaps life would be better for everyone

Councils actively recruit them. Any empathetic and helpful send staff burn out and leave. I know of one case where the local council deliberately hired an aggressive male solicitor to push back requests for funding. Yes there are increasing tribunals but in all likelihood so many parents probably do give up. It’s an adversarial process that takes time, energy and knowledge lots of parents don’t have.

And IMO that white, older, male councillor was a twat and emblematic of so many problems in the system ie uninformed and blaming individual families.

It's really frightening that people with this level of stupidity and ignorance are in public office. What also stuns me is the sheer arrogance of speaking in a public forum about something about which they blatantly have made no attempt to inform themselves.

I don't believe there has been the massive increase in SEND that they claim. As one of the councillors, to his credit, pointed out, the reason they weren't conscious of children with SEND in their youth was that too many were locked away in institutions. The reality also is that in the past obvious SEN were ignored: when I look back on my schooldays, none of my classmates were diagnosed as having SEN, but I can certainly pick out the ones who were autistic, dyslexic, dyspraxic, had ADHD etc. They were unfortunately left to trundle along at the bottom of the B set, or if they were lucky sent for "remedials" from well-meaning teachers who didn't really know what they were doing. I refuse to regret the fact that we now recognise and help children like that.

Are you sure about that figure for EHCPs? It really doesn't sound likely, and if it has happened it mostly suggests your council was failing to recognise SEN prior to covid.

I've thought about this before but I can honestly say that my class in primary school (in an extremely rough and deprived area) didn't have many "naughty" kids. There was one boy in my class who was a cheeky little toad, he was from a very problematic family however he was just a product of his upbringing.

The catchment area of the school that we grew up in was in an area where substance misuse and chaotic families were rife but while we could all have our moments misbehaving, we were nice kids and all rubbed along really well. This was in the 80s.

Councils are on the verge of going bust but that is due to reductions in fundung from central government. Some areas are blaming SEN, other areas the elderly. There isnt enough money to deliver statutory services. Its very scary if you need these services.

As an anecdote to support those saying it’s not necessarily that send is becoming more common but just more awareness…

My eldest Dd11 has a combined adhd and asd diagnosis. I think it’s fairly well acknowledged that neurodiversity runs in families. I can see that my Dm is very plainly autistic. At school she was quiet, compliant, flew under the radar but had crippling anxiety. As an adult she now still suffers with social anxiety, has lots of sensory issues, struggles with relationships and communication. This would have been my dd if we hadn’t fought for support for her and ultimately gotten a dx. My hope is that as dd has support and we are aware she will grow up understanding herself and be able to advocate for herself and ultimately will be able to thrive as an adult.

On the flip side, I think there needs to be an acknowledgement that resources need to be targeted to those most in need. I read that up 50% of the population have nuro ‘traits’. I can see this in myself and family. We don’t all need a diagnosis as most of us cope with life just fine. Perhaps if this was acknowledged in society, and schools in particular were more sympathetic and understanding to diversity, then we wouldn’t have the clamouring for diagnosis that we do now.

For 20 years we’ve had a government who has not only shut down initiatives like sure start that tackled early years issues before children went to school. They’ve cut health and social care. This has created a bottleneck with kids going into education with no intervention.
It costs more money and this is having a massive impact on services.
It’s not rocket science just a shambolic conservative government

I went to school in the 80s & 90s and nobody would have ever considered me to have a SEN. I was in the top sets, behaved perfectly and was often chosen to represent my school. When I crashed and burnt at 15, the school told my parents they were pandering to me and to get me back into school. Only my parents had seen the daily emotional outbursts for years. I spent the next decade in and out of psychiatric and eating disorder units, before someone suggested I might have ASD. And I think similar stories are true for many, suggesting a lots of SEN went under the radar.

that said, I have been asking professional opinions of my son since he was three. Now aged 8, his school is telling me that he cannot be autistic because he makes eye contact (!). They have now agreed to refer him for screening, but it's taken seven months for the teacher to do the paperwork because she has so many children with EHCPs whose needs legally come first. I almost feel like w have come full circle and whereas I missed out due to lack of understanding, he is missing out due to lack of resources/ resources being overwhelmed.

Not read the whole thread

But in answer to "Where were they when I was at school?"

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/overviewoftheukpopulation/mar2017/previous/v1

UK population

1975 56,226,000

• The current population of U.K. in 2024 is 67,961,439, a 0.33% increase from 2023.

The answer is we have more than 10 million more people living here now than in 1975. I don't have time to dig into the above excellent article but for whatever reason (age, illness, anything really) the percentage of that 10 million who are actually working and generating money in order to pay for this SEND spending seems very likely to be extremely low.

Meantime a disproportionately high percentage of people are being diagnosed.

In my own family, my dad clearly has dyslexia and ASD. He left school at 14 without any qualifications and did factory work (60/70s). Nowadays he would have been referred for assessment.

I potentially am ND also. Made it through school academically no problem, but was bullied from the off and just generally an odd child - teachers commented that I was "different". Nowadays I would have been referred for assessment. Everything fell apart for me in my late teens and I have an BPD diagnosis (90/00s).

My children are similar to me as a child. One has an ASD diagnosis (received age 9). The other is awaiting assessment.
Greater awareness is part of it.

But, I have a family member who worked in a special school from the 80s to the 2020s. She said the population of the school has drastically changed in that time. In the 80s it was mostly children with very high levels of physical needs as well as learning disabilities. Many sadly did not make it to adulthood.

By the time she retired the school was entirely full of children with high levels of needs due to autism. I wonder if the first sort of children are perhaps just not born in such numbers anymore due to prenatal testing and/or prenatal/birth care means that they do not develop these health problems/birth injuries. The children in the special school now weren't hidden in mainstream in earlier generations - they weren't the kids like me or my dad. So why are there more of them now, is it just the population increase as PP says?

Same for me. I went to primary school in the 90s. Village life in Germany with children from all kinds of social backgrounds. From 24 kids in one class there were two disruptive and failing.

I'm not sure why the increase in SEND but even in my daughters nursery class there are ten parents with 2 year olds who all apparently have some diagnosis pending. In years to come we might find out it's environmental factors or something else but I don't buy into the "there's always been this amount of SEN children"

He raises a really crucial point in a very clumsy and outdated way. We really need to somehow prepare ourselves for the impact this level of special needs will have on the workforce in 10+ years. We’re stony broke as a country as it is. The situation is going to be desperate. I’m really worried about it.