Thoughts on schools with high SEN population

[Dinoswearunderpants]

Hi

Hoping I don't get flamed here but I visited my first infant school yesterday as DS is due to start school next year.

I did not get a good feel for the school. It's classed as Outstanding but it felt utterly chaotic. It was like a maze and I appreciate the kids will likely just go from their room to the playroom/hall.

The school also said they have a high population of SEN children. This was evident as I saw at least 10 children walking around. They were in and out of the class rooms or doing various other activities. This clearly was disrupting other pupils.

They often had two kids to one adult. The class sizes are already large with three classes of 30 per year.

I appreciate schools have changed drastically since I went but I just didn't get a good feel.

There's one other school locally I'm due to view and that's classed as Good. They had a third less pupils and lower SEN.

I'm just wondering what things I should be looking for please as this is all very new to me.

Those % don’t tell you how many SEN diagnoses there are in a school. A child can be receiving SEN support and not have a SEN diagnosis and vice versa.

No, it’s literally numbers, for example ‘children under SEN 175’ children with an EHCP 12’

If you search the specific school, gov website and it should take you to the page that gives you this info, sorry I’ve forgotten what it’s called. On any school SEND policy it should have the exact numbers too. Of course it won’t tell you that nature of each child’s SEN, that private.

Pupils don’t need a diagnosis to be on the SEN register, classed as receiving SEN Support or to have an EHCP.

Yes, I know the gov pages you are talking about. Those numbers are not accurate to how many children actually have a SEN diagnosis. In my son’s previous class there were four children with a one plan who did not have a SEN diagnosis. My son was also given a one plan by the school when he was five due to a particularly bad bereavement, but no SEN diagnosis.

Yes, this.

Why does the diagnosis part matter? Many may be waiting for a referral or assessment and many may never get one.

It is important because some on this thread have posted ‘diagnosed SEN’. The legal definition of SEN does not require a diagnosis. A pupil may have SEN, and thus be counted in the % receiving SEN Support, and not have a diagnosis. Similarly, a pupil may have an EHCP, and thus be included in the % with EHCPs, and not have a diagnosis.

I never said it mattered. Some commenter way up the thread said high numbers of SEN only means high rates of diagnosed SEN. I said that wasn’t the case and now it keeps being regurgitated.

This story here, whilst perhaps at the extreme end, is why I wouldn’t be comfortable putting my child in a school with high levels of SEN children.
I am not saying that SEN children do not deserve to have an education. But why must it be at the expense of other kids?
Im not sure what age range you are teaching… but how on earth would you explain to a non-SEN 6 year old (for example) why so many of the other children in there class are behaving this way? This will appear to be a very low bar set for behaviour to a small non-SEN child… they can’t be expected to understand the complexities of the conditions these children have and it’s not fair that they should have to be taught along side them. Unpopular opinion, I know, but it’s just lowering the bar for everyone isn’t it?!

It was me that posted about diagnosed SEN. The point I was trying to make is that published numbers don't tell you anything about the actual prevalence of SEN. Which is woefully under diagnosed and under recognised. Especially in KS1.

The prevalence of children who are Neurodivergent will always be higher than the published numbers of those with agreed/diagnosed SEN and / or those with an EHCP.

I would advise any parent to be wary of choosing a school on the basis of low SEN numbers. It might just mean they are really poor at identifying and supporting those children.

Remember too that you can't catch SEN from other children.

But that is the point. A diagnosis is not required to be classed as having SEN.

And there will still be children who aren't classed as SEN but live with them.

In a poor school, yes.

My child has SEN and I have rejected a school with a high level of SEN that was SO chaotic when i viewed it. I know my DS would not be able to focus, he needs a school that is quieter otherwise he would join in the chaos.

I'm chosing a school with good SEN reputation but also manages to keep kids quiet and under control! (And it's academically great)

My DD understood different behaviour expectations for children with SEN that impacted their behaviour when she was in nursery. You just need to give an age appropriate explanation.

You're going to get picked apart by people who feel defensive here.

But yes, we faced the same conundrum last year - larger 'excellent' school with high SEND population, or smaller school, 'good' with lower SEND cohort. Chose the smaller school, hands down right decision.

There's a whitewashing in these replies about what it means to be in a class with a lot of SEND kids. There will be disruption, and there will be behavioural problems. Having gone to schools like this myself, I wouldn't send my kid if I didn't have to.

Knock it off. OP is looking out for her kid, and has a right to consider the options carefully.

Last year my daughter and her friend were repeatedly attacked by a kid with SEN (pushed to the floor, kicked), and this year she's come back with pinch marks on her arms from another child with SEN. And that's in a class with relatively low SEN numbers.

Why are you pretending this doesn't happen? It happend to me at school and it happens every single bloody day.

Remember too that you can't catch SEN from other children.

While this is obviously true of the conditions and disorders that cause a need for SEN support, if a school poorly manages their SEN provision and class management then the need for SEN support can indeed be ‘catching’. Young children going into a poorly managed behavioural environment will likely mirror other children’s behaviour. I have seen a class where 13 of the 16 boys in the class were placed on SEN support just to manage the class’s behaviour. Most of these boys were taken out of the school and their requirement for SEN support disappeared in the better environment.

As you said, however, the numbers don’t necessarily matter, how you feel about seeing the school in action does.

I'll admit here that when applying for my eldests reception I deliberately chose a school which had a much lower than national average SEN pupil numbers - lower ofsted rating (good) - there is another school just up the road which has an excellent reputation for SEN education support (ofsted rating outstanding) and is actually our catchment school but I didn't put it down.

Exactly. I was actually surprised by this, because I was under the impression that children were automatically counted if they met the threshold for a diagnosis or disability.

It means those numbers are, in practice, pretty meaningless and can give a false impression of the ACTUAL needs within a cohort.

While this is obviously true of the conditions and disorders that cause a need for SEN support, if a school poorly manages their SEN provision and class management then the need for SEN support can indeed be ‘catching’. Young children going into a poorly managed behavioural environment will likely mirror other children’s behaviour.
Hell yes. We lived through that, whilst another parent was in denial about their child's needs. We had to force issues because of the safeguarding implications for DS (it actually probably was a blessing that DS was under assessment for his own needs because we couldn't be phobed off as easily). One child not being managed adequately has massive implications for the rest of the class.

But thats part of the point here - one school with 6 kids in a class with SEN needs might be managing that well, whilst another school with 1 kid in the class with additional needs and resistant parents (and therefore not even on the SEN register) might be causing total chaos at the expense of all the other kids.

Our son is due to start school next September, so we face the same dilemma. What would be seen as a 'high number of SEN pupils'? The school we are keen one was listed with a 12% SEN ratio (across the entire school last year), would this be regarded as high?

I would personally class ‘high’ as a number that exceeds the average in England mainstream schools, which is 2.5% for those with a SEN EHCP and 13.5% for those with SEN support. The problematic school we encountered had 3.5% and 18.4% respectively.

That's high ish Elsa. By comparison DS' school has a special unit for some classes and is still only at 9%. I do think you need to get a "vibe" of the cohort more than anything, having SEN doesn't necessarily mean disruptive of the SLT have good plan in.

The aforementioned chaotic school I visited was at 12%

Where I live there’s a street with an autistic kid in every house (I know them). SEN is on the rise for various reasons but not least that we know more about neurodivergence and can label them (yes, a label can help) to give them the help they need.

Many girls are diagnosed around year 5. So give it time, there will be even more by the time you leave whichever school you choose. The mean kids are usually neurotypical in my experience.

I think your post doesn’t read how you meant it to, which is why so many people have quoted it.

I entirely agree with the point you are making around diagnosis.