SEN class help needed

[Highschoolmum1]

My child is in year 7, been at the school for 7 weeks in a nice form with some friends from primary school all was going fine. 1st week back after half term they are put into 'groups' they stay in the same group for all lessons other than form. My child has ehcp in place, is not naughty or destructive. His group is a group of all the sen children and children with behaviour problems (his two good friends are still in this class with him as they also sen)so the group of 30 is at least half full of children who are feral no other word for it. They are Swearing at the teachers telling them to fuck off I was fucking doing it, they are destructing every single lesson with teachers running after them because they point blank will not do as they are asked. We are 2 days in and the things he is coming home telling me I am shocked that children actually behave this way. Now my question is just because my child has sen and ehcp should he be made to be in this class? He is already below expected in his learning and I feel that getting no learning done is only going to make him fail more or are the school right to keep him in this class.

Unfortunately it is likely that there will be a higher level of behaviour issues if there is a higher level of SEN. Of course there are many children with SEN who don't behave that way.

The school is likely to group children with EHCP for ease of provision. Sadly I keep hearing a lot of similar issues.

It just seems so wrong. He has a right to learn like every other child so why should he not be able to learn because other children are not behaving for whatever reason. It is not just children with EHCPs that are in the class also. I could understand if it was literally labelled as a sen class but its not its just a group of 30 of what seems the baddest children from the year, with the sen children thrown in with them. He is quiet and this is not the right environment for him 😓

Is this a policy change or have the always set like this in all subjects? I find it odd, my son's school is very academic focused and they only set in Maths and Science. He did get put in a bottom group for languages despite them not officially setting but that is because he missed half his languages lessons and did additional literacy stuff instead. This class only had about 15 kids in it, a number were always suspended or on part time timetables so most times there were only about 8 of them in the class. He came home with some great stories and learnt no French. I wouldn't have been happy if that was the case in all subjects.

It is reasonably common for secondary schools to start students off in mixed ability and then move to setting.

In setting the groups are by ability and yes, this normally does mean that the Sen students are in with the badly behaved ones.

In some schools there are enough staff to separate them and essentially run two bottom sets - one Sen and one behaviour.

I'm being told it isn't sets because he is in group 2. Group 1 being top set. But they are saying they are just in groups not sets there are 5 groups. And yes this is across every single subject apart from form time. I don't really agree that they are in the same group for all because someone could easily be really good at maths but rubbish at French for example, but that's the way they are doing it. I don't think he would be in bottom set if they were in sets because some children got 0 on tests where he got 29 out of 60 which I know is not great but it isn't 0.

@Highschoolmum1 it really will depend on the school but honestly it is very likely that any set will include the 29 out of 60 with the 0. Generally there is more divisions at the top end. But that's just my experience.

Is it possible you can highlight things from his EHCP / any letters detailing his diagnosis / maybe get back up from the occupational therapist - that explicitly contradict the learning environment he is now in?

ie if he has auditory processing problems so lots of shouting out in class will mean he can’t differentiate teacher instructions from classmates being difficult and making noise.

its the only thing I can think that you may be able to use to argue that he cannot be placed in this group going forward.

but I think you’ll need to be very specific in what you say and how you argue it

The school have successfully been following this method of 'groups' for many years and have a good ofsted report so I'm guessing I will just have to ride it out and have faith they know what they are doing. Thanks for the advice.