All these issues with schools!

[Capercaille]

I feel so sorry for schools and teachers these days. All I see on here is contant moaning and whining!

Has it always been like this?!

The range of SEND is enormous and many many SEN children really are best educated in properly funded mainstream schools. Funding is the issue for all children in education.

There is a need for more specialist provision but it’s not needed or beneficial for 1/4 of children.

This..

But also this...

@OhMargaret

Because as mentioned upthread SEN/D children are not a homogenous blob.
It encompasses a huge range of need.
My current foster child attends a small SEMH school, class of 8, 2 staff. It's still not right for him.
Sticking 100s of children with a huge range of need in a few schools just doesn't work.

I think there are teachers with understanding of SEND, but maybe insufficient knowledge. Every child with SEND is different, has different needs, requires different management ( for want of a better word) and has different responses.

Years ago the CoP for SEN stated that the expectation was that 3 children in a class of 30 would have needs sufficient to warrant additional support and a smaller proportion would require a statement, now EHCP. Clearly, the numbers are much greater now and I’d agree that it’s closer to 25% than 12%.

At the beginning of this century, funding for SEND could be diverted to other needs in schools. I made myself unpopular by insisting that the SEND budget be spent on the children it was intended for. There are certainly children who are ND and have difficulty coping in school and their response is to challenge. There are children who are NT and display behaviour that’s difficult to manage in a classroom and impacts on the learning of others.

Again, in the early 2000s, my school had an inclusion room, staffed by senior staff. A child who was not responding to the usual sanctions could be sent, with work, for the remainder of the lesson. Of course, the work hardly ever came with them, certain children would ‘arrange’ with their mates to be sent there and as a member of staff, its intimidating to be faced with 20 people who have no desire to be there, or even in school. I had six lessons a week in there and the only time I’ve had to hide my tears is in that room.

It’s complex and very difficult, but it’s about appropriate funding, appropriate skills, appropriate placements, support services of all kinds and parents who are invested in the education of their children and support them and the school they attend.

Tittat50
-People listen to children now so rotten teachers can't get away with as much abuse

It also means that a lot of good teachers are being investigated for doing their jobs and if their face doesn't fit being forced out of the profession.

I think there are teachers with understanding of SEND, but maybe insufficient knowledge.

There is an assumption here, which is increasingly untrue, that the child has a teacher.

When I was at school many years ago teachers were far more educated than parents and so were held in high esteem and could do no wrong. The child was always wrong and the SEN children would be left to day dream if quiet or removed from the school if not.
When my children were at school it was difficult to actually contact the school - the receptionist was akin to those at the GP, teachers wouldn't get back to you and complaints were ignored and the only time you could actually speak to a teacher was at the open evening where the teacher seemed to read from a script.
Now my younger siblings are forever complaining - they have email, class what's app groups and much more demanding plus fathers being more involved and supportive.

I think children with send are often the canaries in the coal mine with education - they suffer most visibly when the classroom is chaotic, the teacher is overwhelmed/poorly trained/ not a teacher, and the curriculum expectations are overly rigid, but other children are also affected.

it is true that the lack of send schools and massive backlogs in all aspects of send assessment and provision mean there are kids in mainstream that shouldn’t be. The majority of send could be (and historically has been) taught in mainstream, but cannot cope in the current environment.

Yes because the system is so rigid and ‘one size fits all” now that unless your brain works in a very specific way and you fit the mould of the person it was designed for you are going to struggle. The lack of send schools is not the problem. The diversity of brains is not the problem. The problem is the environment.

My daughter has autism and other diagnoses. She hasn't attend full-time school for over a year. Her behaviour is not disruptive at all - in some ways this has hindered getting support because she is so quiet as to be almost invisible. Nonetheless, trying to meet her needs does require time and effort from school staff. They need to seat her specially, remember not to ask her to answer questions, remember to send across lesson resources from the lessons she can't attend. This is just for one, non-disruptive child.

Trying to meet all the different types of need with ever-limited resources is impossible.

There is no support for autistic children outside of school, apart from a limited amount from the charitable sector. The NHS dismisses all mental health difficulties as something to just be expected with autism.

Absolutely, the problem is the environment. The most rigid structure imaginable and teachers have to produce results with a huge diverse cohort.

Because each SEN child is different, it's complex. My son is academically capable. He's average to above in all classes. But he shouts out, moves, fidgets, gets overwhelmed and frustrated ( he never ' kicks off') but he's not stupid and with a lack of understanding re social rules will argue back if he sees something is unjust or unfair. This is time consuming, disruptive and annoying to others. But, with the most wonderful teacher and some very minor accommodations in mainstream ( these behaviours calm right down) and results are wonderful.

I think mainstream really is the right place for loads of SEN kids but they need additional resources to enable kids to have extra support. TAs would be a gigantic help for a start. Separate learning spaces for kids who are overwhelmed and disruptive because of it. There's so much that could be done here.

I wish someone would also overhaul this ridiculous curriculum. The ' problem' with many ND kids is their ability to see through bullshit, not conform to the bullshit and then ask why am I being subjected to this bullshit. I'm finding it increasingly harder to be positive about the system when child asks why.

( Homeschooling is not an option and I don't think child would like it after a week).

@noblegiraffe it's true in core subjects that classes that are small tend to be so because students are struggling in the subject, but when you teach an option subject, as I do, classes may be big or small for all sorts of reasons often unrelated to the ability of the student.

My subject, a current affairs subject that lends itself to discussion, works best between 18-25 students. Fewer than that and the atmosphere can be lacking (and student ability differences/SEND can make those students feel conspicuous) and more than that and it's a struggle to fit everyone in and move (I mostly teach 16-18 year olds).

I struggle to keep on top of marking essays once overall numbers reach 70ish.

It doesn't help that TA funding comes attached to a particular child with a statement or EHCP so if that child moves schools perhaps from mainstream to other provision then the funding for that TA will be cut. Does the TA have to leave or reduce their hours if shared between two or three children as the school cannot make up their salary as budgets are so tight. Who would take on a job like that with such insecurity?

Often, people who don't have many other job options at the time.

That's not to insult TAs, many of whom in my experience are good, kind and diligent.

But the salary makes it a starter/stop gap/pin money job.

This.

My DD just 15 has been out of school since April. She is in no way disruptive or annoyance to others. She is shy to the point of being timid and will do anything to fade in to the background.

the one size fits all approach is no good. Sooner this is done away with, the better.

Labour are reducing options ever further, they are wedded to 1 size fits all

Labour are screwed because the Tories left them with an education system in crisis and no money with which to even come close to fixing it.

The outcome of the curriculum review will be interesting.

I appreciate that but if the number is truly 25% it must be having a catastrophic effect on the other three quarters of the children. Surely the kids who can cope with mainstream school should be streamed - not only for their own sake but for the sake of anyone getting any kind of education at all.

I am a Governor and I have been absolutely shocked and horrified at how much teachers have to do/deal with before they can even think about teaching.
Parents are also a HUGE problem, most issues could be solved with better parenting, although quite a lot of the bad parenting is because they can't not won't

@OhMargaret

Why would you think that they are not streamed?

Please can we stop assuming that SEND means "academically behind"? It doesn't. It may, but there are DC in every school with some kind of SEND who are extremely able and are in top sets/streams (where applicable).

I have mentioned my DH further up the thread. He once got more than 100% in an O level (think it was Physics) as because he was so bored in all the time he had left over, he went back and re-solved some of the questions using a different method...

Because it's been stated on this thread several times, including by teachers who feel unable to teach..

I agree.

There should be a balance. It wasn't great in the 'old days' when parents had little input but it's gone too far the other way and the complaints I see on MN that are made towards teachers suggest that parents have or think they should have so much input that they're dictating to teachers how they think they should teach or mange their classroom/pupils and that isn't healthy and must take up an inordinate amount of teachers time fielding all these queries/complaints.

I work in a mainstream primary school, but in an SEN provision. We have 8 KS2 children who all have different needs, ADHD, ASD, behavioural problems. (These children can not be in their normal class because they wouldn't cope and the other children wouldn't cope having them there)
It's tough. On Thursday one of my kids picked up a chair and went to throw it at me. When Mum was told all we got was 'oh, I'm sorry'
This same Mum let's her child play 18+ video games and doesn't check what he's watching. (We know this because when asked she replied 'yeah, probably')
Honestly, we do our best every day. These children are getting an education with love and care, but if there's no support at home it's like we are wasting the days!
We also have amazing parents who are on board with us every day and are really trying to help us as much as we help them. Swings and roundabouts 🤷