To think children are being excluded from school too easily?

[RibbyJumper]

Children and their welfare come first in any school - surely?

My DC had an EHCP before DC started reception. The school wanted to refuse DC’s placement. After a fight DC is in the mainstream school with extra funding (9 til 3 daily). DC can do Maths/Reading/Writing, has friends and is no behaviour problem. DC is very quiet and easily overlooked.

I’m so cross that they ever tried to exclude DC before DC had even started school.

DC is now in year 1 and there is no way DC gets his allocated provision. They’ve used it to fund other things.

However I now hear that the school have essentially excluded two other children in Year 1 in the afternoons. They stay for the morning and go home at lunchtime.

This is wrong isn’t it? What the hell is happening in our schools??

You miss my point. Every child with SEN deserves a high standard of education. It is inefficient to mix the kids up. My child has SEN and I would lump them in the ‘mainstream school’ cohort as a heck of a lot of SEN kids are - like mine - very high achieving and would be able to attend mainstream secondary school if the provision was a calm place to be. Currently the non-stop disruption / uproar means that it is sensory overload and there is no way they’d cope.

The current ‘inclusion’ model fails absolutely everyone.

I know many families are struggling too. What is the alternative though? We don't fund education appropriately? We can look at how we allocate funding. We can look at how/where tax revenue is raised.

What we cannot do is continue to underfund education. It costs too much in the long-term.

My DC is in year 1 and now comes home at lunch time. The school say they can't cope with his behaviour, he is 5!
They are hoping to get him an EHCP but I know there is a massive wait and it doesn't mean he'll be approved.
We actually have another DC who has an EHCP and is in year 3 and he's never been on a reduced timetable.
I'm trying to do some basic home schooling with DC to try and keep him learning, he's already missed out on lots.

As has been mentioned, it is the system and one size does not, has never, suited all children.

Schools are often running on fumes, are too large, struggling for staff and we'd do better to look at what makes a difference to children much earlier on in education and whether funding up front is the way to go, rather than our government then panicking over NEETs! I've worked in the sector and children that were in the right schools, with the right provision, do far better, whether they have additional needs, disabilities, are bright, quiet.... and when I've met adults, that were lucky enough to have had that specialist support / been in schools with specialist units, the difference is huge between those left at the back of a classroom, struggling with inadequate or no support and those in environments geared to help!

Schools push back against students with additional needs, as they often just can't cope with the students already on role in many instances and a child might be capable of mainstream schooling, with a small amount of support, but when in a classroom where there is inadequate support for those with substantially more issues, they too will struggle, as something, somewhere has to give.

A friend was a support assistant, was good at the role, had some good training, but gave it up, due to the issues of teachers increasingly pushing on to her all of the students that needed additional support, including her setting their work and having to deal with outbursts in other classrooms too. So the strains on the staff and the staff leaving the profession due to these demands do impact on admissions, decision made.

Our whole education system needs to be more diverse, to cater for the diversity of needs of all our young people.

@BookishBabe

I do a lot of work with DC at home, and I’ve found Reading Eggs and Mathseeds really useful. It does a quiz and places your child at a level, and then all activities are geared to the next steps.
Unfortunately you do have to pay for it.
I do it with DC and help him with any tough bits, and read the books they have on each level to him rather than him read it. But there are quick activities that are really fun and engaging.

@BookishBabe if you want DS to attend full time, email the HT informing them DS will be attending full time unless formally suspended. Don’t worry if they do formally suspend. A formal suspension instead of an unlawful, informal exclusion will a) provide you with evidence of unmet needs to support pursuing am EHCP, b) force the school to follow due process, c) limit the number of days the school can exclude for, d) allow you to challenge any exclusion, and e) ensure DS receives alternative education for longer exclusions.

However, if you don’t think DS can attend full time, request alternative provision from the LA. On their website, IPSEA has a model letter you can use.

Alongside this, if an EHCNA hasn’t yet been requested, make the request yourself. IPSEA has a model letter you can use for this too. Make sure the LA sticks to the statutory timescales, and if they refuse to assess or refuse to issue, appeal.

An exclusion should absolutely not be part of the process of securing provision. In fact the perm ex statutory guidance is explicit about the fact that schools must not use exclusion because the cannot cope with SEND needs.
Schools Re facing an incredibly challenging time, but the last government's policy (including: 2024 curriculum bring learning objectives down by up to two year groups, discouragement of vocational subjects, obsession with inflexible uniform and exam based assessment, 'zero tolerance behaviour management' over daft things) have made mainstream schools much more difficult places for children with SEND to be. Add in the effects of the pandemic and a decade of chronic underfunding and poor treatment of teachers causing a shortage, and it's not hard to see how we are here.

I think that the focus on making mainstream schools more inclusive is absolutely the right policy, but it needs serious training and investment for mainstream practitioners and sweeping curriculum and policy changes.

Unfortunately, in my experience (I work in this field) the difficulties that schools face is creating a very discriminatory attitude to children with SEND and exclusions, reduced timetables and schools not wanting to admit children is now endemic.

Inclusion has been a mistake. And it's to the detriment of the 70% of kids who don't have EHCPs, SEN, EBD, and all the other additional needs.

Bring back Special Schools or create large-scale, separate inclusion units for the 30% who can't cope in mainstream. Educate them all together (separate from the 70%) and put in all the specialist attention they need. Problem solved.

I disagree. I think poor behaviour is often tolerated for too long in schools. The wellbeing, safety and learning of the majority should be prioritised.

Educate them all together (separate from the 70%) and put in all the specialist attention they need. Problem solved.

This isn’t the case. That would not be ‘problem solved’. Educating all DC for whom MS isn’t appropriate together would not meet all their needs. It is why there are SS specialising in different areas of need and why some DC require EOTAS/EOTIS.

YANBU. Schools are under immense pressure but at the end of the day, they're there to teach children and children come in all abilities, behavioural abilities, learning styles and backgrounds. They're spending too much time trying to mould them through draconian punishment (more secondary school) and exclusions and of course exclusions aren't always used properly. You can probably predict based on demographics the risk of exclusion but that's on the people excluding, not all kids get the same chances. Just like society, we shouldn't be expecting disabled people to shape themselves to what they're offered, society should be making it easier. The only thing I would say is that my friends son was increasingly out of the classroom with 1:1 TA by y6 it was probably all his time and I think by then it makes sense to look for other options. Unfortunately there is no provision, he has to travel an hour away to another city despite ours being a big city there isn't space

Ok I’m gonna bite. It sounds line your kid is bright and basically getting on fine. You’ve been lucky to get this one to one stuff but if they’re using it to help others who need help more than 🤷‍♀️

A child with 1:1 detailed, specified and quantified in F of an EHCP has been deemed to legally required said 1:1. It isn’t for the school to decide someone else needs support more. The school should request EHCNAs for those other DC.

Forgive me if this has already been said, but those salaries are full time equivalent. Most TAs won't see any where near that amount. I'm a TA and I earn just over £10k per annum.

Actually I think it is extremely difficult to exclude. There are many children in mainstream education whose behaviour is very challenging and they are not permanently excluded. There are suspensions and reduced timetables. The problem is the number of children who need specialist schooling or a highly individualised curriculum. Mainstream schools are set up to manage and teach children in large groups. They cannot meet some of the needs they are now expected to deal with.

Sorry that's a really good point. I was more posting to say just because you are allocated £16000, it doesn't mean the TA hours are completely covered as the funding goes towards many things not just the TA.

I'm a teacher and honestly it's appalling how underpaid TAs are. But I get so frustrated at the multiple ways money was removed from the school budget which has created this pressure. Shut SEN schools (and their funding), force academisation (so money is pooled and schools run for profit), change the SEN code of conduct so only specific conditions get financing so more and more children have no money to support their needs and add the after effects of lockdowns and cost of living so school budgets are stretched to breaking point. £16000 of funding used to mean the majority was used on the TA. Now everything that can be seen as extra will be assigned to that budget because the money has to come from somewhere. The child does benefit from those things but it's really that the resourcing of high quality teaching has been stripped to bare bones so the extras that used to be available just aren't anymore.

Schools are expected to fund the first £6,000 of any EHCP. So if OP’s child’s banding gives £16,000 the school will be given £10,000. This is not enough to fund a 1:1 for a full school day. The £6,000 comes from ‘notional’ Sen budget. This is not calculated from the SEN register (much too logical!). It’s calculated from a range of things such as basic entitlement factor, the deprivation factors and the low prior attainment factors.

Inclusion of high-needs kids happens to the detriment of all others, however you look at it. Yes, in an ideal world, there would be enough funding and enough resources to deal with them, but there just aren't, and so everyone is failed.
EHCPs do not take into account individual schools' circumstances. They just make a load of requirements that most schools cannot fulfill, therefore making schools fail their legal requirements, pushed onto them despite often numerous conversations that they just cannot provide said support.

Some real-life, extreme examples of EHCPs which affect everyone:

I have one class with so many EHCPs and other needs (all of which require the child to be sat at the front of the room) that I cannot fulfill their legal requirement for seating. So I choose the visually impaired kids over those that might need it for behavioural reasons, because the needs of the former trump those of the latter. But I cannot follow their EHCPs.

I have one physically-disabled child who has to use the lift to get to classes because they are in a wheelchair. Lovely child, no behaviour issues, but in our crumbling building the lift breaks down regularly and if you cannot get a repair person out for 3-4 weeks then all lessons have to be re-roomed for the class. Not an issue in many lessons despite the disruption it causes for all, but I teach Science and need a lab. There have been numerous occasions over that child's educational course where all practicals for the whole class had to be cancelled for this reason. Their right to an education following their normal timetable has meant that 29 other children also missed out on practical work.

I taught one child who regularly threw furniture when agitated. I cannot count the number of times I have had to remove the whole class from the room because they got angry. I had two children with severe anxiety in the room, who were terrified of the child. I also had a child with BESD in the room, and several others with SEND, who made it a sport to agitate said child, partially because they knew it would mean a break from lessons. The parent was desperate for a special school place, but the LEA denied them one. The child was one of the main reasons I left that school, because I felt unsafe with them in the room.

Children are not permanently excluded even if they physically injure staff and students, unless this has happened a few times. One member of staff I work with has a permanent injury to their leg, which they got when a chair was thrown their way. The child had an EHCP, was not permanently excluded and the staff member was expected to still teach the child with all the grace they could muster up. The member of staff ended up not only with a life-changing injury, but also with anxiety and PTSD that requires permanent medication.

Schools are not equipped to deal with this, and the sheer numbers we have getting through the doors that we are expected to cope with are ridiculous. A school that states they cannot meet the child's need does not do so lightly. Some parents still insist, some have no choice. But everyone is, ultimately, failed and the neverending question is whose needs trump whose.

I bet 30 years ago there weren't legally binding multi-page EHCPs that had to be followed to the letter. Just "high behavioural expectations".

Also schools get allocated funding for different things from different places. You can't just take money from SEN children to fund a building. The LEA or Academy would allocate specific funding for specific things. So they would have been given money specifically for that building. Otherwise it would be fraud.

OP have you posted on SEN in schools before as your views about how things were better in the past seem quite similar to a previous thread?

@ThrallsWife
@Allswellthatendswelll

The thing is my DC is not disruptive. At all. DC is happy all the time (I don’t know why I often wish I was DC). DC loves going to school every day and has made the most amazing, close, loving friendship with another child at the school.

DC is achieving in reading, maths, writing. The support that is needed is more prompting and support to talk. However DC (like in the Xmas show) will still get on and do things when not supported for an hour.
Yet DC was almost excluded before he started.
This is DC’s life. Decisions that are made about DC have a huge, huge impact on DC’s well-being. I was preparing myself for cannot meet needs, I didn’t know where I could have schooled DC, DC would have been out of schooling before I found a place, DC would have needed to travel, DC would have been out of the local community where DC has made friends.

I had to fight and cry and plead to get this place and this EHCP.

And now this EHCP - which I fought so hard for, isn’t being used correctly because the teacher had no awareness of the provision map.
Another thing that prompted me is that I witnessed an amazing teacher at my other DC’s school. This teacher had brought a large group of children together and included everyone, despite their differences in ability. They were all in a church, and the atmosphere was amazing. The students were buzzing, the parents were buzzing. This teacher is clearly SO passionate about his subject and he loves what he does. My DC is only a beginner, but he somehow got her to perform confidently as part of a group - although she usually lacks confidence. This is good, inclusive teaching and I think a disruptive child could very well be very different in this particular teacher’s lessons because of how he teaches. He gets the best out of people, shared his love and positivity, and has high expectations.

If I did ever have to go to judicial review and arm myself with a lawyer, DC would win against all this.
The child’s needs come first. Always.

There's something very sad about this post. I have endless sympathy for seating plans that are physically impossible and injured staff and recognise that reality and the reality of conflicting needs. It is all set up to fail.

But, The idea that inclusion itself caused a class to miss science labs, and not a faulty lift shows how people feel about disabled people. The anger doesn't seem to be with the lack of capital funds to make inclusion work, it feels directed at a child. This should have been a non issue. It's not an inclusion problem, but a funding one. That one child did not cause 29 others to miss a lab. The government chose this by underfunding schools so they are crumbling.

DC is achieving in reading, maths, writing. The support that is needed is more prompting and support to talk

Can you explain a bit further why your child needs 1:1 support to be prompted and supported to talk? As a teacher, this sounds like the sort of thing I would be expected to handle, rather than requiring a 1:1 TA.

How do other countries manage this? Has there been an enormous increase in Identified SEN needs as there has here in recent years?

How do other countries manage this? Has there been an enormous increase in Identified SEN needs as there has here in recent years?

Friends who teach in Australia and America have the exact same complaints/issues. It’s very worrying.