AIBU that the system is leaving a whole group of children behind.

[Sendhelp20]

I know this will be down to location to but wow my mind is blown. We are in the middle of being allocated a secondary school for DD11 and there doesn’t seem to be a school that exists for her 🤣( I should not laugh but If I don’t I will cry )

she is academic although not advance and has gaps in her learning which does mean she is mildly behind this is due to missing 3 and half years of primary school.

all the schools consulted in a radius of 1 hour of our home which including

Sen schools - with different specialities
mainstream schools with units
and mainstreams have all come back
they can’t meet her needs

some she is “too academic “
others she is too complex

so now they are suggesting a mixture of home tutoring / online education but she wants to go to school 😭

where are the children who are inbetween going 😭😭

Put an anonymous post on local town or local SEN FB groups asking for school suggestions. There maybe some suggested provisions you don’t know about or have already dismissed.

It is but is the amount of lost taxes more or less than the cost of provision for such children to enable the mothers to work?

Op it leaves them behind from reception and year 1 when they only use phonics to teach children to read. Many dc just don't understand or get phonics, they need a straight forward way to learn to read.. Our schools cannot accommodate that.
They are locked into the phonics test.
That's an absolutely major stumbling block.

Think of how many prisoners are illiterate!!

Once they realise they can't keep up, dc are on higher bands, and they get taken into special groups for more... Phonics reading becomes all about the phonics not actually learning to read.

It's utter Maddness.

The biggest change to education and society would have been for Bridget p to say... We will be funding and throwing out many reading strategies in reception and year 1 to get children reading.

Maybe a class action for lost pension contributions at least - no of course that's right, unpaid carers save the government a fortune.

It's not just the taxes though, it's the lost income, the lost pension etc.l and what your job contributes.

Even as a mid career non management teacher my salary after tax easily covered DD's school fees and meant I could continue teaching in a state school, in a subject with huge teacher shortages.

Lack of holistic thinking.

Good question 🤣
in our case it costs the govetment more in care for my DD than I contribute tax
care costs 4200 a month then also school provisions
my contributions for tax around 600.

I’m not sure what you mean ?

Given that the children have to be in education anyway, almost certainly less. You also have to factor in the stonking losses caused by failing to help children reach their full potential and become contributing members of society - not only do you lose their taxes as well, you are paying out for their maintenance for, potentially, several decades.

Mainstream secondary will be more likely to accept a 1:1 for medical needs than for (for example) dyslexia. Your DD's physical needs do make a mainstream secondary site challenging though, as you have said - just the size, stairs etc.
A small independent school ('mainstream' in terms of academics, but non-selective), funded by the LA with a full time 1:1 sounds like it could be a good option. As other posters have said, this will be cheaper than a SEN school (particularly an independent SEN school), so the LA might be more receptive than you would imagine!
Whereabouts in the country are you? (I have much much research on individual schools for a similar profile). If you can scrape some money together, there are also school finding services. We also used Bernadette at Schools Advice Service: who was excellent. She was particularly good in terms of being able to contact schools and speak to SENDCOs so that both you and they could get an accurate understanding of whether the school could meet need.

I think it might be helpful to hold in mind the difference between needs, experience and attainment.

If the experience of missing school accounts for attainment levels being below age-related expectations, this does not reflect a learning/intellectual disability.

Piecing OP's posts together, it sounds like the physical needs/provision may be what is leading settings to think they are not well placed to meet need. Non- selective schools cater for wide ranging attainment and ability levels and are becoming increasingly competent and confident in meeting the needs of autistic pupils.

I suggest, when exploring which schools might be suited to meet your child's needs, you start with the physical needs. You and/or the LA might need to think about how EHCP specified provision can be delivered in a secondary setting. Think about the differences between primary and secondary settings (e.g. moving between classrooms every 50mins, having 15 teachers per week requiring training in the plan etc.). If the plan is written in a primary-school centric way, ensure it is updated to be fit for purpose for secondary schools. Schools will be less likely to say they can't meet need if the plan is written in a meaningful way in relation to how their setting operates.

I suggest you check out setting/streaming arrangements. It sounds like streaming would be a bad option for your child (where all classes are taught in the same attainment based grouping) as you say your child has pockets of high attainment. Many secondaries run mixed ability groupings until Year 9 or 10. You can find out what the typical attainment range is within this. I expect your child will fit within this. Which is why the 'missing 3 years' might be a bit of a red herring in relation to 'learning and cognition needs', what is needed is access to teaching that doesn't assume prior learning.

Be prepared to push to appeal for schools to review their decision that needs cannot be met, if you think they can.

Yes so for example

she is basically one big wbay to do they call it “ spikey profile “
there is no actual I support learning difficulty that we know off -
although has CP and is globally delayed in fine and gross motor skills and speech she can for example do her times tables, read a book at her level and can regain information but does have huge gaps in learning but through missing school rather than ability. However she is much slower than her peers so for example if you have her an exam it would take her triple the amount of the time to complete it but what she does complete is good.
she could probably learn algebra for example …. But not how to tie her shoe lace.

in same situation. Dd couldn't cope with secondary mainstream. So now we have to wait for a specialist school of which there are none a available. Shes an 'inbetweener' too.

Blame Gove and the everyone should be above average mentality. Fucking idiot.

A wonderful independent specialist school opened nearby that specializes in therapy etc for anxious children. They rejected my dd as they said she was too anxious. If it wasn't so awful it would be funny.

I do find it all very strange
so I have a friend who had a child the same age as mine
who put the same school preference down which refused mr daughter did not being in the Chiron as to able
it is a broad Sen school which says it takes children for many reasons then the reasons they have her for a no was things like
“ requires sensory input which would take sensory resources away from other students “
“ has high anxiety which would take recourses away from other children with complex needs “

It confused the life out of me 🙈

Could you sort some tutoring to catch her up in areas she is behind? She sounds very bright so I expect she would catch up quite quickly

@Sendhelp20 yes that's basically what the reason was, she would take away from other anxious children. I was so bitterly disappointed.

Op your post is about a swathe of dc left behind, you are struggling to get your dc into secondary school and she has sen.

My post is saying they are getting left behind way earlier than that and probably feeding into your issue at secondary because we are not teaching children, enough children to read.

And then my post explains why what it didn't go into was low self esteem being vulnerable etc and then all the issues to society that comes from that

Thank you for this, I'm glad your son is doing so well and has been able to get the right support in place. Can I ask whereabouts you are?

Unfortunately people I know locally who have dyslexic pupils at our local school are not receiving the support you've described. No technology given "as all the iPads need reset" and lots of copying off the board etc.. We have a couple of years to go so I am starting the fight now as my 10yo still can't spell even 3 letter words reliably on paper (better with a computer). Luckily reading isn't such a problem and he's good at expressing himself verbally but writing is still a no go.

Sorry for derailing, OP.

yes so they often explain her to me is if they compare her to her “ cohort “ in school she is very nearly average or slightly behind and fairly behind in literacy but we know the reasons for that. However if you compared her to her cohort in hospital as in children who were born with similar issues and who she is friends with a fair few then she is very ahead.
their opinion is if she had the same level of education of other children as in not disrupted to the level it was then she would probably be ahead of her cohort at school.

My son and daughter are both bright 'in betweener' spiky profile autistics. Neither could cope in mainstream, no suitable special schools, would also have struggled in mainstream private, we did consider this.

So it cost my career to facilitate education at home.

Good outcome as my eldest is now at UCL living away from home.

I think that the private school VAT is short sighted as it is definitely saves the government money in SEN costs.

I think that the lack of provision for inbetweeners is also short sighted due to lost incomes/ tax.

Nothing will change though. No one cares enough.

Would online school work for some of these children? My son did Kings Interhigh during the pandemic and loved it . He's struggling with his health and the moment and we are considering switching him back. He's very bright, loves learning (you do have to be quite motivated) but his health means he misses chunks of school

It probably would, but they're not free!

Some LEAs will pay though

Tricky though when they're not Ofsted registered.

Academy21 is though and as they're owned by King's Interhigh, perhaps they are too.