To say the behaviour crisis in schools can't just be blamed on parenting

[Sendcrisis2025]

I speak as a mum of two children with EHCPs and someone who is a SENDIASS officer, name changed to protect my identity/job.

There is a strong rhetoric from the teaching unions this week about behaviour in schools and poor parenting. No mention of the bigger picture, just poor parenting.

My DC are 10 and 8, just two years behind them. When DC1 was a toddler there was a huge range of groups, support, targeted interventions through the local sure start centre. These were already being cut by the time my DC2 was a toddler. Then covid happened and the services and groups have just not returned. There is no early support anymore.

One of my DC is a challenge in school, fortuantly she is predominantly a flight risk rather than violent but still a behavioural challenge. We have had one physical incident where she shoved a teacher. Pure combination of factors that had led to DC being enclosed within a corner by several children and with nowhere to escape to she shoved to escape. Unacceptable but that was the reasoning of why and she was suspended for two days etc. She struggles to cope with the sensory demands of mainstream. Too many children, too much going on. They fly through the content whereas she likes to master things in depth before moving on. Too many low level behavioural issues like children who just don't ever stop talking. She can't navigate social dynamics. None of this DC can cope with. There is a lack of consistency in the school day and the routines. None of this is the school's fault but realistically how it is in every mainstream school. We are struggling to get her moved to a specialist setting. She has no learning needs and generally with the one exception, she isnt violent so the SEMH schools are not appropriate either.

My other DC would never dream of acting out, is not a behavioural issue at all despite his needs.

Based on the unions DC is entirely due to my poor parenting. It doesnt matter that DC2 is a behavioural dream. It doesnt matter that I have no behavioural issues with DC1 at home where it is quiet, the same rigid routine for the past 6 years and less social demands. It doesnt matter that she is in a completely wrong setting.

In my LA there are over 400 children like my DC1 who have specialist agreed but are stuck in mainstream with no setting to go to. There is nowhere for them to go. These are the children with specialist agreed by the LA. This doesn't include the many hundreds more who don't have specialist agreed or don't even have EHCPs yet.

Our health trust is on 3+ years for an initial appointment. CAMHs are almost non-existent. You are only considered for medication if you are already a behavioural problem in school, it doesn't matter if a child has severe ADHD until they are at the point they can no longer cope and it is at crisis point.

Early help, if accepted, offers 6 weeks of support. There is a huge gap between early help and child in need.

I speak to parents day in day out at work who are desperate for help as their children can not cope at school.

There will always be poorly behaved children due to poor parents but the majority? The majority are children who simply cannot cope in the setting they are in with nowhere to go to.

Over 400 children in my LA with specialist agreed but stuck in mainstream. That is an incredible number.

I know my DC spends 8.45am-2pm in a small cupboard with a 1-1 TA. She joins a much younger year group for the last hour a day. She does 95% of her schoolwork with me at home.

I think setting / streaming can solve some of the challenges.

I've heard/read about many early years teachers saying they have DC who don't know how to turn the page in a book because they haven't seen one.

They can open apps, expand screens, tap to go to the next video of Bluey or whatever but are confused when presented with a book.

And i don't buy physical books anymore, I get them on Kindle but I have doubts that there is a multitude of parents buying baby books on Kindle for a multitude of reasons.

A significant source of behaviour problems at primary are children who cannot access the curriculum due to poor numeracy and literacy. Some have SEN, many do not, but about 1 in 4 not reading at age expected levels sounds about right.

It would take us way off topic to discuss why that is, as it's a comolex picture.

At the start of every year, on every week's homework, at every parent meeting, I ask the same thing: please read with your child for 10 minutes a day. And spend a few minutes each day revising a single times table (or addition/subtraction facts, age depending). I always model what I mean, I account for home language and parental literacy, and I send home the tables, send home flashcards, send home books, send home question prompt cards, link to online resources that will read TO their children, etc. We have a homework club once a week that 0 of my class attend.

One parent in my current class manages 10 minutes of reading - that child has made stellar progress. No parent in last year's class managed. The ones who at least try, sometimes...the results, academic and behavioural, really stand out.

So is it parenting? Kinda. Some of it is. I think it's not understanding what it means, in practical and behavioural terms, for a child to fall behind, and how powerful parental input can be.

BlueandWhitePorcelain · Today 13:27
You cannot separate behaviour and SEN, until all children with significant SEN have been identified.

Do you believe that all children with "significant SEN"D are disruptive and misbehave?

Because if you are you are very wrong.

Your child is actual SEN OP, your parenting wouldn't have changed that. A lot of children's behaviours I see are lack of parenting, entitlement, lack of routine, processed food and giving their child technology to keep them "quiet". I know I probably sound judgmental, I am by no means a perfect parent. My children do know how to behave though and have morals.

I’m also going to moot something unpopular.

Kids are behind because what used to be classroom TAs, are now all one-to-ones for autistic children.

Of course I don’t. As I said I have met hundreds of children with SEN, significant enough to be in special provision, and I have talked to many more parents.

My own DD1 never did a thing wrong throughout her school education. She has a language disorder and took rules very seriously. She wouldn’t say boo to a goose. She was bullied all the way through school, because of it.

Many of her friends were equally well behaved.

However, if you live in the world of SLCN, there is also always the talk about children with SLCN and behaviour problems.

I remember attending a workshop with a leading academic (maybe Margo Sharp) who said children with SLCN were essentially the same as those children in EBD units then (probably PRUs now). The difference is children in language units got access to speech therapy, while children in EBD units got access to clinical psychologists.

I heard it was proposed during the drafting of the 2006 Education and Inspections Act, that any child on the verge of permanent exclusion should have assessments by an educational psychologist and speech and language therapist. That suggestion was rejected. I still believe children in that position should have those assessments.

I don't think that's unpopular or controversial in terms of schools not having a classroom TAs is impacting on education.

Schools used to be in the financial position to afford a full time class TA for each class and 1 to 1 TAs for SEN funded in part by the ehcp. Back when I started, before austerity kicked in, each class had class TAs and then specific pupils had an SEN TA allocated to a set number of hours.

Now we can't afford class TAs as budgets are stretched (and not just by SEN, everything costs more, teachers teachers pensions, energy, paper, cleaning contracts). Its not that the sen children have stolen the class TA. Its just that class ta job got cut, but the sen one has remained because we can get a bit of ehcp funding to offset the cost slightly plus if it's in the ehcp it has to happen.

DD’s class has 3 one to ones.

If it is true that more used to be recruited on top of this, then I really don’t remember 4 or 5 TAs per classroom?

We had one full time class TA not attached to a child and then the level of SEN TAs reflected the number of chikdren who needed 1 to 1 support. I never had a class with 4 or 5 TAs in my budgets! But 3 was not unheard of.

I'm not suggesting that there aren't more 1 to 1 TAs for autistic chikdren in mainstream (although lots of LAs fight very strongly against this and woukd encourage sharing) but that they haven't stolen the class TA. The role has just been cut out.

I work in infant schools and we don't have much TA support SEN or otherwise. It's really hard for the teachers.

I have never known more than two, but even then it depended on the lesson and were it stands in the schools hierarchy.

In my teaching experience, I've not come across any autistic students with 1-1s (I'm secondary though, mainstream).

I just did some research as I didn't remember any TAs at all at any school I attended (I left school in 1991).

They seem to have been a creation of New Labour. There were only 7000 odd in 1997, but ten times as many were added between then and 2010. Numbers have dropped back since then due to funding cuts and some concern about the fact they may be unqualified, so the neediest children are potentially spending the most time with the least qualified members of staff.

Like the NHS and HCAs/PAs, it's a way of getting more bodies in the room cheaply.

Disclaimer: I work with some great TAs (not directly as I teach 6th form) but the ones I know are kind, motivated and educated. It pays awfully though!

Private primaries still routinely have a TA per class in KS1 and some of the time in KS2 in my experience. Supports the theory that it's budget related.

I agree that children with a SEND need the correct provision.

But I think that we need to be careful if/when behaviour and SEND are linked.
There are already far too many people (MN included) that when a child is poorly behaved will try and blame SEND, (or Bored if GAT).

Oh, here we go- one of those mums who claims that THEIR precious angel can do no wrong...

Interesting that you admit your child has "challenging behaviour". How is that the teacher's fault? What kind of behaviour are we talking about here?

Teachers are scrutinised constantly and even with decades of experience, there is an expectation of CPD.

No teacher enjoys having to tolerate "challenging" behaviour, they don't plan lessons with a view that the kids will mess about.

Yes, I agree - however there is far too much commenting on children with SEN on MN, by people who neither have lived experience, such as parents of children with diagnosed SEN; nor professional training and expertise.

As for instance, comments on this thread such as parents need to teach their children with SEN how to behave properly in the classroom, with the support available, not what they need. No LA educational psychologist would recommend more support for a child with SEN, than they need - so, as they need it, it’s for a reason.