SEN funding isn't a bottomless money pit

[Sogfree]

I'll preface this by saying I really enjoy my job working in a SEN school. I care deeply for the children and families I work with.

I've had 4 different conversations this week with parents where they expect an excessive amount of additional resource to be allocated to their child. They expect this as, in their opinion, it's needed. I disagree with 3 of the 4 parents that this is needed.

All 4 of the parents are going to fight the decisions county have made. Their decision to fight will mean county spend more money arguing the challenge.

Services are already broken with the increase in need. Recruitment fails, as there aren't enough speech therapists/OTs/CAMHS practitioners etc to employ.

One parent demanding extra from one of these services means another child gets less.

One parent demanding a child goes to school X at £100k per year when a place at school Y at £30k is going to meet their needs means the child who needs the place at school X doesn't get it, and extra £70k per year is wasted. And the parent keeps their child out of school for 12-18 months whilst they fight for the place at school X.

That's the reality.

Every parent wants the world for their child. I understand that. But taxpayers can't afford to give every child the world.

AIBU - parents know their child best and we should fund what the parents say the child needs

YANBU - there's only so much money to go around and parents need to accept hard decisions have to be made without challenging them

Ah, my comment got deleted.
Truth hurts, clearly.

Mumsnet, try having some compassion before you start deleting people clearly being painfully honest in their responses.
I’ve never known a forum so censored as this website, it’s pathetic.

Awaiting someone to report this comment too 🙄

We were being pushed to put our child into a care home because nothing could meet needs locally.

It was heart breaking, we eventually moved out of area and in to another LA. Now our daughter is in a specialist provision that costs a fraction, a fucking fraction of a care home. But meets her needs.

This means our home life has completely transformed. We don't need to have the police around anymore, which again cost the poor tax payer money. She's not on a secure unit in a hospital now which costs the poor NHS. It means she has a chance of a good life and employment. It means that my other children are able to have parents who can look after them properly, so they can do well in life.

People have no idea what goes on behind closed doors of families with children with serious needs.

One parent demanding a child goes to school X at £100k per year when a place at school Y at £30k is going to meet their needs means the child who needs the place at school X doesn't get it, and extra £70k per year is wasted. And the parent keeps their child out of school for 12-18 months whilst they fight for the place at school X

This was the offensive part, obviously and you have both completely glossed over it. The offensive part is not the bit about lack of funding, which every parent of a child with SEND knows better than anybody.

Children do not get a place at a special school unless it can be proven that mainstream settings cannot meet their needs. Parents do not just stamp their feet, "demand", and the council provides. The fact that you appear to believe this is how it works betrays a total ignorance on your part. There is no situation where a child is taking a place at a £100k special school when their needs could have been met at a £30k school. That does not happen. And parents absolutely do not just keep their children off school when they have the option to send them to a setting that will meet their needs.

If you want a conversation let's base it on facts and let's approach it with some basic human compassion and a belief that SEND children matter and deserve to have their needs met and to be able to access an education.

I’m so sorry that things haven’t improved since my experience 20 years ago. I will tell you that we did get the book that had been recommended, because I made an appointment with the Headteacher for just before the end of the school day. I arranged for my parents to pick up my children. When I saw her I said, very politely, that I would refuse to leave until I had her assurance that the book would be ordered. Then I took out a flask of coffee and my knitting and settled in for the duration. We had a lovely chat and I gave them a cheque, so all fine 😉
Actually the book was incredible and as I technically owned it we took it home every day so even on days he school refused we could do a little bit of school work.

Yes, this!

And not every parents of a child with SEN wants them in a specialist setting. My child doesn't need one and it's unlikely there would be one that would suit her needs. What she does need is a properly funded state education system and smaller class sizes so she isn't forgotten about. She's academic but due to anxiety struggles to speak in school and the busy, noisy, school environment doesn't work that well for. I don't think she'll survive in mainstream the way it is, but she doesn't need specialist either. In our area a specialist school would struggle to do her justice.

How can you make such a blanket statement? Are segregated schools best for Muslim kids or Black kids?

My DS is not being educated at his £70K per year specialist school. He's being babysat. He comes home every day with piles of colouring he's done.

Thank you. I'll feed this back. I don't know whether they are aware and are just frustrated by the policy or whether it has just been accepted.

Absolutely.

This is the reality that people don't understand. Parents/carers are saving the system an incalculable amount. The lack of critical thinking on this subject is appalling.

I'd also like to point out that outside of paying for private schools, I don't know any special needs parents who aren't also funding a significant amount of mental health/OT/educational resources for their children. That's for those of us who are sending our children through the LA, we're still covering costs for basics.

Because what the parents in your school really need is more judgement.

The system is broken, children are being let down every day. None of that is the parents fault. The fault lies with the government, local authorities, teacher training, some school leaders and some teachers.

I say some as there are some amazing school leaders and teachers out there but whether your SEN child comes into contact with them is pot luck.

I can't imagine the outrage if I posted on MN that we are needlessly spending out for things like RE, PE, music tuition when those aren't necessary skills for employment for NT children.

They don't need these things. So get rid of it. We don't NEED to fund "child's care" for six hours a day. They can do reading, maths and English for 3 hours and then they're sorted.its all they need. Most children won't use science in their jobs or life, so we don't need to waste money on it.

SEND kids aren't even getting the basics that they actually need but they don't even deserve that

I agree huge amounts of money are wasted, but this isn’t because parents are being unreasonable fighting for their kids. In the county I work in, it’s because the specialist SEN schools are woefully underfunded and over capacity. Kids that would’ve walked into a sen school a few years ago are being expected to go to mainstream which invariable breaks down and a more expensive placement needed because the kid now has school based trauma on top of everything else. As well as developing a whole heap of maladaptive coping behaviours like using aggression to manage their overwhelm & communicate distress. We’ve also lost pretty much all local specialist nursery provision so early intervention isn’t happening and parents have no idea what their kids needs even are. Community paediatricians are disappearing up their own behinds trying to see everyone, waiting lists are massive… the moral injury of working in this has got too much for me and I’m moving into a different speciality soon, and also gearing up for a battle for my own (definitely mainstream but struggling) autistic kids.
services definitely seem to bank on parents being too knackered and overwhelmed to fight so they more confident, better resourced, better educated families (like mine) end up getting a bigger chunk of the pie because they can’t allocate resources appropriately in the first place. It’s absolutely disgusting.

you do an incredible job, but please remember that this is not the parents fault - the problem is the system not the people x

Deep down a LOT of people think that expenditure on disabled people is a waste.

I think she poses a question based in reality. In terms of tax, many people say they want to pay more tax, but save into an ISA, so they could pay more tax, but chose not to. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Confess to being super confused by your response, OP. The comment says it’s a rigorous legal process and you’ve responded disagreeing by saying “you just need to know how to argue at tribunal and do the prep beforehand” - that’s how legal disputes/cases are settled in a court of law. That’s how a rigorous legal process works; defence of your argument and prep? Surely the parents winning in this context would mean they had a point?

And once those SEND kids go mainstream we get posts from parents complain their child is being distracted by them.

I agree.

This must be so frustrating and upsetting for you and your child :( I’m sorry x

But we pay more tax on childrens homes and prisons and secure medical institutions already. This can be avoided by preventive social and educational intervention.

That's the point. So it's not based on reality. That's the point hundreds of people have made.

My experience of having several children with SEN is that the child is hardly ever at the centre of decision making and it’s all about the egos of other staff, whether that be council staff, school staff or anything else.

It is a real dilemma.

We have a child with autism and ADHD - quite marked aspects of autistic thinking and disorganisation but who is very intelligent.

We have been very lucky really - DC has gone to excellent state provision and looks to be on the verge of doing very well educationally as well as being happy socially.

I can see that there are many unanswered needs in health and education and there is very real pain. There are people without housing. People who struggle to afford food and heating.

At the same time, we are facing a lot of demands as a nation.

We are moving step by step into an unofficial war situation.

I am concerned about my children's future. I don't want us to end up as a sort of serf state when my kids are older. We likely need to increase defence spending. I don't know how we can do that.

So I think OP is not unreasonable. But neither are families unreasonable to want the best for the children, you can completely understand that.

Completely agree with all of this.

The problems are there throughout primary as well-the curriculum is bloated, boring and ultimately boils down to one teacher trying to single-handedly get all 30 children to expected levels, no matter what their needs. When there are KS1 children with EBSA, something is very wrong with the system.

The government trying to 'solve' mental health problems as a bolt-on is completely missing the point as well. Why don't these children want to be in school? We don't need (unqualified) counsellors to talk to them about it, we need to make school somewhere they enjoy and want to be.

Your argument has some merits (I don't agree with it, but it isn't nonsense) - but I hope you will be just as gracious when someone tells you that it wouldn't be cost effective to actually treat your elderly parents - even though they have a treatment - and they want to just put them on the palliative care pathway instead.

Mind you, although my child went to mainstream education, we have had complaints all the way that DC was distracting other children, even if just sitting fairly quietly and listening, by not doing exactly the same thing as everyone else. There does seem to be a real premium for conformity.

And I do also get that teachers are under all sorts of huge pressures, which is a large part of why.

The OP is not wrong overall, even if it does seem unpalatable to some. I don’t believe there are going to be many instances of a child receiving funding that don’t need at the expense of a child who does need more, but I work in a special school too and some funding decisions do seem questionable.

It is true that every time a child is admitted to a special school through a tribunal where the school is arguing that they have no more space, the provision they can offer their existing students is lessened. It doesn’t have to happen too many times before the special school that could once offer the perfect individual provision for students becomes yet another school that is just managing behaviour and doing an ok job instead of a great one.

Maybe there’s an argument that it’s ok for special schools to struggle with funding as mainstream schools have to.