If you teach, was your SEN training good enough?

[Whatafustercluck]

Inspired by a post from Bridget Phillipson about Labour investing in almost 3,000 more teachers. Many on that Facebook post highlighting SEN training as inadequate, so I'm curious about views from teachers.

My own experience (as a parent, not a teacher) has been very mixed. A senco who based her understanding of neurodivergence only on the traditional, mostly male presentation of autism and who therefore believed my then 6yo dd was 'fine at school'. A brilliant Y2 teacher (who had a partner with ADHD) who took the time to understand every child and knew how to get the best out of each of them - ND or not. A brilliant Y3 teacher, who has herself got one adult child with ADHD and a younger daughter with autism who just 'gets it'. A secondary school, in which some teachers excel in understanding ADHD and applying appropriate support and management strategies, and some that still appear to question whether it's even real, let alone try to understand/ support (despite a formal diagnosis).

EHCP applications have increased and that this is unsustainable. But my theory is that if SEN training for teachers was prioritised and was comprehensive enough, this may help stem the flow of EHCP applications from parents who currently feel unheard and unsupported. Many SEN children could thrive in mainstream, with very minor adjustments that inconvenience nobody, and attendance would also improve as a result.

I'm not a teacher, but I really value education and appreciate the two or three really excellent teachers who have supported my children to do well in mainstream schools. But it strikes me that those teachers, without exception, have personal lived experience of neurodivergence that only those dealing with it every day, as a parent or family member, really understand. The only thing I can think of that may improve this situation is improved SEN training for all teachers, yet I've heard from several teachers that they've had perhaps one day which has focused solely on autism.

What do you even mean? Teaching is way more than knowing facts about the tudors. EYFS and KS1 teachers are usually experts in teaching children to read. It’s the main curriculum component.

I'm a sendco, and would say my training is still inadequate.

The government can easily add more training to the ITT programs.

That won't help Jamie Oliver's plan of getting everyone 'screened' for dyslexia (what screening? They are mostly inaccurate. A proper assessment, on the other hand, is lengthy and very expensive).

It won't stop schools sacking/not replacing TAs because there's no money in the budget to pay them.

If teachers know what needs to happen but they are just one person with 30 pupils with a growing number of SEN, what are we expecting them to actually do? Are those expectations reasonable? Or are they contributing to the exodus of good teachers from the job?

In my primary, we have no TAs except for EHCP and these are 1:1 due to the children's and others' safety, the deputy is full time in class and the senco is part time. There is no wiggle room. What schools need is more money.

I left. The reasonable adjustments for the 10 or so kids that needed them in my class of 30 generated a completely unreasonable workload for me. The expectation that such an amount of bespoke need can be handled by a single teacher is ridiculous. I simply could not teach lessons that included everyone (from a few that couldn't read, write, and/or speak English, couple of SEMH kids smashing the place up, several with various brain/movement break type passes, dyslexia, dyspraxia, plus the general Y5/6 range preparing for SATs, and probably a few that I have forgotten).

I'm a former teacher - the training I had were fine.

The issue was that it wasn't possible with the time, class-sizes and resources that I was given to cater for every individual need.

In one class I could have a class of 6-7 varying needs. Regardless of how many training sessions I did, I wasn't going to be able to fully meet every one of their needs to an amazing standard for every single part of the day.

I can't consistently give each of 6-7 students (an average number of pupils with additional needs in a class of 30) individual attention for every task, while at the same time keeping the remaining pupils on task and making sure they were also getting what they needed.

If each pupil had their own TA, or a TA to share between 2-3, then it might have been possible.

So more training etc. isn't going to solve anything. There needs to be more funding and resources for either more staff, or lower class sizes (which also would require more staff).

Adding to this you have many schools forcing out older, more experienced and expensive teachers.

Leaving just the new teachers with little experience and no real but still unpaid mentors in entire departments.

So it won't get better unless schools stop forcing out experienced teachers.

What a ridiculous response. Do you really think it's appropriate for a teacher not to be trained well enough to at least have a working understanding of 20% of the class's needs.

It's that sort of ill-informed attitude which made my autistic DD's life so hard in her first school. Fortunately we were able to transfer her to another school where the staff actually understood the issues, and she thrived there.

Prioritise SEND training over what? Training to actually teach?

Reading this thread is a real eye opener, how on earth is any teacher supposed to manage multiple and often competing conditions and still manage to teach the subject matter to the whole class? What about the children who do not have SEND but perhaps require just a little extra support in areas they aren’t advancing in? What about (shock horror) the brighter ones that may need additional work to keep them engaged?

a working understanding of 20% of the class's needs.

What does this even mean?

And here's why more training doesn't help, or even experience.

This is in no way a dig at the poster I'm quoting, but a previous poster said cotton polo shirts and loose elasticated trousers should be uniform because they're '....great for autistic children...'

Not all of them, they're not.

My DD 15 has ASD. She's absolutely fine in her school shirt, tie, stiff blazer, skirt and tights. Happily wears it, even likes it. Her private clothes are - by her choice - old fashioned, formal and restrictive. She'd be in full Victorian corseted dress every single day if it were remotely feasible. She loves the pressure and resistance of restrictive fabrics, the weight and swing of heavy skirts and the 'keep away, don't touch' social cues of formal clothing. They actively help her regulate.

Change her school uniform to polo shirt and loose trousers and she's in sensory melt down every single day day. It's soft, it's flappy, it's trousers (she hasn't worn trousers in 10 years) and she'd see it as far too causal and babyish for the setting. It's pretty much the worst possible uniform choice in the world for her.

And that neatly highlights the actual problem - it's completely impossible to 'train' someone to meet so diverse a pool of needs, when so often they're going to completely conflict. Even if you could, there's no way one person can meet all those needs.

The one thing I do want to pick up... those of you going on about overlays instead of coloured paper have missed exactly what her school did - You can't write on an overlay.

DD cannot SEE her own handwriting when it's black ink on white paper. Overlays can help with reading (as can coloured glasses, if you can sort your behaviour management enough that they don't get stolen five times in four weeks...) but not with writing.

She has a filter to turn her phone screen coloured, too (for the person who made that comment) but nothing but changing the colour of the paper will let her read her own handwriting. Let her type with a coloured screen, she's fine. On paper - the paper needs to be a different colour and no amount of 'real world' will change that. Always a good idea to reread your answers in an exam....

Well indeed. Learning about autism won't give you a 'working understanding' of how to deal with a particular autistic pupil in your class because there is a huge range of differences in pupils with autism. What previous posters seem to be missing is that teachers are generally provided with learning plans/profiles of pupils on the SEN register, written by the SEN department who have actually done some work with that pupil.

Or just the average children. Every child deserves at least a minute or two of teacher time (how low a bar is that?!) within a lesson. Everyone. That is often impossible in a big class with children not supported as they should be.

The other thing I'd add is I've never had an EHCP pupil whose needs could have been met with just a few simple adjustments. We are having applications turned down for children functioning at an age 3 level in KS2. The proportion of pupils in primary with an EHCP is about 3% - I'd say far, far more than 3% need something beyond just 'quality first teaching' so, no, I don't think we'd have fewer EHCPs if only there was more SEND focus in ITT.

I have taught for 20 years. We have a great SENDCO who delivers training to us after school and in briefing. However, a lot of the difficulties that autistic children in particular present with stem from changes (so moving around to the different lessons doesn't help), noise (large class sizes don't help).
In addition, some of the strategies that are suggested are things like seeing the student beforehand to pre-teach the content, visual aids etc that would require time prior to the lesson that we don't have as we are teaching and they are in another lesson.
I try to put movement breaks in for children with ADHD, but it is not always possible. More money for the right number of TAs would help.

Teachers without training is a huge barrier to any child with Sen because without training they won't have the knowledge. Like you op we have to rely on personal experience.

To understand all is to forgive all.

Without understanding a lot of nasty ignorant behaviour takes place.

That's before we even get to managing behaviour stages or beginning to teach those wish all ranges of Sen.

I can't imagine a society wherever DC without sending are treated with patience and respect as the clients they are. So many people with less low self esteem etc.

which 20% would you like the training to be on?

ADHD
autism
dyslexia
dyspraxia
ODD
PDA
LAC (plus breakdown areas)
Travellers
Forces
Mutism
Selective mutism
School refusing
Gifted and talented (really two areas)
Low ability
Behaviour (plus breakdown areas)
Physical disability (again multiple areas)

There are more.

But how can you know what to do if you don't understand the premise behind it.

Of course a basic understanding of autism would help it's not an impossible concept to understand it's a spectrum, children aren't being difficult for the fun of it.
That it can affect senses and noise fabrics etc can be challenging for them along with other things but in different ways and to different degrees.

Just to add a few more
Anxiety
Depression
self harm.

@FrippEnos yes absolutely, people don't bees degrees in this but basically facts tips and context yes.

The brighter ones? They get an extra worksheet to keep them busy......and mark it themselves.

Pupils aren't clients.

As a supply TA, I agree wholeheartedly. It's not even just kids with dyslexia, etc, it's kids who just don't pick it up that quickly. Ordinary, average children who haven't really grasped it first go are basically being left to fall behind.

There's always been an element, in schools, of leaving the reasonably behaved average kids to struggle on. I should know, I was one (actually turned out I had undiagnosed dyscalculia, but it was in the days when recognising dyslexia was in its infancy and dyscalculia wasn't even considered).

There's so much untapped potential in a huge number of kids who could do better if anyone had the time to spend on them. Not severe enough to help, not considered bright enough to be pushed, just...left.

I wanted to find this was better now, over 30 years since I left school. It isn't. It's worse. And the worst thing about it is, where once we, the average majority, were factory fodder, most of the jobs we used to do either don't exist any more or don't pay enough to live on.

We could get away with it in the 70s and 80s. We can't now.

All of this, 100%. Accurate reply 👌🏻

How so noble and what's the issue with treating them like clients?

Without students teaching wouldn't exist and it may not exist with ai coming to the fore

Teachers are providing a service to their clients.

@ObelixtheGaul I completely agree it's because it's a factory production line with no slack to make sure everyone gets it.
Once DC start to fall behind and get lower marks without supporting parent's they become disengaged and disheartened.

Then disruptive because they are not robots and cannot expect to sit still when they have no clue what's going on.
I've said before we need smaller primary school's and money chucked at it, flooded with Ed pyscs, specialist consultant Sen people training up teachers and senco and others mental health support professionals.

Then secondary would be easier.

After all a troubling % of prisoners are ilterate.

Society and school told wrote them off age 10

Well, for a start, they aren't paying. They also have to be there. They don't get to choose what they do, they are there to be educated whether they want it or not, and quite often they don't. There are many, many measures put in place to ensure their compliance. Teachers aren't 'serving' them, they are educating them.