Beginning to agree “ working class “ are getting less send support.

[Passthebiscuit12]

the news articles have been talking about this a lot in the recent days. They have also been some terrible articles about well off parents getting support when not needed for exams etc.

I never really thought about it before however my DC is what they call an “ inbetweener” we applied for Sen schools in the area and they said no due to not fitting in their cohort ( academically behind but not enough and is able )

mainstreams said no as too complex. We were lucky that none is the mainstreams said yes and they couldn’t place in any of the local maintained Sen schools that Dc was placed in an independent Sen school that runs mainstream education. This school has higher than average fees due to it being classed as Sen. But academics are great with 100 percent English GCSEs 4-9.
its a unique school and we do love it but 100 percent of the children were LA funded ( doesn’t shock me ) but out of 19 in DC year only 2 are what you call “ working class “ including us. The other family was lucky to know how to manage tribunal but it was a fight to get their place. I wonder why there is not a higher average of working class children in the school considering no one is paying fees and the LA are. I would of imagined there would have been more of a mixture of backgrounds.

do you think it is harder for working / lower class to get the support for their Sen children from the LA ?

I guess the middle classes can afford the fees for a private diagnosis. That is probably another factor too.

The Local Authority has a duty to provide education for all children, no matter what their economic status. If a mainstream education is not suitable, that should be in specialist provision. If that provision is private, the LA has to pay for it. That should never be changed, nobody should be forced to pay for educating their child due to them having SEN.

What is absolutely the case is, for some people, the fight is a whole lot harder than it needs to be. Those people tend to be time poor and less well educated. They will find it harder to be taken seriously and may not have the knowledge to successfully challenge.

This isn’t a new thing. I’ve been on the SEN parent treadmill for 16 years. I’ve seen many of my daughter’s peers having trouble where I didn’t. I’m currently mentoring a looked after child and having seen how her guardian is treated compared to me is chalk and cheese. I’d also say it isn’t restricted to SEN parents, it’s always been the case that those who are better able to advocate for their children will find it harder to get any answers to their problems. The same is true of very young mums.

It also goes right back to diagnosis. It’s hard to get a diagnosis without support from school / GP, it’s harder to get support as a less well educated parent.

Also the middle classes are perhaps more likely to value a good education?

It's because the system is set up to under-provide and to do very little unless the parents really push for it.

I think it's inevitable that this is true, it's not specifically class as such, but a whole raft of things which combine - possible hereditary SEND, lack of support, lack of money, not being able to afford to take time off work (the number of meetings and appointments needed to get anywhere is phenomenal), lack of confidence to push back against the professionals' tendency to blame parents for everything (especially difficult if you have social services involvement).

It's an incredibly cruel system, where the authorities seemingly do everything they can to avoid having to help you, and Labour are about to make it 100 times worse.

No, it is the statistically proven case that working class people are less likely to have had a tertiary education. They are also likely to have been affected by this issue historically and not been properly supported through their own education, meaning they have found it harder to complete their schooling.

It took me a good year of fighting to get the right school for one of mine - it was depressingly relentless and difficult.
I am WC and lived on a very ropey council estate as a single Mum to several - but I had a good early education (though I didn’t want it then!), reflecting shows me that I had, without wanting to sound up myself, a better background than where I was in terms of education and expectations of things though I never felt that and felt that my surroundings were absolutely fine.
I also had a secretarial background and English degree by the time this need arose. The appointments, meetings, discussions were horrendously overwhelming and I definitely wasn’t listened to to start with and brushed off many a time (I felt because of my status at that point in where I lived/single parent, which is infuriating and wrong) - I had to step right up, I did meeting minutes of every interaction plus agreed actions ( they seemed to go missing/couldn’t be recalled!), lobbied sort of for a single lead responsible for the overall decisions across education and other linked matters, wrote to everyone and their dog, complained to the LEA, and shared all things with everyone involved in my child’s education and other related stuff going on by then etc. I was exhausted, ended up with several weeks off work, and wanted to just give up at times. It worked out but I did wonder, and hope I don’t sound patronising, how some manage if they have more barriers to access how/what to do. I have since been an adult literacy tutor and a big thing is the barriers of poor literacy to accessing public services, policy stuff, politics etc. I would add in environment- I think maybe that made a difference in that I was a product of a different environment to where and how I was living, but that frustrates me as it shouldn’t matter one bit. I’m sorry things haven’t improved in the decades since I had to do this.

No. HTH.

And there's the parent blaming. It takes knowledge, financial resources and social capital to fight the system for you child, don't suggest those that don't have these things don't want to support their child's education. It shouldn't be like that, but it is.

No, it doesn't.

You could be extremely intelligent, or just not "thick" without high levels of education, confidence, and jobs requiring negotiating complex situations and systems. You're just operating at a disadvantage despite your intelligence.

Though even if you are of below average intelligence, that shouldn't condemn your child to an inadequate education.

Should add that yes it was super expensive (paid for by LEA) but it also had many spare places and it definitely wasn’t known about/shared by any school folk I dealt with - I found it myself after much looking and found my child would be entitled to go if it were the right place - it definitely was, especially compared to the options they tried to bin off on us to begin! The outcomes from it saved my child’s literacy and prospects and no kid should miss out on these chances.
Edited - wasn’t to was!

Middle class parents are more likely to have had a good educational experience, and been treated well at school. In the last review at our school about parental engagement, the one line that came back in surveys more than any other was about how parents didn’t have trust in the school, they wouldn’t talk to head teachers because their only experience of doing that had been getting in trouble at school, they didn’t feel they would be taken seriously if raising any issues. School never did anything for them, why would they feel it could do something for their own children.

This is reflective of my own “middle class” situation. I did great at school, my parents were really involved, they always told us how important educations was. My sister did badly at school, she was bullied (turns out 40 years later, she’s been diagnosed with ADHD) my parents never really helped her sort any of that out, just kept saying education was important. She never really recovered from that and with her own son she never really felt education was important.

Totally completely agree with you
I live in a very expensive area and I'm on Facebook groups for SEN
The parents are all using solicitors.they have EOTAS ..and are getting sailing lessons horse riding lessons,SEN school ..they swap solicitors numbers and know who to use for going to tribunal.
They use the solicitor for all correspondence with the LEA and even for annual review.
I know of people who get the solicitor to write the EHCP to fit with whichever independent school they decide they want their child to attend..
Sounds like I'm jealous??
Dam right I am ..I've had to fight for every scrap of education for my DC ..going to tribunal myself twice ,just to get the basics of a handful of GCSEs.
I haven't fought for a computer or gym membership or pony grooming.. because I don't agree with it .
Makes me sick

I dont know about class specifically.

But the system is easier to negotiate if you can read well, understand process well and are used to leading them and pushing them forward. A lot of those skills come out of specific working environments or education.

A lot of sen is hereditary and many parents cant do that.

There are also biases against accents or other social markers. So a young single mum might get more parent blaming thrown at them than a married Dad, who has turned up for a meeting.

But I dont like the idea someone able to negotiate a system should feel guilty.

If it’s still on I player ( bbc one ) the actress Kellie Bright was on a Panorama special talking about her own experiences with the local authorities for her own son who has autism.
She also interviewed a few different families and every story was similar , little help , relentless time wasting by the authorities and two of the mums had to give up work just to fight for a decent education for their child.
It was a depressing watch as it seems the hurdles and hoops they have to negotiate isn’t easy at all and seem to designed to just ‘ kick the can down the road ‘ so to speak.

I haven't fought for a computer or gym membership or pony grooming.. because I don't agree with it .

That is, of course, your prerogative, but just because you personally don’t agree with it doesn’t mean it is acceptable to judge others for pursuing SEP their DC is legally entitled to. DC only get EOTAS/EOTIS packages if it is inappropriate for provision to be made in a school or college. No DC get SEP that isn’t legally reasonably required. LAs don’t include it in EHCPs if it isn’t legally reasonably required. Neither does SENDIST Order it if the legal test isn’t met - if LAs thought SENDIST had erred, they would be quick to challenge the decision.

Parents who have pursued EOTAS/EOTIS &/or with provision you do not agree with are not the ones to blame for you needing to enforce your DC’s rights.

This^^

these children do not get more support because they are middle class but because their parents are better equipped to fight the LAs and their frankly often despicable decisions. Going to tribunal is stressful, a long winded process and of the involves the enrolling of legal support or the commissioning of private assessments (Salt, EP, OT) at a considerate cost. So it's not surprising that certain layers of the society are better equipped to challenge the system. Their children only get what they get because the parents fought tooth and nail and it isn't handed to them on a silver plate. I wouldn't call myself MC but DH and are pretty well educated, had the money to get a pre action letter down with the aim to fi through a judicial review. And my child still missed a whole year of education as the LA wouldn't finalise the EHCP or put any other education in place in the meantime but we ended up with a good placement in the end (state though, not private but DC still would be at home if we wouldn't have done what we did. It's all wrong and it shouldn't be up to the power of parents to hold the LA and their unlawful decision making to account via the courts/tribunals but we are where we are.

The government already postponed the white paper on Send now until the next year. it's obvious that nothing will get better. and who knows what watered down rights for our children they will come out with.

I agree with this. I think “middle class” is inaccurate and gives the wrong impression of how you access this.

my family member is in a similar school OP. One school their echp qualified them for (potentially after a court case of course) cost £45k per year. Only about 50% LA funded.

so who pays the £45k a year? One can only assume a) rich parents and b) pupils who did not qualify under the echp for that school.
Those pupils are not unique and one only assumes many children in state schools could benefit but their parents don’t have a spare £45k.

This. I am abroad and it's the same. There is no clear roadmap of what to do if you suspect your child needs support. It's confusing and frustrating and most of the time I feel like my interactions with the school consist of me being frustrated they aren't offering my child support, as though they could magic up the resources and knowledge to do that, and them being frustrated that my child isn't meeting their expectations, as though I can magically take away his SEN by parenting better.

In reality I can see that it's almost impossible for them to offer support if they aren't trained/don't have the staff to do that, but I just thought that they would be, and I am baffled that since they are not, why I was just left to register him for a mainstream school even though the issues were apparent all through earlier education and I'd been through the process of getting him assessed and diagnosed - like what was the point of all that?

They want to "wait and see if there is a problem" - which kind of makes sense except when there is a problem, then it's fill in this form and join a waiting list. And in the meantime? It makes no sense at all that this system should be reactive unless it has enough capacity to meet need at all times, which it clearly doesn't.

Imagine if the fire brigade worked like that - oh you have a fire? OK we'll be there in two weeks. Well it will be too late then. The whole street will burn down and there will be nothing to put out.

It's all about divide and conquer. I don't believe that there is an army of middle class parents getting extras for children that don't need it. More that children from disadvantaged backgrounds should also be getting these things and aren't. But if we can just make everyone turn against those children getting provision that meets their needs, then they can be blamed for the budget cuts that justify everyone losing more.

There are a few other potential options for the ‘who pays £45k’ question that I have come across. A few examples include children’s services funding the placement for LAC (the DC I have come across who fall into this category should really have EHCPs), DC whose placement is being funded from their compensation claim money, DC who are in England because their parents are here working and the parent’s employer is footing the bill.

I recall once taking a child into the mainstream secondary school after exclusion to be re admitted - a certain (scary according to all my kids!) teacher chose to do this and was at first apparently cross about this child and quite dismissive as we followed (ran after) him through the school - until the child commented on something another of my children had done on display - teacher got very cross they stopped to show me until I said it was their sibling - he couldn’t believe my 2 eldest were related (2 marriages I had so different names) - but his whole attitude changed - because the older 2 were bright, and well behaved. I felt he had taken me for a not bothered mother, who had no clue how to bring up children and didn’t care either, but then decided I wasn’t that person. He did then listen - but whilst I understand bias and cynicism! It shouldn’t have needed this to make anyone listen.
I disliked immensely my own education and parental aspirations- and definitely thought state was better, and everyone should have equal opportunities and decent enough education whatever the background - turns out I was naive in that - but I think my own background gave me confidence in my beliefs and the courage/capability to fight for the right thing for my kid, though not the cash I am appalled to learn is used on here (don’t blame the parents throwing it but the fact it is needed) It’s only later on I realised I was fortunate in my education and it still has benefits today, but I still totally believe it shouldn’t be this way.
It is outrageous people lose out because they don’t believe in their rights or have confidence to find out how to access them, there should be a way to remove such barriers. If someone can’t access the right education for their child they should be supported in doing so - then again should they even need to have to do this - should not the child get the right education for them anyway?

Dh and I are boyh from working class parents that sent us to good schools and we are now middle class if you like, with the education and jobs that have given us quite a few skills to be able to negotiate and advocate for our SEN kids. We get good and rwcpetive audiences with the schools and teachers, drs will speak to us professionally, we ask tbe right questions, research and push the right buttons and use the right language to advocate for our kids.
I am sure that we would not have the same support if we were finding it difficult to speak their language, do our research and argue our cases with schools and medical professionals.

Yes this, middle class children certainly do not get support they don't need. It's very much a case of children of parents who cannot fight the system missing out completely.

With all the news about SEN children bankrupting councils, and according to many MN posters on other threads, are responsible for the general malaise this country is going through, it seems to have become a popular headline to accuse sharp elbowed parents of playing the system. It's all the kids and their parents fault 😒