SEND - children’s needs to be reassessed from year 6 2029?

[missbish]

Are they taking the piss? After the struggles parents have trying to secure support for their child, they’re then going to threaten to take it away once they’re due to go to secondary? Ds goes to secondary this year so I don’t think it will effect him but I am so angry for those it does effect.

My child was dx with autism at the age of 4, it was very clear that he was from a very young age.
No amount of amazing parenting was going to remove the autism.

It wasn’t even experienced teachers-you just needed a psychology degree and 2 years of teaching to do the Ed Psych MSc.

Now, you don’t even need to be a teacher but need a psychology degree, a couple of years working with children (could be an LSA) but then it’s an extremely competitive doctorate to be accepted on which is 3/4 years with a massive thesis. I think they did it to bring it inline with the clinical psychology level of training.

If they went back to just a one year course, I reckon 90% of teachers would try escape the classroom to do it!!

what do you mean by this ?

Same

They mean eugenics

You want mostly women to be entrapped by lifelong caring responsibilities toward adult children in nappies who attack them? (Yes I know not all ASD is on this level - but many are including children I know)

As much as my son does get weekly swimming at his SENd school, and it is linked to his sensory input needs, it stands to reason that he’d need more swimming instruction than someone without his cognitive difficulty.

His swimming instructor has put a lot of work into giving children like mine safety in water strategies, because firstly that takes longer than most other children, and secondly our son and others like him have risk taking behaviours/lack of understanding of risk, and need those strategies.

There is no local swimming pool with the service we would need to teach him the same things. SENd sessions are play based, they’re not for learning, and standard lessons aren’t accessible for him.

Last summer he absconded (wasn’t with us at the time), and jumped into a lake. His safety in water skills potentially saved his life, because he knew to push himself back to the surface as soon as his chin went under, and kept doing that until he was taken out of the water. He doesn’t know how to feed himself or go the toilet, but he knew that.

He was 8 at the time. Most 8 year olds understand that water = danger, ours didn’t. That, amongst physical and sensory needs, is one of the reasons why they need weekly swimming lessons.

My child's like this, so I do understand.

I'm not 100% sure on all my feelings about it to be honest, but call a spade a spade, we're talking about eugenics here.

Yeah yeah, so tell me where I went wrong with my DS please?

Born into a 2 parent family, one parent 29 and the other 31, breastfed, proper home made meals 3x a day (porridge every morning, fruit and plain yoghurt for breakfast, that kind of thing), attachment parented, no TV or screens as a toddler, not even allowed to touch a tablet until 7, strict screen time rules and limited to an hour a day for years, even now at nearly 16 has parental controls on all devices and time limits on his gaming, lots of outside time as we lived on a farm for most of his childhood, taken to endless playgroups/swimming/museums etc etc, chatted to, interacted with, played I spy when he was in the pushchair to entertain him, took crayons and toy farm animals to restaurants not screens, strict routine, clear boundaries, confident parents who were quite happy to enforce said boundaries as and when needed...you get the picture. Not to mention that my older child who had the same upbringing didn't display the same neurodevelopmental issues and was a star pupil!

And yet still, somehow, despite being told by literally every professional I took DS to see that I was "dedicated" and "knowledgeable" and "doing all the right things", and DS being phenomenally bright and chatty and charming, he is STILL autistic and STILL almost certainly ADHD and STILL couldn't cope in mainstream school and STILL got excluded at age 8 after breaking a teachers wrist and was STILL suicidal at age 9 and STILL has a place in an independent specialist school paid for by his EHCP because it was the only school for 50 miles that would accept him.

Where did I go wrong, please? And how should he be educated, in your opinion? Because now he's in the right school you know what? He is also a star pupil. He is on the student council. His teachers all think he is amazing (because he is 🤣). Hopefully destined for university and a good career and one day an independent life. But had he stayed in mainstream...I genuinely think he might be dead by now, or perhaps in custody of some sort. He certainly wouldn't be knitting a scarf while listening to a podcast on Ancient Greece and drinking a nice cup of tea, like he is as I type.

@missbish

https://medschool.ucla.edu/news-article/is-autism-genetic

Autism is hereditary and therefore does run in families. A majority (around 80%) of autism cases can be linked to inherited genetic mutations. The remaining cases likely stem from non-inherited mutations.
There’s no evidence that children can develop autism after early fetal development as a result of exposure to vaccines or postnatal toxins.
“Everything known to cause autism occurs during early brain development,” says Dr. Geschwind.

“People might think there’s no point in diagnosing an incurable condition early,” says Dr. Geschwind. “They think they can’t do anything, but that’s not true. The earlier you diagnose and begin treatment, the greater impact you’ll have on the child.”
Autism’s highly variable nature makes precision treatments, which factor in an individual’s genes and lifestyle, particularly promising.

It’s always the same on threads about SEND issues. People with no skin in the game barging in to suggest children with disabilities shouldn’t be born or should be entirely funded by parents (omitting the obvious fact that parents often have to leave the working world almost entirely to care for their children but aren’t supposed to sponge from the empty pot) or it’s just lazy parenting etc. none of it my day . It’s so boring and I wish they’d club together to bitch to each other instead of derailing and irritating parents who already have their children with disabilities and who love them as much as they love their A scoring perfect Percivals

I think SEN has reached such a level (30% of our council tax - so, quite literally, many houses are paying £100 a month just toward SEN) that it’s now a societal issue and the public have a right to discuss to what level they are happy to fund it.

Very few people want the rug to be pulled out from under the feet of very disabled children. But, frankly, many people will not be persuaded that an able bodied, average intelligence child is ‘disabled’ enough to warrant a £50k a year place at a special school and a taxi costing hundreds each week. It’s not unreasonable.

I do feel the SEN parent lobby can be fairly aggressive and little blackmailing when it comes to this topic. All other areas of spending (pensions, military, foreign aid) are open for debate but if you try this one, you’re called a Nazi bigot.

Thanks
whilst I was aware the cost was high I had no idea it was to This extend
and
in that vein I agree
We do all in fact have skin in the game

"I think SEN has reached such a level (30% of our council tax - so, quite literally, many houses are paying £100 a month just toward SEN)"

Where have those figures come from?

They don’t mean it like that they mean a new one . That will mean more stress more court , solicitor fees if needed etc .

@Playingvideogames

I do feel the SEN parent lobby can be fairly aggressive and little blackmailing when it comes to this topic.

I think that’s largely because all parents are defensive of their children, and threads like these ones always aim to avoid the point that when you’re talking about eugenics, cost savings, removing legal rights, value to society etc etc… you’re talking about our kids.

Any parent who would accept being told their child shouldn’t have been born, or they’re not worthy of support etc, needs to have a serious look at themselves.

I will aggressively defend my child’s right to exist, be educated and live in society. Who wouldn’t.

If you take people describing their real children, and the challenges they really face, as “blackmail” - that’s on you. What people are actually doing is giving you the real life context behind your “cost savings.” The terrified mothers, vulnerable children and struggling families. They’re the reality, not the numbers on bits of paper.

Wow so you star ok your taxes stop paying for soa led children , what next ? Anyone a that smokes or obese as they gist the nhs more , people over 60 as they cost the nhs more ? Do you even realise how ableist you sound ? Do you realise if 30 % of children are Sen then there is a very big probability yours will be or your grandchildren , nephew , nieces etc ?

But, frankly, many people will not be persuaded that an able bodied, average intelligence child is ‘disabled’ enough to warrant a £50k a year place at a special school and a taxi costing hundreds each week. It’s not unreasonable.

Nor should they be persuaded, because this would never happen, even under the current “unsustainable” system.

My son goes to one of these schools, and it was offered grudgingly after we’d scraped every other barrel. There has to be no other provision that can meet need.

Shouldn't you be glad that tax is going to help make a child have a happy life or is that just for normal children?

https://www.npt.gov.uk/council-tax/your-council-tax-2025-2026-explained/where-council-tax-goes/

Take this one (each council provides a breakdown of their spending). £770 out of every £2000 is spent on education (and given the schools core budget is centrally funded, this will almost all be spent on SEND). It’s 38%.

Yes, but only to a certain extent, and that isn’t selfish. If the government decreed tomorrow that half your wages would be sent to feed starving people in third world countries, would you be happy as the cause is a good one? Or would you feel happy for X amount of money to be used for that purpose, but not what you see as a disproportionate amount that is quite noticeable every month?

It does happen if they are ‘SEMH’

It does not, would not and could not happen unless the child’s needs could not be met anywhere in LA provision. And even then, only after a favourable Tribunal decision.

There are plenty of ‘SEMH’ children in DS’ school, but none are not also non-verbal or otherwise autistic, typically with other co-morbidities like dyspraxia or SPD.

Parents think that an EHCP is a golden ticket for support - it’s not. There aren’t enough TAs to support students, and like many teachers they are leaving as they are overworked and underpaid.

But your debate doesnt really focus on the proposals recommended by the white paper and consultation document. It hardly engages with the actual stuff suggested and whether this will save money. So it starts to feel a bit like you just want the opportunity to dig at people for costing a lot.

Take taxis. I dont think most people want to be taxid far from home. Most people would want to have the support they needed at their local school. So the proposals might help with that because they talk about inclusion hubs, early help, access to professionals- but they might not as the people most likely to be in a taxi are those in special schools and therefore more likely to get the specialist packages proposed that retain an ehcp.