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.

There are no catch up sessions for individual lessons/topics anymore because there is no-one to do them. This is the point. You get to a point where if a child/children do not understand the year 3 lesson on fractions, then the year 4 lesson will be beyond them. The teacher will differentiate of course but if they still don’t understand they go into year 5 even further behind. If the catch up sessions/extra support/interventions had happened in year 3 when issues were first identified then the likelihood is that most children would not need anything further. I was observed , by ofsted, during our last inspection, delivering a maths lesson to a small group of year 6 pupils. I had to scrap the planned lesson and go back to year 3 learning because it was obvious there were massive gaps in the learning from previous years, I then built on this over the course of a week to get them back to where we should have been. There was no SEN in my group just a group of totally confused children, who had not had the appropriate help at the right time because there was no one to do it. I am the only remaining class based TA we have in the school now, but even I don’t have the time to do these sort of sessions anymore so I leaving.

She’s been failed? How much is her placement and how long will she have been there by the time she leaves?

You have completely missed my point. Regardless of whether they are provided or not, I was explaining the difference between catch up sessions for one off lessons/topics and catch up sessions/interventions that are SEP. Whether you recognise it or not, those needing reading interventions in your pp have SEN.

Literally most NT mainstream kids without SEN have been given inadequate provision for bloody years!

There is more to be considered than work and living independently or semi independently. To only look at those is shortsighted.

I hope @Lougle won’t mind, but the right support now could make the difference between her DD1:
Needing a hospital admission or not.
Being eligible for CHC funding or not.
Being able to be supported in the community or not, and if not, needing a secure residential placement or not.
Needing 2:1 (or higher ratio) and 1:1 being sufficient.

All of which will be far more costly than providing the support she requires now.

The support needed now is far more costly than what it would have costed to meet needs 5 years ago or even 2 years ago. The problem is the LA were shortsighted. Too focused on saving money in the short term despite that leading to higher costs long term.

Yes, she was failed. She was put in a school that was unsuitable and then by the time they admitted it, she was too unwell to move. Then she was put in an unsuitable college, who I had warned of a particular characteristic she had, who assured me they could meet need, then excluded her for displaying that characteristic. Then she went to college 2 who knew about college 1 but did the same thing. Then she couldn't cope with college 3.

She has no provision. Not one minute of any day. We are going through reassessment to try and identify a provision that might work.

Are you hopeful these suggested reforms will help this situation though as thats the crux?

I cant really work out if they are redirecting any savings from less ehcps and capping the cost of independent specialist schools to mainschool budgets to support the new tiers of support so a bigger range of children get support and get early help so it doesnt escalate - or if they are just reducing costs overall to spend more on defence and leaving mainstream schools to deliver this after a cpd session and one visit from a SaLt.

Thank you. That's it in a nutshell. It isn't about not spending money now. It's about whether they need to spend £500 per week, £1,000 per week, £2,000 per week or £4,000 per week. Because if she ends up in mental health hospital or a residential home, it will cost them dear. So they are trying their best to avoid it. Sad, isn't it?

and it's about to get even more inadequate in that case when children with largely higher needs have their EHCP's removed and are forced into mainstream.

Not true. Check results statistics and Ofsted history.

Bear in mind that at the moment, we get no support with DD1 at all. We are literally coping hour to hour with a very changeable, very volatile, very dysregulated young woman. I am as close to breaking point as I've ever been.

I am saddened to read that but not surprised. I worry you are hurtling rapidly towards carer burnout. Those involved need to take note. They need to take action now. Not at some unspecified time in the future, maybe. It will cost them more if you reach carer burnout. I have said it before, but I will say it again. There is only so much you, one person, can do. You can’t do it all. It isn’t physically or mentally possible. You can’t be everything to everyone all the time. I am always here to listen if you want/need.

I think it will make matters worse, for my school anyway. We do not have any physical space to accommodate a hub/base so we will end up with more high needs children shoe horned into classrooms. We are already over capacity in 3 classes as it is due to appeals being granted.

This has happened at DDs' old school. The SEN block became an overflow for kids who were too disruptive for the behaviour hub. So you had young people with challenging behaviour mixed with children who were in the SEN hub because the 'normal' children overwhelmed them. Disastrous.

There are some children in inadequate schools. I dont think the gcse system serves the lower attaining children well at all and the offer for them is inadequate - but thats not most children.

For those capable of 5 gcses grade 5 or above, the school system is designed entirely around their needs in terms of curriculum and environment. My children thrived, although one has left now.

Not all of us here only have sen children remember. Some if us have more NT children than SEN and dedicate our working lives to all children that pitch up to school. Its really tough in schools right now, its likely to get worse but I dont think we have hit most NT children getting an inadequate education yet and I cant really get a feel for whether these reforms will help or make it worse.

and some of us haven't always had a disabled child. My son had a completely 'normal' school experience in the exact same school without an EHCP until he became disabled.

If half the class are behind it's more likely poor teaching than a lack of TA.

There are well known issues in mainstream schools. Huge amounts of cover staff being used to teach gcse science classes for months on end, or supply teachers, try learning when you have a different teacher every week who doesn't know the class. Not enough money for basics so kids having to share resources and parents having to buy more - schools now issue parents with a long list of stuff and kids need to take their own bloody glue stick to school.
And of course yes lots of peoples kids are in crap schools, often if school are oversubscribed (they are in my areas) you don't get your first, second or third choice of school you get the local sink school.
So yes loads of parents of mainstream kids with no special needs have to accept this, what choice do they have, or right to fight it?

It might not be 'most' but people on here are claiming no parents of children without SEN have to accept an inadequate education. Bollocks, loads do!

That isn’t true 90% of schools in the uk are rated Good or Outstanding by Ofsted. Teaching is pitched at the majority not SEND.

If you have an issue with what the majority without SEND are getting it’s a teaching/ dept of ed issue.

"It’s time for £100k placements to stop and some kind of fairly basic provision to be made with an online learning package."

Oh I see you would rather pay for the 500k residential payment that will follow this.

Ok so ultimately she’s been provided with 3 or 4 different settings, and none of them have worked out? I wouldn’t say that’s ‘failing’ her - failing to me would be shrugging your shoulders when placement 1 doesn’t work out, and saying there’s nothing else.

Ultimately it all sounds experimental, they have no idea of what may or may not work until she’s tries it. I’ve seen parents fight for very expensive placements which they say would be a perfect fit for their child, only for the child not to like that placement either and not turn up and so the parent says they’ve been ‘failed’.

I take issue with this word ‘failure’ because it implies nothing was done (which doesn’t sound true) or that, aside from something imaginary which probably doesn’t exist and would be perfect for them in every single way (and this would be different for every child), the state is somehow utterly useless when the reality is they’re making reasonable efforts to give her a choice despite having millions of children to educate.

They’ll follow regardless.

And you think the OFSTED rating translates to each student feeling similarly about the school? If it did then mainstream would be suitable for everyone.

I have to remind you every child is individual and learns differently and has different strength and weaknesses. NT children aren’t some homogenous happy blob to whom the curriculum has been designed to fit their facsimile brains

Nope but the fact that 90% of schools are actually good or outstanding illustrates that the declaration that

“most NT mainstream kids without SEN”

”have been given inadequate provision for bloody years!”

is ludicrous and incorrect.

And re your hugely hypocritical :-

“I have to remind you every child is individual and learns differently and has different strength and weaknesses. NT children aren’t some homogenous happy blob to whom the curriculum has been designed to fit their facsimile brains”

maybe read back over some of your sweeping,dismissive posts as regards children with autism, ADHD and SEND . You pop up on every thread even remotely focusing on ND and SEND children spouting the same old ignorant shite.