To think that children with special needs should be included in mainstream schools where ever possible

[ReallyTired]

Before I get really stoned, I do work in a special school and I know and I know quite a few children with special needs. The school I work at is very good and the kids make fanastic progress.

I think its right that there are some special schools, for children who really cannot cope socially or academically with mainstream. Even then I think children at special schools/ special units should mix with mainstream children as much as possible.
However I think its a mistake to think that special schools are a pancera for everything wrong in state state education.

Children who attend special schools often spend quite a long time travelling to school. Their course choices at keystage 4 are often limited because a special school is very small. The very small number of children can make it hard to find a good friend. Especially for girls who are often out numbered by boys.

I think that for inclusion to work there has to be more than just extra funding. Secondary schools need to be smaller. Somehow schools need to achieve a more human scale, prehaps by splitting larger secondary schools into smaller units. Maybe we should have middle schools like Bedfordshire.

There are children like young carers or children in local authority care who get forgotten about. When you get to know an individual child you realise that they aren't a monster, in fact they are just like your child. Inclusion needs money and resources to work well.

Sounds like our little lad in Year One. He seems to bring out the protective side of some of the girls. He is also very beautiful, which probably helps.

bridie also have to admit that my son is capable of the things oyu talk about. he is very aggressive and my main reason for searching for a special school is to stop him having the opportunites to disrupt and hurt other children. I am now fighting an argument about 'peer groups!'
LEA feel DS belongs in MS because he needs an appropriate peer group, he doesnt have MLD is G&T but severe emotional and behavioural.
My argument is that if in MS he alienates his peer group with his behaviour anyway! Surely its better to be with children who are similar to him and have the intensive support to help learn other ways of behaving appropriately.

riven trelores is a amazing school. we chcked it out for dd. but be aware the care side imo is not brilliant. due to the fact that they will do no manual handling. if dd had a fit she would have to be moved by a hoist!! i couldn't imagine dd there.
but I would have sent ds(nt) there. the facilitys were amazing.

the model i personally like is a unit within the campus of a ms with integration where and when appropriate (so ds3 could be ms for maths / compuyters / sport but not circle time / reading etc)

ewith the awatreness that for some integration is not appropriate

My DS got his statement this week recommended a SN school place DESPITE the views of Neurologist, SN nursery (where DS has attended 2 sessions for 1.5 yrs), (LEA's own) ED Phych, his current ms nursery (has been doing 3 sessions a week since Sept - attached to a ms school) and me that he should be in ms school.

Do these panels never listen to the advice of professional/people who actually KNOW the child?

For those of you at special schools, do they cater for bright but physically disabled children - or are they really aimed at mentally challenged disorders? Would a bright 'mentally normal' child thrive or get bored? my nightmare scenario is my dd can't cope physically with ms..and has nowhere to go!!

bonkerz- he may not do those things in special school anyway.

My son (severely autistic) has always been a charmer. He's always been very gentle and he really has never attacked other kids (except his siblings sometimes - and that's been in a more interested way). BUT in mainstream school his behaviour was appalling. I remember leaving him once and seeing him dancing on the tables and all the mainstream kiddies laughing at him (fair enough really). He would never behave like that now. (And he wouldn't have behaved like that at home at that time). The difference that having people around who understand SN and how to react appropriately to challenging behaviours makes such a difference.

ReallyTired I think you're talking about a very specific population there. The secondary MLD school local to us is not full of children with caring responsibilites. It's full of children who would have been in SLD a few years ago, who are not conversational.

The primary MLD school may have some of the children you mention as it's moved more towards EBD - but a good EBD school could well be an appropriate placement for a child with a very insecure home life. And there is no reason why an EBD school shouldn't be able to push a child academically (I know they often don't, but some manage it).

Microwave- our local PD school is combining with a mainstream school, so there will be all the PD facilties on a mainstream site. I do think that's a good model. It's less successful with challenging behaviours/learning difficulties.

Combining a Pd unit with mainstream sounds like a great model for everyone. That must be really rare.

A friend of mine has a child who needs a lot of SEN and there is a local unit near us, combined with a MS school. There are only 7 places per year and you have to apply and a panel decides out of 100s of applicants. Just a ridiculous situation..with the 2 heads of our main political parties with SN kids you would think they might try and sort this!!

David Cameron has said that if the tories get in then he will put a stop to any further special schools being closed whilst a review is carried out. I think he said it on here actually.

Anyway enough for my vote . Labour have shown they're crap with SN.

they haven't said they'd stop CTC, riven.

and until they do, i'm not voting labour.

i'm sick of my daughter's education being treated as some kind of point scoring.

she's a PERSON, not a target.

Oh CTC is crap though. Perhaps they'll replace it with something better? (Couldn't be any worse).

it didn't work for us. got the ol' 'we've overpaid you' and cut us off without a bean.

it's not enough to make me vote Labour.

i want to find out what they suggest for an alternative.

ditto the winter fuel allowance - a good alternative might be for all disabled to not have to pay VAT on fuel, for example.

no VAT on tampons comes first!!!!!

i have a problem with the Labour policy of increasingly forcing poor and working poor to apply for a benefit rather than just rolling back costs/cutting taxes.

my ILs are OAPs. my MIL is crippled by rheumatoid arthritis and FIL has increasingly hard to control insulin dependent diabetes.

but they're too proud to take or apply for most 'benefits'.

a lot of elderly are like and i think it's shameful for a government to tax them so much they make them dependent upon the state.

probably more expensive to administrate a lower tax rate for oaps though. I wonder what other countries do.

I think a lot of other countries tax less in the first place.....

tax credits cost £582m to administer last year.

their errors cost the taxpayer another £1bn.

down from the first few years, when their errors were costing approx £2b/annum.

god only knows how much their cock-ups cost people whose tax credits awards they screwed up and then cut off whilst clawing it back or disputing.

it cost us about £4000 we'll likely NEVER be able to pay back.

Do you want to know how much they overpaid us last year?

FOURTEEN THOUSAND

(I knew about nine).

I had been tellling them for months they had been overpaying. But FOURTEEN grand? FFS.