School lateness punishments, neurodiversity and the law

[VividDenimTiger]

Posting here for traffic really. DD 14 has had issues in secondary school- we suspect ADHD to be honest. I am unravelling my own mid life ADHD traits at the moment too.

For DD, one of the things that manifests in school is persistent lateness. She just can’t organise herself to get to lessons on time. The school has now brought in a punishment for lateness where anyone late more than 5 mins gets sent to a punishment room for the lesson. Needless to say DD is now missing loads of lessons because of her lateness.

I know that it’s annoying for teachers when kids are late for lessons but it feels like this policy unfairly targets kids, like my DD, who might or do have some issues with timekeeping because of other things going on.

Aibu? I am trying to unravel some of this for DD (and myself) but I am really angry about how punitive this policy is- it feels like it disadvantages kids who genuinely have issues with organising their time and themselves. The corridors are really busy in school and she gets upset and overwhelmed and that doesn’t help all of this.

Your response doesn’t surprise me (especially after reading this thread), it just solidifies what I think and fear that people who don’t live with these issues think of those of us who do, and also makes me really bloody angry.

My response is this - would you say the same to someone who lives with pain / fatigue / mobility issues / insert other physical health problems there? Would you say that someone shouldn’t seek a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, hypothyroidism, relapsing / remitting MS, neuralgia etc because they can then seek pity, become a victim, claim benefits etc?

Because unless you would, you have absolutely no right to say that about people who have sought and have been given a legitimate diagnosis of a neurodiverse condition in order to try and understand and improve their lives through appropriate support and treatment.

FFS.

Doctors have stated recently that they feel the huge upsurge in diagnosis of ND is due to money.
They would have existed before but nothing like today. The rate of diagnosis will mean being ND will be usual as opposed to not.
And only in this country it would seem.

Sigh

Take 3 pupils and ear defenders not being allowed in school A
Pupil 1 can't stand the noise in class and keeps becoming overwhelmed - this impacts the whole class as the become distressed and behaviour worsens.
Pupil 2 also can't stand the noise they don't become disruptive but their body shuts down which means they cant learn and become very fatigued
Pupil 3 doesn't have noise sensitivity

In school b ear defenders are allowed
Pupil 1 wears their ear defenders and isn't disruptive
Pupil 2 wears the ear defenders and can learn
Pupil 3 could wear ear defenders if they wanted to but they don't because they don't need to.

Can you see that in school A every pupil regardless of needs will have negative impact of the no ear defenders rule (that also contradicts disability laws) but in school b no one has an over negative impact. Some people may say it's not fair because pupil 3 doesn't have ear defenders but if pupil needed them he could have them
This is fair for everyone and everyone gets access to education
Most reasonable adjustments have no negative impact on peers and lots of positive impact

What doctors are saying this?

I have an autistic child a they get awarded DLA. This doesn't touch the sides of the extra costs involved in raising child. I also get carers because I am severely limited in being able to work. Not least because they don't have a suitable school place they can attend

However, if my child wasn't disabled I would have continued being able to work in my career.

The income I would have earned by working even part time around school hours would have far far exceeded the benefits we receive and fundamentally our outgoing would have been far less that they are to provide for our child's needs.

So please explain why anyone would opt for this life?

Also benefits are based on the support needs not diagnosis so their are children awarded DLA that haven't yet got a diagnosis and children with diagnosis that don't receive DLA

It’s not increasing due to money. That’s just minimising and gaslighting in order to not have to deal with an issue.

Canada, here.
Diagnoses are up everywhere:
better and proactive screening
broader umbrella
recognition of more subtle symptoms
Recognition that symptoms in boys and girls differ

@KateSixer Well the school system is a lot worse for one

Support in school was far more likely in the past. And early support means less long term support /lower long term support.

But when needs are left unsupported the needs become worse.

My child has EDS and one aspect of this is hyper mobility in fingers. When I was a child anyone with poor pencil grip was given a special pencil now they won't do this without OT approval and this can take years.
By the time my child was seen by the OT the poor pencil grip they had adapted to be able to write was ingrained (ie too late to correct with special grips) and damage had been done to the fingers - the OT said they couldn't write in school as they would worsen the damage

By the way we did use grips at home because of the pain writing caused but because the school did not allow this and told my child it wasn't needed they became embarrassed about the grips and started to refuse them.

So a small issue that could have been corrected in early years of education (and would have for past generations) has had huge negative impacts on the child's education

I am so sorry for all the negative responses many from people who probably dont understand how SEND is supposed to work in schools and are jumping on the bandwagon of "adhd is just used as an excuse for laziness"

My daughter started secondary on SEND support simply because I raised the possibility that she may have adhd after some issues which only really became apparant during SATS year with all the pressure. She wasn't referred until autumn of year 7 and has recently been diagnosed. All that time she received loads of bespoke support in her lessons and a time out card. She does get detentions occasionally for lateness but the school would never use such a stupid policy as making her miss an entire lesson! It sounds to me like the school are doing a poor job and all the new legislation coming in will mean that they are acting illegally in not meeting your daughter's needs.

My older son is autistic and had a pass to leave 2-3 mins early from lessons because he couldn't cope with corridors. This is a normal thing for many secondary schools.

I think a lot of the people commenting really dont get the adhd and autism are legally considered disabilities. You wouldn't ask someone who was deaf to work on strategies for learning how to hear. What you would do is help them find solutions such as lip reading and wearing ear pieces in lessons. These are reasonable adjustments. The school sendco should be working with.you to find reasonable adjustments to mean your daughter can attend her lessons and learn.

My advice: write a list of reasonable adjustments that you feel would help her

Write a formal letter to the school requesting that these adjustments are made

Quote the children and families act 2014
child of compulsory school age or a young person has a learning difficulty or disability if he or she— (a) has a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others of the same age, or (b) has a disability which prevents or hinders him or her from making use of facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age..."

And the equality act 2010
"A person does not need to have a medically diagnosed cause for his or her impairment; what matters is the effect of the impairment, not the cause"

If they refuse then I suggest you contact your local authority sendiass and ask for support.

Keep fighting for her. This thread has shown what a mountain we have to climb for send support to meet the needs of children

The article I saw was in Pulse a GP publication. For the 8th June.

What if everyone started wanting ear defenders? Slowly, slowly there are now 30 kids sitting in the class wearing ear defenders and it is un-teachable

I am only the messenger of the article I read in a GP publication.

I did not write the article in question.

So what if they did. Would it matter..ear defenders don't actually make teaching impossible anyway.

So if 30 pupils wear ear defenders it hurts no one. It would never happen through as bob and Sarah won't want their hair messed up and they give frank and mark a headache

It would only be an issue if ear defenders became compulsory

I didn't suggest they were...

Clearly rubbish - the heading states GP's under pressure to diagnose
GPs can not diagnose autism so it's obviously fabricated for an agenda

So my last reply to this comment was deleted which seems a bit odd as there was nothing offensive in it.

I'll try to re-phrase. No one used to need ear defenders while I was at school. They just got on with stuff. So what has changed?

So much of this stuff just seems confected to me and it does impact other children.

We need to ensure everyone (including parents) has more resilience.

There how was that?

Whoever said that "SEND support is based on need not diagnosis", I'm not sure the schools have got that memo!! (From my experience, anyway)

Might it not make it difficult to hear the teacher?0

Utter nonsense - and a really worrying opinion - that if a disabled child isn’t disruptive then they’ll be fine in mainstream. All that means is that the other children in the class won’t be disrupted by them.

Unfortunately our village infant school completely believed the above. They told me DS would have to be ‘drowning’ (delightful choice of word) to be moved to a special school. He was drowning. They hadn’t taken the time to notice.

I think we are in agreement. Years ago people took practical helpful steps and there was flexibility at the level of the individual child.

Now we have institutionalised this so educational law has become an industry in itself and the exercise of individual discretion by teachers is frowned upon

Children with DS were never seen - does this mean they didn't exist?

Nope it meant they were locked and hidden away

Ear defenders allow ND people with noise sensitivity to manage in noisy environments

In the past before ear defenders they would not have been able to meet their potential. The noise would have caused them not to be able to focus and learn - so they would have not got the results they were capable of.
With ear defenders the noise isn't such a big barrier and so they are able to learn and participate to their potential.

Before there were so many brail options for blind people. They relied in others having to read to them and scribe their thoughts. With brail books and typing/ writing guide options blind people can read and write fully independently. Should blind people have their adaptations removed because years ago blind people managed without adaptions? Even if removing these adaptions severely worsens the quality of life?

Well for anyone struggling - they can mic drop - remove the ear defenders

I don't think kids just got on with it. As a peer, how would you have known or understood?
I remember at least three boys in my class who were made to sit at the back with a make-shift cardboard box barrier around their desks to block us/them to curtail distraction, I assume. Imagine how that must've felt for them. I can only really reflect on this now, as an adult and parent. I lost track of them as we got older, but I remember hearing one was a "druggie" (cocaine). Could they have had autism/been on the spectrum, adhd, maybe?
I feel bad for those kids and wonder how things would have been different if they were supported and not shunned and treated as bad kids when they were likely just struggling. It's quite sad.

Its not that they didnt need to, it's that they didn't know they needed to. So they became overwhelmed or stressed or switched off and didnt learn effectively but this was put down to daydreaming or lack of ability or a personlity trait. Or they weren't in the school in the first place because they were in special school or the noise sensitivity meant they misbehaved and were deemed naughty and removed.

Depending on your age such children were not in our mainstream schools anyway.

And despite ear defenders being perfectly accepted in my children's schools only one or two in a year group wear them so suggesting thats a huge growing issue that has no end is nonsense.

Ear defenders and children leaving lessons a minute or two early and children having a toilet pass or a coloured overlay are all things that have been around for years and dont really impact on other children at all. As an ex secondary teacher the biggest single thing that negatively impacts children is other children's disruptive behaviour and none of the reasonable adjustments listed above cause that. Many of them help.prevent that.

Not all neurodiverse kids misbehave and most badly behaved children are not ND.