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.

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.

So if you are at a meeting at work giving a presentation and your audience all put in ear defenders so they can't hear you, then you think that's ok? 🤣

the 40-ish % of kids who have disabilities

Where have you got this statistic from? 40% of pupils in schools are not disabled. Neither do 40% have SEN.

Doctors have stated recently that they feel the huge upsurge in diagnosis of ND is due to money.

Disability benefits are based on needs, not diagnosis. A diagnosis isn’t required in order to claim DLA/PIP. Equally, a diagnosis doesn’t automatically make someone eligible for DLA/PIP.

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?

Schools were possibly quieter back then.

I find this really ignorant. You seem to forget that school pupils are children. Their brains are not fully developed they need support /support aids sometimes this doesn’t mean they will necessarily need them forever.

They might have been.
But I also think children who couldn't cope were filtered out of mainstream, into special schools

I remember sometimes some children would get upset and put their hands over their ears, others would put their heads on the desk and cover them with their school jumper , probably due to feeling overwhelmed

I dont know if this is a joke but i will answer assuming not.

workplaces wouldn't allow this. It's not a reasonable adjustment if you do a job where you need to watch and respond to a presentation and you are unable to listen to the presentation.

What they potentially would allow is for someone who suffers from sensory overload to access the presentation remotely or watch a recording later. But if your disability means you are not able to watch and listen to a presentation even with these adjustments and therefore you cant do the job then that's not the job for you unfortunately.

Yes, or nip out of the classroom to the toilets.

Difference was the teachers just tended to let them get on with it, provided they weren’t disrupting the class, not pull them up for “poor behaviour”.

Ear defenders don't mean the person hears nothing. It tends to quieten background noise.
In addition deaf people don't hear in meetings and manage perfectly well via automated captions or interpreter.
If the person wearing ear defenders because of background noise couldn't hear the presenter they could use otter ai or Google transcribe to read what's being said.

It's what works to get the best results for pupils or most productive team member at work

Sorry this was a reply to ScamWorried at 17.11 who seemed to think 30 children in a classroom all with ear defenders was not necessarily a problem.

Apologies.

Is there anyway you could afford to get her assessed privately, there is such a wait at the moment we went down the private route for our eldest.
A couple of things really stick out though to me are
The school should be helping her find a solution regardless of a diagnosis of SEN, it sounds like they really don’t care, I would ask to speak to the head of year and then escalate it if they won’t engage to the head. Is there any option of a smaller/different school locally that may suit her better?
If it’s the chaos of the corridors and they won’t let her leave a few minutes early, would loop earplugs help? My son wears his when not in class and moving around the school/lunch etc
My Sons school is part of a big trust, and I was worried about sending him there but the head and team are amazing. Yes there are rules, but not for the sake of it and the pastoral care is great.
Pupils are individuals not robots and need to be treated like people…. Can they assign her a buddy that she can walk with to her next lesson to keep her on track and less overwhelmed?

I have and it seems the op thinks her DD cant get from lesson to lesson on time as other student do for undiagnosed psychological reasons in relation to "busy corridors",and being "overwhelmed" i wanted to know specifically practically what she has difficulty with as sometimes a solution can be found to resolve or make things easier for her DD.

It's not a problem because it would never happen because 30 children won't all need ear defenders. It's like saying if you allow a wheelchair user into school all the pupils will want to be wheelchair users -
It would never happen

But equally if you have one child using a wheelchair in a class that doesn't mean the new child to join the school who paraplegic must be faking because we already have met our quota for wheelchair users

For people saying it’s not right to put responsibility to help onto another child. That is correct, however some children, such as those appointed as prefects, or having a nature where they like to please teachers and be made to feel grown up by being asked to do extra things…actually LIKE a task like this.

That doesn’t mean it’s a responsibility to get the other child to class on time. What is means is that for a couple of weeks they act as a buddy system, then report back to a teach on whether it has helped or not. The child feels they have been very grown up, been useful, and enjoyed the praise from the teacher.

It should never be made into a long-term arrangement, however in the short-term it could act as reset for the child who is struggling and build confidence, removing the problem (lateness), and get the child then doing on their own after having some temporary support. Even if that does not happen, the feedback from the other child may give the teacher a better understanding of the problem and the severity of it.

It does seem that the school are being very short-sighted in term of punishing for being late when in this instance it is them leading to school-refusal. It seems it is setting the child into a pattern of a downward spiral. As far a impact on the rest of the class is concerned, I would be asking whether your child is making a lot of noise when entering late and make clear that your child is not expecting a teacher to restart the lesson for them, and that your child is aware that they will just have to jump straight into whatever is happening in class without disrupting anyone else. If you are unable to get the child in due to school refusal or they are late arriving, email the school on every occasion that your child is specially stating the reason for their anxiety over going to school in the morning is the punishments for being late for class, and reiterate (just copy and paste the same email every time), that you believe that if your child could have some leniency such as leaving classes 1min early to have the transition time without the very busy corridors, it would solve all of these issues. Sometimes with schools, you have to just repeat yourself until they give in and
try something. I think given this suggestion has no cost to the school and no impact on other students, it’s not an unreasonable request to try it.

As an aside, has your child ever been in situations such as a football stadium, concert or busy airport lounge? If the child struggles with sensory overload/high anxiety in these situations, that’s an indicator that the issue being experienced at school is part of a wider problem, possibly agoraphobia, social anxiety etc.

If the child isn’t struggling in these types of situations, or even enjoys them…then the issue isn’t about overload and something that is happening at school…could be fears around bullying, could even be that your child doesn’t want to do the schoolwork and is just creating these issues to get their own way and actually wants to be thrown out of class and give you reason why they can’t go into school. The key thing to look for is consistency, if they aren’t always getting overloaded in crowds, then they are trying it on. If your child can’t walk in a corridor with other kids, but can be in a stadium with 5,000 other people…then they certainly don’t have a sensory issue, they have a compliance issue.

It’s also not a problem because it really isn’t a problem. So little understanding here. Ear defenders do not stop you hearing the teacher. They stop you getting overwhelmed by all the other sounds. They are used because some brains are wired such that the internal sound perception dial is turned up to 11 - dim background sounds are distracting and noisy places are deafening. It’s a sensory processing disorder - they literally take in auditory information in a non-typical way.

But people wearing ear defenders can hear the teacher just fine. And if 28 neurotypical kids want for some reason to go to the trouble of wearing ear defenders they don’t need they would also hear the teacher just fine. So even the unlikely hypothetical where everyone chooses to wear ear defenders is still literally not a problem.

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

Because just because something is 'the old way' doesn't mean it was the best way. Because we have moved on with our understanding. Because we are becoming better educated at recognising that just 'getting on with stuff' at school can be hugely damaging and affects those people forced and punished and excluded into doing it throughout the rest of their lives. Because making allowances and accommodating differences may be slow and inconvenient to your good self, but it is worth it so that more children than just those who can manage easily can be educated, as is their right.

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

That includes you.

For a start, I'm not disbelieved when I say certain things are a struggle for me and I need reasonable adjustments.

I also have a shared label that I can use to connect with other people with similar struggles.

And I have access to medication.

Apples, meet oranges. 🙄

Yes. And I can't help but wonder how damaging to their self-esteem, confidence and sense of who they are and how they feel they are seen by others is affected. It is so damaging and I think has a life long effect (negatively).

Surely people with sensory issues just wouldn't choose a line of work that involves noisy meetings.

I'd also be worried about how professionals behaved if a business meeting was so overwhelming for anyone.

Ear defenders don't block out all noise. You can still hear.

I don't know what kind of presentations you go to but I find they're usually quiet with only the presenter or one person at a time speaking. If it's so loud everyone needs ear defenders I think you have bigger worries tbh.

Or pay about 3 grand.

We were especially lucky (not) as the problems came to a head in early 2020.

Absolute rubbish. The NHS isn’t saying this at all.Quite the reverse.

www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/report-of-the-independent-adhd-taskforce-part-1/

Nice use of quotation marks there to show what you actually think of those reasons.

The OP has suggested Loops that will help reduce the noise that her DD struggled to filter out. The school sneered and said they would confiscate them if she tried them. So where do you go from there?