SEND education issue for non-verbal child - standard of English in the classroom.

[Merryoldgoat]

I’m am extremely conflicted and finding it really hard to know if my opinion is reasonable or utterly disgusting.

My younger son is 8. He is pre-verbal with ASD and is in a specialist school with a focus on communication needs, so all of the children have SALT and OT input. He has been there since March. His first (half) year was excellent. His teacher and lead TA were superb and I saw progression regularly.

His new class is concerning me. Now I suspect some people will think I’m racist or bigoted but I am genuinely not sure what to do. There is a classroom team of 4 - 1 teacher and 3 TAs for 8 children so it’s high input. Not a single teacher or TA speaks English to a high level. They are all heavily accented and their written and spoken English is not to a level I would expect to be acceptable in a classroom.

The standard of writing in his communication book is concerning; there are at least three contributors, none of whom can write appropriately in English.

After a conversation with his teacher on Friday I am still concerned. I couldn’t entirely understand what he said to me, owing to both accent and grammar.

I feel that for children with significant learning disabilities around speech and language it’s a reasonable expectation that they have clear English in the classroom. Is this unreasonable? Am I being disgusting?

To be clear: I am non-white, I’m a second generation immigrant, I am not racist but I’m starting to feel utterly unable to know how best to deal with this and advocate for my child whose education is suffering (I believe).

I work in education (not a teacher) - I know it’s stretched and stressful and hard and thankless. I’m not wanting to add to the school’s burden but I’m worried for my child.

If you want more context, for anyone who remembers my little boy is the subject of the long-running ‘my son just called me mummy’ thread.

Happy to answer questions.

I personally do not think there should be sen provision in mainstream school. It's cost inefficient and takes resources away from kids who might otherwise grow up to be teaching the children (of all abilities) of the future. I'd like to see a return to special schools for anyone who needs a teaching assistant.

I think because of funding harm caused by the preferred approach we basically have to take whoever will work for the terrible pay offered to TAs (minimum wage but not for school holidays).

You're not being unreasonable but I bet you would be against a change to a more centralised model.

You would not be unreasonable to bring this up with the school. It isn’t about race. It is about language skills.

At the next AR, it might be worth looking at the wording around language modelling etc. in F of the EHCP. Again, this wouldn’t be about race, but about language and communication skills.

This could be a very good shout. Especially if your DC requires lots of language modelling and also struggles to process language.

It would also not be discriminatory as it would not rule out any race, just stating a skill. I've worked with many overseas colleagues over the years in different education settings (Chinese, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Romanian, Caribbean, Ghanaian, Bangladeshi to mention a few) with excellent easily understood spoken and written English.

You dont actually have a non verbal child so have no idea how much they rely on others to communicate for thrm
I dont care where about in the world sombody comes from who is caring for my non verbal extremely vulnerable son
I do care that they can meet his needs in all areas of his care including communication.

But they're being paid junk. Only someone ineligible for benefits would do that job. So you need to take what you can get (which after Brexit is slim pickins)

OP very clearly says that her child is in a specialist school.

Special schools aren't automatically the right choice for every child who needs TA support. My son does great in mainstream.

What makes you think that all children who need TA support won't be able to be teachers when they are adults?

We do have special schools the Ops child is in one.

I missed that. I mean, my concern isn't really primarily for the kids receiving the extra support, it's for the 29 other children receiving terrible education because resources are focused entirely on the 1 or 2.

But regardless, I wouldn't be a TA for all the money in the world so I think people need to adjust expectations. If you're never going to live independently you don't need the state to provide a personal norland nanny.

Thats just not true
My son has been going to a special school for 13 years most of the staff are excellent and very dedicated to the children.

Non of which is relevant to this thread as we are not talking about a mainstream school.

I'm sure you'd feel differently if it was your child who required extra support.

You seem to have a very poor understanding of SEND. You do realise that not every child with SEND is the same?

We can exoect disabled chiodren to be cared for with a bit of compassion .

What are you talking about? He’s not in a mainstream school.

@CurdinHenry part of the problem with SEN supported by 1-1s in mainstream is the training and skillset of many 1-1s.

Many 1-1s are general T.As or have done level 3 teaching assistant courses. These really don't prepare them or give them the knowledge base to provide effective 1:1 support. Many 1:1 TAs get very little training on how to deliver speech and language programs (even those specified in EHCPs), how to properly support a student to be independent, how to teach a student to regulate or recognise triggers and use coping strategies. In all my years in education I've only come across 1 mainstream 1:1 who had any training in autism - the parents actually privately paid for the TA to go on a night course as she also used to provide care for them privately in the holidays. Many 1:1s find themselves firefighting and managing fall out day in day out with very little idea of how to actually prevent incidents or help prevent the fall out. Sadly, a lot of the training given (when even given) is rushed or delivered in a way which is hard to translate to real everyday experiences of 1:1 TAs.

Special schools are usually staffed by excellent, committed individuals and often have services like speech and language, ot, physio ect on site or someone who comes in and does it. Training is better and as most of the people in the special school are more experienced and better trained to manage incidents, things are calmer. My nephew's special school has taught them how to recognise their triggers, how to manage those triggers, how to politely remove themselves from situations and how to regulate themselves. This means, unlike when they were in mainstream they would just explode into a destructive force of deregulation, they now are able to recognise when they are triggered and will remove themselves from the situation before they explode.

Special schools are also generally excellent at preparing for life after education and preparation where possible for independent or semi independent life. Our eldest nephew has just finished education at his special needs college, he is able to live a semi independent life (when he was younger they said he would never be independent and would have to live at home or in a care home). BIL has bought a static caravan that is at the end of their garden for nephew to live in so he can be somewhat independent of the family but still supported. He is able to manage his own hygiene with support- reminders to wash/ put on clean clothes, cook basic meals but will be having a main meal with the family most days, he is in a supported volunteer position, he is able to attend short outings to familiar places with "safe" food options. This is all thanks to his excellent special school. His 1:1 in mainstream spent her day being hit, kicked, spat at or wandering aimlessly around the school building and playground hoping he wouldn't kick off. The poor lady had no idea what to look for in regards to triggers, how to teach him to regulate or how to prevent him melting down.

I have had a similar situation - my autistic child struggles with strong accents. It's an auditory processing issue. He's focussing so much on trying to understand what is being said that he can't really engage in the conversation, and it's very stressful for him. It feels like I'm being racist, even though it would equally apply to unfamiliar strong british accents.

Where do you live? I'm in SE and have encountered this problem in a range of settings. (My job and my life involve a lot of working with cognitively/socially challenged.)

This does matter. I'm not sure how they would fix it though. We've had issues with staff who have strong European accents. I think autism makes it particularly hard to adapt to different accents.

I don't think you're being unreasonable at all. Clear communication in English is necessary for anyone teaching in a school in England.
Someone mentioned regional accents above, but even teachers with regional accents seek to enunciate their words correctly in a classroom setting even if they speak like a local elsewhere.
I think in a standard school this would be seen as a big issue, I can understand it feels even more so for your son as it is adding yet another barrier.

In order to avoid conflating the issue with any suggestion that you are being racist, I would probably approach this by focusing in on your son's educational needs and what is lacking in that regard (semantics I know, but it seems kinder to me) e.g. "my son needs to hear and see clear and correct English being spoken and written, so that he is able to learn; how can we ensure this is what he is exposed to in the classroom, as that isn't happening at the moment?"

You have a fair point and in an ideal world every classroom would be staffed with people who have strong language and communication skills, especially those catering for children with higher needs. But what do you propose as a solution? There is no answer to this problem. There are not enough teachers or good quality assistants who want to work in mainstream, let alone special education, and even fewer who are highly skilled.

It’s a tough job that doesn’t pay well enough, and this is the result.

How would you logistically do this? Our son has a TA as he’s deaf, so the TA signs. If we were still in the UK he would be on track for grade 8-9 in his subjects.

Would each catchment have a specialised school for the deaf that taught all subjects on the curriculum? And then the same for ASD, SEMH etc? Or would children still be travelling miles and only sitting english, maths and the odd vocational course?

I'm in the North West. I've only come across staff with poor English in care homes.

This is one of the messages from the teacher.

Entirely untrue? You can only speak from your own experience and have no authority to comment on anything like this in its entirety. Many of us have been through schooling in places with regional accents and can attest that teachers with strong accents adapt their annunciation for teaching and write in clear English.

You also have no idea how you’d think or feel if you had a non verbal child. It’s very easy to say what you would and wouldn’t find acceptable when you have a child who can ‘speak and write beautifully’. How dare you command the mother of a non verbal child to not ‘even think about’ making a complaint ‘if the only problem is how [the teaching staff] speak’. Speaking and the teaching of it is her absolute priority for her child.

I don't think it's that bad. Based on the handwriting, I'd guess they were in a rush filling them in at the end of the day.

There needs to be better resources for learning English, and a focus on pronunciation that is currently lacking.
I have searched for classes/ lessons/ online resources for colleagues and I felt they were hard to find and not necessarily quite the right thing.
Elocution is what is required - some of the highly qualified professionals I have met place the stress on an unexpected syllable, or routinely switch pairs of consonants. I do it myself when speaking other languages, and it is not always obvious that the listener won't understand because for example Standard English usually drops the letter r. Most people study English up to a level and then stop. The GCSE has a Spoken Endorsement that you have to pass, and the standard of pronunciation is not high.

Sorry for the essay: this really struck a chord for me.