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’m open to the possibility I’m being unreasonable. I think that note is really poor. I’ve never had anything like this in the 10 years my children have been in nursery and school.

Yes the spelling and grammar is off, but there's enough there to understand what kind of day hes had, and what hes engaged with?

Are they otherwise good TAs? Personally I'd far rather a TA who was good, invested in the children, cared and made their day enjoyable, than one who used perfect SPaG. They aren't teaching them degree level English literature. I work with colleagues who speak English as a second or third (and in one case, fourth!) language and their spoken English is far better than their written. I would assume (potentially wrongly, happy to be corrected) that most of their communication/instructions etc. are given with short, clear words?

By all means pass your feedback on to the school, but what is the alternative or what do you see as a solution?

Based on the handwriting the writer is literate in a different script, one that is not left to right; and based on the grammar the author's first language does not have forms for the past tense.
Pretty awesome really. Most of us English speakers struggle with French, and that uses the same letters.

That’s from the teacher.

I agree that it’s a good report of his day. This is after I raised the quality of the reports twice with the head. They were of zero value earlier in the term.

I don’t know if they are good or not - I have no way of knowing as my son cannot tell me anything and I have to rely on the communication book.

Also have a pre verbal ASD DS in mainstream and this would not be acceptable. To be frank, even for NT children it isn’t but when you have children who NEED the language to be modelled in order for them to learn to speak themselves, it’s even more crucial. Why on earth would any school hire teachers and TA’s who can barely speak English? They literally have to teach English every day and can’t spell? Come on… You need to query this.

That written note is absolutely appalling from a teacher. I would definitely complain. I would expect a teacher to have exemplary spelling and grammar.

I have no doubt that the teacher and TAs are valuable, intelligent and worthy people. I have the utmost respect for them and understand the challenge of working in a country that you were not born in speaking a completely different language.

However they are there supposed to support my child to acquire English which I don’t think they are currently very effective in. I don’t think they are stupid and haven’t once intimated that.

You're absolutely right. It's terrible so many young people are not experiencing the social pressure to work by themselves or those around them hiding behind anxiety or just vague SEN/mental health labels. When severe these issues are tragic and life limiting but that's a tiny fraction of what's going on now.

Op - DD1 was in a language unit, because she had a language disorder, dyslexia, dyspraxia, etc. I complained about her teacher’s spelling - there were spelling mistakes in her home school book often. I asked how was DD1 supposed to learn to spell when incorrect spellings were modelled for her. (All the staff in her classroom were native English speakers.)

I totally agree about DC with receptive difficulties struggling with strong accents. Dd1 is in her 30s and still complains when she can’t understand people, because of their accent - and it’s not just verbal complaints in her case, she just won’t interact with them!

OK i would feel very differently if thats from the teacher rather than TAs for sure.

My first concern would be whether the teacher has QTS, based the assumption he’s an overseas candidate he should have at least equivalency and the interview process should be checking for communication.

I’m a SENd parent, and a former SENd teacher, and I absolutely expect my son’s communication to be supported by people he’s able to clearly understand and people who are suitably qualified.

Accents I don’t care about, he’s got a mad assortment now. He says “bath” like “BAFF” but “polar bear” like he’s speaking in RP.

But, if he can’t understand the people he’s learning from, he’s never going to develop language from their input. Or develop, really.

While I think the writing in the photograph enables you to know what happened during the day, the SPAG is very poor and I would expect a higher standard from a teacher. Having seen the photograph, I still don’t think you are unreasonable raising this.

I think its terrible especially from the teacher
Would an app like Dojo be bettter?
This is how i communicate with the teachers at my sons special school
We havent used communication books since the pandemic.

Gunna need an example of the poor written English please

And you would be happy with that for your own child ?

See above.

We do have an app. I’d prefer to use the app solely but I think they are catering for a wide group of parents.

I do think yabu tbh

Maybe see what your child can gain from this person who is from a different background

My autistic DD is trying different cultures food, heard the word 'habibti' and will hopefully be better at understanding accents than I was at her age

I'll never forget the racism accusations because I couldnt process other accents quickly enough when a young autistic woman. I'd get confused and then mishear everything. My poor mum.

Fwiw when dd had white English teachers, she would say 'wawtahhh' like she's just come home from a day of chimney sweeping!

Embrace it! Because yes, there aren't a lot of people with the patience to be a sen TA and love it.

And many people who do, and are passionate about working with our kids, are likely to be from working class backgrounds, where the English standard isn't going to be 100%.

Yabu. And if you bring it up, op, you will be cast as a racist, whichever way you slice it. Leave it and learn some basic facts about the teachers cultures.

My teenage non verbal son has had problems with support workers and education staff who have very poor English - so poor that I struggle to understand what they are saying. My son struggles with understanding speech and needs clear communication. Not having it can lead to the anxiety that causes challenging behaviour.

You have really missed the point I’m making.

This is not to a professional standard in teaching

The Ops child is non verbal
What skills can he gain if he cant understand the teaching staff
Communicatin is everything for him
If they cant communicate effectivley with him how can they meet his basic needs?

YANBU at all.

Mine is also pre verbal

How do we know the child can't understand? Genuinely. The teachers aren't speaking to our kids using long, complex sentences peppered with foreign phrases

They're using the same tools English teachers would use, the pecs cards - only with an accent

And I'm sure you have to pass a proficiency test anyway to become a teacher.

I think the op is wrong on this one

And just because our kids aren't verbal, they still need input and culture, which is the great thing about urban life, which I think the op mentions above.

My son had full 1-1 in mainstream from year 2 onwards, clearly written in his ehcp. He has just passed all his GCSEs (didn’t hit the government expectation for maths and English) and is now at college with full 1-1.

specialist schools are fantastic but they aren’t the answer for everyone. Support should be about what is best for the individual not a one size fits all thing.