To think that there should be enough funding to provide the sort of care/ education a severely autistic child needs

[Reallytired]

The tax payer spends huge amounts of money keeping people like Rosemary West, Moira Hindley, Ian Braedy, Harold Shipman, Ian Huntley behind bars in high security prisons. (OK I know that some of the people I have named are dead)

Yet a severely autistic child who has committed no crime is often denied the sort of education and respite package they need. I realise that boarding schools for severely autisic children are often in excess of 100K, but surely they and their families are more deserving than the mass murderers I have named.

I have to admit I have mixed feelings about the death penalty and I would probably disagree with these awful murderers being executed. However I think we as a country could do more for our most vunerable citizens.

special needs education is in a right mess in a lot of areas.

as reallytired points out, sometimes there is a generic catch-all SN school, which ends up not suiting most of it's pupils. this is what was available where I used to live, and is why we moved, so that dd1's needs could be better met.

what really bugs me is the way the right to inclusion is presented redefined by professionals as "your child will attend mainstream unles you kick up a huge fuss"

Good point silverfrog the right to inclusion has become a lack of right to specialist provision

Do you know onwe ofthe many many things that is crap aboutthe sysyem was embodied for me in an over bearing saccharine woman who attended the meeting to hopefully push DS2 into the senior part of his specialist ASD school.
She used corporate language where the children are called clients and service users and she even used 'synergy' in the course of a converstaion.
She spoke three times about DS2's needs before I challenged her to describe him. She, as I suspected, had never met him but had observed his class.Presumeably too much effort for her to say 'yes but which one'
It took every piece of will power I possessed not to suggest that someone sack her fat smug ass and put the money towards opening up some more places.

I worked with some serious useless wankers in the city 20 years ago. I realised then where they had gone to. Management in the LEA and local Govt.

yep.

we started statementing for dd1 in Dec 2007. By June last year we had had a proposed statement saying that dd1 can go into mainstream, ith 7 hours a week support.

we protested, argued, had meetings, gathered evidence that this was not a good idea - all was ignored.

so we moved.

we have just had a letter form new lea stating that they are adopting dd1's proposed statement

dd1 has just had her report from school (specialist ASD school, really lovely) basically saying she is quite hard work (in an ASD sense, not behaviourally). she just does not relax with anyone outside the family, and therefore has a very hard time learning.

how these two letters can be talking about the same child is a mystery.

pag, agree that LEA management ahve fully embraced corporate wankery speechery, even if they are at least 5 years behind with it all.

On tangent here but nevermind. My son's sn school has just been ofstedded. They got a really good review mostly 1 and 2 no 3's. They got a 4 for exam grades obtained. i think it is quite damaging for this to be included as the school doesn't over emphasise exams and teachers have said it is really hard to follow the curriculum. so when you have kids with no speech or writing skills they prob undertsand things but can't answer the exam q's.
My point is the worse a school does they start to deny them less money so sn schools are on a downer from the start when they need extra money to pay dedicated staffand for resources.

at pointy.

I didn't think that when I got a chance to remember how skilful I am at Lingo Bingo it would be in a SEN review meeting 12 years later....

pagwatch, do you mind me asking which school your ds goes to? obviously understand if you would rather not say (can mail me on silverfrog13 @ gmail.com, if you don't mind saying)

we are not a million miles apart, geographically, and we are on the hunt for a school for dd1 (she is in pre-school provision at the moment). Any opinions gratefully received

(pagwatch should join TTR)

leas really should drop the lingo. It's painful.

Oh I don't mind.
He's at Freemantles in Woking.
Bloody brilliant school. We are lucky

You ARE the taxpayers. If you feel more money should go to a particular cause there is nothing to stop you giving the money direct. If you can't spare any more money then where is the government to get it from? They can only spend your money and would have to take more from you.

thanks, pag

it's on the list I've got from her current place.

well perhaps if they would give back my tax money they spent on a war that me and several others didn't want any part of we would have enough to make a bit of an improvement in provision....
and perhaps stop bailing out banks without actually ensuringthat they will start lending again which was ..err...supposed to be why they were bailed out
and a few other things... like their 2nd home expenses.... etc etc

And I think that several on here are pretty impoverished already by supporting this particular 'cause'.
My little 'cause' will cost us probably a million bythe time DH and i crock. I think that is the current estimate for continuous support for profound SN. And I/we are both carers and providers

silver
i have to dash but will be happy anytime to tell you about it - good and bad. any questions just shout

the problem with inclusion that it often is everything but. So chilren that are forced into mainstream so they can be part of an inclusive setting are actually often excluded from group activities because they are not suited to their needs, not able to participate in whole class activities because they have to have a specifically designed curricullum for their needs, in an environment where they may be overloaded (large group settings with lots of noise etc not suitable for children with severe sensory issues for instance), not included in the playground because their differences mean that other children will exclude them (children are cruel) and so the list goes on. Inclusion? I think not.

I also think, and I am prepared to be flamed for this, that if people didn't feel there was such a stigma attached to sending a child to "special" school, more parents would feel comfortable doing so. Just because you have a disability doesn't mean you have to be thrown in at the deep end and made to be able-bodied to receive a decent education suited to your needs, iyswim.

There should be more money, end of. And special schools should not be closing, end of.

agree OP.

Interesting point Wannabe - apparently quite a lot of parents in my area turn down language unit places for their kids.

Aaaargh Inclusion is bloody ridiculous in many cases. Most teachers and parents can tell in nursery or before if a child needs a sytatement, however it can take years for the statement to be granted. LEAs who keep closing special schools, special schools where any and all SEN are lumped together, poorly paid and in some cases badly trained LSAs working with the neediest children in mainstream. Don't get me started! It's not only the SEN children who are being failed, all children are being failed, spare a thought for the other 29 children who share a class with a child with severe EBD and think about the impact on them.

Inclusion is a money saving farce that is causing untold damage to children, schools and the educational infrastructure.

i found when looking at special schools for my DS that unless the child has a disibility AND a severe learning difficulty they are not eligible for a place....my son has autism and one of the traits of autism is that some of the children are high functioning and have no academic difficulties but cannot cope socially. inclusion for alot of children is impossible. Despite having full time support in MS my son could still not cope because the classes were too large and the expectations to conform to the rules were too high for DS. In his new school he is in a class of 3 pupils with 2.5 members of staff, he has his own work station, lessons are split into 20 minute sessions with a short break, usually run around playgorund or jump on trampoline in between and this works for DS but realistically was never gonna happen in MS.

Riven
I think it depends onthe school - as is so often the case.
My sons school is amazing and his care there simply could not be replicated in mainstream - the staff ratio is 2-1 for his whole class for example - and I have no doubt at all that it is much more expensive than anything mainstream available locally.

Your DDs school sounds great - and nothing like the support offered to SN pupils in a couple of my local schools.

I imagine that done properly it wouldn't be money saving at all - but done skimpily as is often the case........ e.g. when DS had group SALT there were always at least 2 SALT there, sometimes 3, and between 3 and 5 children - so probably not that cheap a way of doing things - but you could imagine somewhere else running groups with one SALT and 8 kids say.