New head wanting to move away from good SEN reputation

[yoshiblue]

We are currently looking at a number of secondary schools for my DS in Year 5 and has ADHD. One of our options is a non selective secondary who recently has had a new head.

I’ve heard through the grapevine that the head is trying to move the school away from having a reputation for SEN and attracting EHCP pupils.

For those who work in education, I’m keen to understand the reasons for this. It’s my assumption it’s probably to do with lack of money/resources to support these children? Maybe even an EHCP doesn’t bring the actual money it should to support a child? Is it down to pressure for results too? I know the school has joined a MAT a couple of years ago.

My son generally has low level SEN needs but obviously want him to be understood and supported. Sadly where we live, there are a lot of grammar schools and the other catchment comprehensive isn’t great so it is one of our main options.

Advice most appreciated.

We were told that ‘Ofsted will
fail you for inflating your SEN numbers’ as a lever to get us to lower them. Head stuck to their guns. Ofsted amazed that our SEN figures were so low given the needs on display (that school, a decade ago, was on 35% SEN).

Good for the head sticking to their guns. Recording accurate statistics isn’t inflating the numbers. Reducing the figures doesn’t help the school, staff or pupils, nor wider society as a whole.

I also think it's a very easy thing to say without realising how much people are fobbed off.

A friend who's child was having speech and language therapy was told after their allocated number of sessions that everything was sorted now and they didn't need any further input. Luckily she works in an adjacent field and was able to say quite firmly that of course he still needed more input and outline her reasons why. She fully acknowledged though that if it weren't for her professional knowledge her first thought would've been thank goodness that's all sorted!

I have a friend with a child with cerebral palsy who had a similar experience. She always says parents of children with additional needs learn to get over any shyness pretty quickly because of how hard they have to fight for everything.

@Seagrassbasket @usererror99 my SEN son attends a school that is ALWAYS in the top 10 of league tables, has been number 2 in the Sunday Times Parent Power yet has the highest number of EHCP’s in the County. This is down to the will of the school and a fantastic SEN team with no effect on results and excellent behaviour from all students. It can work and certainly doesn’t put parents off considering there are around 10 applications for every place.

What is an easy thing to say? I'm sorry, i don't follow. If you mean it's easy to say parents don't have capacity, I'm afraid you are vastly overestimating the abilities of some parents.

What is an SEN team and how does a mainstream primary get one of those (and the funding for it)? Please don't suggest schools struggling is down to a lack of will.

@BlueIgIoo its a state comprehensive with a dedicated SEN Team and yes I saw a lack of will in my ds primary school happy to take his Ehcp funding but did sod all of what was stated on his Ehcp and frankly abused his funding using it on generic class TA’s when he was meant to be getting 25 hours 1 to 1.

I'm sorry your son had a bad experience - it's inexcusable. But let's be clear that for most primaries, a SEN team amounts to a SENCO with 2.5 hours release a week whilst also having full class responsibility

@BlueIgIoo I hear you however whatever hours a Senco works it is inexcusable that a child's Ehcp funding is abused. Since starting a supportive secondary actually honouring my ds Ehcp and giving him assistive software his need for an LSA have decreased drastically and school happily feedback that he hardly needs LSA support. If his primary school could have been arsed to use the assistive software that was specified in his Ehcp which we were happy to fund but school said they had it then they would have had far less sensory and anxiety issues to deal with hence a hell of a lot less time.

Of course it is. Our children with 1:1s always have a 1:1.

@cantkeepawayforever I don't think you read my post properly.

Lots of LEAs are currently rebanding all pupils with EHCP funding-they want a massive move away from 1:1 ‘Velcro TA’ support. It sounds like this will result in a reduction in support-either by changes to Section F provision or redundancies for 1:1s.

Well of course they do (the LAs). It's extremely hard to recruit into those jobs. They're poorly paid, hard work and lack progression. Easier to pretend there's no value in the role.

Apologies again. I read it as meaning that, in the US, mainstream primaries allocated two teachers to classes containing SEN pupils.

I responded, thinking about the number and breadth of needs within English mainstream primaries, considering how many such teachers would be needed: possibly an extra teacher per 2-3 classes, if the intention was for classroom reachers to teach all ‘non-SEND pupils’. The huge range of needs in the SEN part of the class would be unmanageable if eg the SEN teacher had 15 pupils, all SEN, so I would suggest it would be closer to 1 extra teacher per 2 classes, a staffing i crease of 50%.

I’m sorry if I misunderstood?

I think it's hard to compare the US and UK systems because ours is centralised (and supposed to be the same in different parts of England -- I mean we know it's not, because so much in terms of children and families depends on the wealth of the local population, but it's supposed to be and there's a National Curriculum) whereas all sorts of things in America vary at state level (even curricula) as does the local tax base that directly funds their schools within towns and cities in each state.

Having said that, I once bought a book to help my SEN child. It was American, as a lot of the most helpful books are, and I was blown away by the section on education and what one might reasonably expect a school to do! It was like reading about another world!

I think that perhaps also in America it is possible that the curriculum, whatever it is, is or can be restricted when there is SEN. That's based on personal experience of teaching a year 7 who turned out to have significant learning needs, but the (UK) school didn't find that out for a while and it also transpired that her school in the US had focused on core subjects e.g. when we got her, she'd never done History, Geography, RS etc (not even the American versions). Of course that is not normally the UK approach -- the National Curriculum is supposed to be adapted.

I think the curriculum is even less changeable in the US, and some of it even less suitable for children with SEND e.g. reading methods that don't have much of an evidence base.

The classes I'm talking about have a group of children with similar needs, 20 children in total.
So it would be like the RPs in some UK schools only a) integrated with a very small mainstream class and b) with an actual specialist teacher not a TA so that c) children can learn from each other as well as from the teachers.

So children in the US areas you are thinking of travel to schools where the ‘additional group’ best matches their SEN? Dies each year group have the same group, so eg a school has an integrated Special School, essentially? How does this affect the reputation and progress of the rest of the school? (I am imagining that it might be a difficult model for SEN that affects behaviour)

How does that work for complex scenarios eg a pupil with physical, emotional and learning needs? Or learning needs and ND? Or indeed for MLD that means that one part of the class in on a Year 5 curriculum and the SEN part on EYFS learning goals?

How does it work in rural areas? Do children travel extremely long distances?

Which part of the US is it?

Joining this conversation very late but I wanted to add my comments. I'm in my 10th year as TA in a mainstream primary and I'm just about hanging in there, for the sake of the children I support, but I honestly don't know how much longer I can do it for.

I work in a Y3 class. Officially on a 1:1 basis with a child with ASD and PDA, but also trying to support other SEN children in the class. We have the class teacher and one other TA with 29 children. Of those 29, six have EHCPs and require differentiated work (but not differentiated in the same way), a further three have behavioural issues because of chaotic home lives, two have developmental delays as a result of FAS and one, well, we haven't got to the bottom of it yet, possibly ASD, or ODD, but simply refuses to do anything or stay in the classroom. We did have 30 in the class but one left after the school refused to have him in class (but offered him 1:1 at school, out of class) as he was very violent and we couldn't keep other children safe. On a daily basis, one of them (usually one of the same two), will become dysregulated, which results in chair throwing, hitting, screaming or kicking. The class TA is usually not in the room as she is trying to keep the child who won't stay in class safe by keeping her in sight. So it often falls to me to manage the others. I spend my days simply firefighting. Trying to calm those down who need it and help those who need it, whilst trying to support my 1:1. It's like one long depressing game of Whack-A-Mole and it is relentless, yet (some) parents constantly complain that we are not doing enough. I am exhausted by it, physically and emotionally, and I often cry when I get home. And for all this, I am paid a smidge over £1k a month. Unless you have been in a class, you simply have no idea what it is like. We need more funding, more staff, and specialist schools that can provide the correct support for children in a setting that works for them. Inclusion is a lovely idea but, frankly, it doesn't work for all children.

Sorry for the rant.

My enquiries were of parents in one state and it varies from state to state.

@cantkeepawayforever I think as in the UK children with SEN travel quite a distance anyway. I've heard of 90 mins each way for primary age. So yes they'd be in a class matched to their needs.

I am not sure this is for PMLD though, it would be for ASD, MLD, SEMH. I don't think the schools get a choice, they are more under the control of the school district than here.

@drspouse do you mean similar to the Nest program?

yet (some) parents constantly complain that we are not doing enough.

If you are including the parents of the pupil you are supposed to providing 1:1 to in this and the provision is detailed, specified and quantified in their EHCP then they have every right to complain. Their DC is legally entitled to 1:1. Other pupils’ poor EHCPs doesn’t alter that.

No, the parents of my 1:1 are amazing. They understand that me taking time to calm another child gives theirs a chance to not be disturbed by them. It is usually the parents of undiagnosed children that make the most fuss. Often also the ones who refuse to have their child assessed as it's us "not managing their behaviour properly".

My point was that, ime, children’s SEN rarely fits into a single box, even if not ‘profound and multiple’.

So a local Special School, in theory for children simply with MLD, found itself increasingly being considered for children with MLD + autism, or MLD + EBD, and turned them down as their needs didn’t fit ‘the right specialism’, so those children with multiple difficulties always stayed in mainstream. Similarly a child with MLD + autism + physical or sensory impairments falls outside the ‘neat boxes’ and has no provision. The model you describe for sone children in one part of the US seems very likely to suffer from the same issue.

The parents of the child with 1:1 wouldn’t be wrong to complain, though. And that wouldn’t make them any less ‘amazing’ and ‘understanding’. Other pupils’ SEN doesn’t change their child being legally entitled to the SEP they have been deemed to reasonably require. If the 1:1 is detailed, specified and quantified in F, the child not being given the 1:1 leaves the LA and school open to legal proceedings.