Teachers - how much are you taught about SEN during your training?

[Hassled]

I ask because I was a bit bewildered after a chat with the father of one of DS2's friends. The father is an ICT teacher at a High School. We were talking about DS2's Dyspraxia and he said "Isn't it one of those things where the penny finally drops and they sort their handwriting and stuff out? I mean, you don't come across any adults with Dyspraxia, do you?".

I put him straight in the politest possible way - and freely admit that until 2 of my DCs were diagnosed with Dyspraxia I knew nothing at all about it. But then I'm not a teacher, which is why I'm posting - when you do your teacher training, are you given training in how to spot, or info about, specific learning difficulties - Dyslexia, Dyscalculia etc? Does it depend on the age range you're training to teach?

In my school we have around 200 students on the SEN register for a whole range of reasons. A teacher who teaches art, music, or IT may teach up to 600 children every week and 120 of these have SEN.

There is a limit to what even dedicated teachers are able to do to effectively research all these diagnoses and differentiate accordingly.

In primary a class teacher generally has 30 students, and a school may have 200-500 children. If a child with a hearing impairment comes to school it may be possible to arrange a whole day of INSET to be given over to working with children with HI. In secondary, unfortunately, it's just not possible.

I agree squeaky pop

I also agree with squeaky pop - teachers should pass on concerns to SENCOS' - but I think that SENCOs should have more training.

DS2 diagnosed with dyspraxia/dyslexia in year 2. Got to the point where if his teacher wrote one more tme on his work 'could be neater', 'write more clearly' I was going to go in and throttle her!