Email from my child’s infant school uk? I’m sorry but this all seems wrong?

[Frazzledmomma123]

Dear Families,

I wanted to address a concern that has understandably been raised regarding the use of a ‘safe word’ to move children out of the classroom. On reflection, we recognise that terms such as safe word and evacuation can raise anxiety and concern.

We agree that children should not have to leave their own classroom in order to feel safe. However, there are times, though not daily, when moving the class is the safest option for all children. This has happened a few times, and only when absolutely necessary. We fully accept having to go to such measures is a worry, but it is a system that schools are having to turn to more and more. I appreciate this provides little comfort, but hopefully helps you hear that supporting emotional regulation has become a real focus and factor for schools nationally.

The children themselves were involved in choosing the word, and the purpose was to minimise panic and keep the situation calm if it needed to be used. Our aim is always for every child to feel safe, happy, and able to learn in their classroom, as is their right. We are putting a range of steps and strategies in place to work towards this, and we do not intend this approach to become the “go‑to.”

We also want to reassure you that we are supporting children to understand that behaviour is a communication of feelings, but the way those feelings are shown must still be safe and appropriate. We do not condone unsafe behaviour, and we share parents’ concerns about children seeing this as “normal.” I have spoken with the class to reiterate that message and reminded them that they should always talk to a trusted adult if they feel unsure or worried. In school, children choose five trusted adults; it may be helpful to have a similar conversation at home about who your child feels they can talk to at school.

We are very aware that things are challenging at the moment. We do not want this to continue, and we are actively putting support in place to help all children feel safe and settled in their learning environment.

Thank you for reading, please keep speaking to us about your concerns.

And you talk of others misinterpreting what you have posted. That poster didn’t say she hadn’t read you posts. She said it is “Unlikely anyone is going to go through this point by point, I'm certainly not.” Go through it as in reply to each point separately. She didn’t say or mean she hadn’t read it all.

I mean, you’re lecturing me on “the SEND community is stronger together” when precisely what I’ve been stating repeatedly is that everyone needs to stand together against these damaging reforms, and trying to get the parents of non-disabled children to also understand the implications and effects this will have and object to them?

You say “there is no guarantee my children will come out of this ok” when I’ve specifically highlighted again and again how it will be extremely damaging to my own children, as well as many, many others with different needs AND the children for whom mainstream school is appropriate?]

I have stated repeatedly that the needs of lots of children who are very different to mine need to be met in very different ways to the needs of my children and advocated for how that should happen and yet you are falsely trying to portray my comments as centred solely on my own children’s needs and having no regard for others whose needs are different. My numerous comments on this thread show VERY clearly that this is categorically not the case yet you’ve decided you can falsely portray that to be my position contrary to everything I’ve said. That’s quite disgusting and shameful of you.

You keep posting argumentative comments to me entirely misrepresenting everything I’ve said, pretending I’ve said the opposite, taking single sentences in comments entirely out of context having admitted and clearly evidenced in your ridiculous responses to me that you haven’t even read what I’ve written on this thread, so please, go and find someone else to direct your pointless comments to now.

The irony of you writing “the SEND community should stand together” when you’ve repeatedly attacked someone whose comments have encouraged precisely that, having admitted you haven’t even read what they actually wrote, is quite amusing if it wasn’t undermining precisely what some of us are trying to get across on this thread which is that everyone needs to stand together against these extremely damaging proposals which will harm ALL children in state schools.

Please do not reply to me further as I think you are incredibly disingenuous and your comments to me are actively undermining the valuable discussions on the thread.

Yet her comments evidence very clearly that she had not read any of it, or at least not understood any of it as she has repeatedly tried to portray my comments as precisely the opposite of what they state, in plain English.

Just because she disagrees with you doesn’t mean she hasn’t read it or understood it.

No-one has attacked you, tried to misrepresent your comments or start an argument. The other poster isn’t being disingenuous or undermining anything. It is a public forum so you don’t get to police others’ comments.

Thank you!

I'm clearly upsetting her, although I genuinely worry what a precarious position posters like that are putting themselves in by attempting to create a divide between what they (personally) see as real or deserving SEND and the other.

Again, mainstream is absolutely the right setting for DS2, but other children need to be taught how to behave towards children with NDs. He's very happy in mainstream now. Being sent to a school for children with NDs would have held him back.

People disagreeing with me is fine. The problem has been people “disagreeing” with things that I haven’t actually said and they’ve made up, or taken out of context to (deliberately? Or perhaps because of laziness and them not having read what I actually wrote) try to argue with me pretending that I’ve taken a position that I haven’t and, quite often, then lecturing me saying what I was saying in the first place!

Just more of the usual Kafkaesque stuff when trying to discuss education, which one comes to expect from Local Authority staff etc, but shouldn’t be expected to accept on a public forum where the actual comments are there in writing for all to see; but only, of course, those who could be bothered to actually read them. Of course, posters who can’t be bothered to read my allegedly “long” comments of a few paragraphs who claim to have previously been teachers (!) can simply scroll past my comments. What is not acceptable is them responding to my comments that they have not read and misrepresenting them to mean the opposite of what was written and then claiming they “disagree” with me and lecturing me to allegedly “tell” me things I’ve actually said myself.

Tiresome and pointless and also counterproductive because this type of deliberate attempt to try to turn the thread into a bunfight undermines attempts from me and numerous others to engage with parents who DON’T have children with SEND and discuss how people can actually work together to ensure that the proposed “reforms” are not enacted because they will wreck education further for all children - including those without disabilities.

Yeah, you’re very genuinely worried about me. Sure.

I’ll add to my earlier request: not only do I request that you please refrain from any further responses to my comments - which you admit to not having read and your replies clearly evidence you not having read so you have no business responding to in the first place - as these are disingenuous and deliberately or otherwise have multiple times misrepresented what I have said, but I also request that you stop speaking about me in the third person and insulting me in comments to other posters.

These are serious issues that affect the life chances and futures of tens of thousands of children. I have no interest in reading about your personal dislike of me, or your misconceptions about my position based on you not having read what I’ve written, or you disagreeing with things you’ve invented that nobody said in the first place, and I’m sure others reading the thread who are actually interested in the topic of the thread have little interest either in whatever is motivating this personal issue with me that you’re trying to invent, so please just cease this now. There is no need for you to respond to me further or write any further comments about me to anybody else.

Again, that poster didn’t say she hasn’t read your posts. That isn’t what she said. She hasn’t misrepresented what you posted.

No-one has said you have said things you haven’t, no-one has made things up, taken what you have said out of context, no-one has attacked you, tried to start an argument or bunfight. People have read what you have written.

She did indeed state that and the thread evidences that she has repeatedly misrepresented what I wrote. The comments she made and opinions she attempted to attribute to me directly contradicted what I’d written, multiple times.

There are only three possible explanations for this:

1. she hadn’t actually read my comments properly, so should not have been responding to them; or

2. she had read them but doesn’t understand posts in clear English, so should not have been responding to them; or

3. that she had read them and understood them but is deliberately trying to misrepresent them, for unknown reasons, but again clearly shouldn’t be doing doing this.

Whether the applicable explanation is 1), 2) or 3), it is clear that she should not be responding to my comments in this manner. It is adding nothing to the thread for it to continue further hence she has been requested to refrain from continuing with it, and is totally inappropriate for her to be making personal comments about me in posts to other posters now as well. It is derailing the thread and is a clear breach of Talk Guidelines.

As I said, enough of this now. It’s pathetic.

I completely agree. If a child can cope in mainstream with support and as you said, teaching other children not to use their disability against them then they should absolutely be in mainstream.

My disabled child is in mainstream too and an alternative provision also wouldn't be the correct decision for him.

No, she didn’t. As I said, she said it is “Unlikely anyone is going to go through this point by point, I'm certainly not.” Go through it as in reply to each point separately. She didn’t say or mean she hadn’t read it all. She has not misrepresented your posts.

It is a public forum. You don’t get to police where I post or what I post.

No, Mumsnet do, hence there being Talk Guidelines.

As you state above, she has responded to that particular post with comments arguing against opinions that I did not state and she tried to attribute to me taking single sentences out of context. You are trying to reframe her comment as meaning she won’t REPLY to everything I said (I don’t remember requesting replies to every point I made from anybody, let alone requesting any response at all from this specific poster, so that is also entirely invented by you to try to justify this disingenuous misrepresentation of the comments of other posters).

Her comment you refer to and several others made very clear she hadn’t even read what I said in my own posts because she was attempting to try to lecture me about things I had explicitly stated myself already, and repeatedly trying to portray my position as the opposite of what it is, evidencing very clearly she hadn’t read what I’d written.

It’s clear she’d skimmed a couple of sentences of what I wrote, taken that out of context and invented a position that she presumed I take which isn’t what I said because my actual position is much more nuanced and detailed (and has been agreed with by various teachers and other parents on the thread) but this poster was too lazy to read my comments to actually establish what my position is, then tried to attribute to me a position she invented in her own head and claim that was my position and argue with me about the thing she’d invented in her imagination. I won’t have my comments misrepresented in such a manner so I’ve highlighted it. You’re making yourself look incredibly silly by defending this kind of ridiculous behaviour. It would be far better for her to have simply apologised and then it could have been left there.

I suggest both of you leave it now, stop breaking the Talk Guidelines and attacking other posters for no reason at all, and let the worthwhile discussion on the thread progress rather than trying to turn it into a pointless personal argument which will make many stop reading at all and in which I have no interest, particularly given the views that you arguing against and trying to attribute to me are views I do not hold, as my many posts here make perfectly clear.

I have not broken the Talk Guidelines. I have not attacked you or anyone else. I am not making myself look silly. I have not misrepresented anything.

I am not reframing anything. I have repeated what she posted. That is clearly what the poster meant since she said thank you. I didn’t say you did request replies to everything or a response from a particular poster.

You can ‘suggest’ all you want. As I said, you don’t get to tell me what to do or post.

I requested exactly that when one was off for 4 months previously. the LA refused. The LA refused to provide ANY educational provision for them at all and demanded I send a suicidal 5 year old to school and threatened to prosecute me for not sending them. I told them to go ahead. They then “changed their minds”. The school refused even to send work home for them to do when they could. At the time, my other child was still attending every day. Regardless, the school then accused me of not sending the suicidal DC to school because I “couldn’t be bothered” and “neglecting them” and sent a very confused social worker here who wrote a scathing report back to the school. Regardless, it took 4 months before the LA took any action to put ANY support in place so my DC could return to school at all even some of the time. I have since spent 3 years fighting 7 tribunal cases to try to get appropriate provision in place for either of them. Neither should be in mainstream state school. The school agrees it cannot meet their needs and neither can any mainstream state school.

One has an EHCP now, the other the LA is still refusing to issue an EHCP for, despite unanimous support from every single specialist and their school. The one who does have an EHCP remains in mainstream state school when they can go in, and when they are there just wondering around with their 1:1 or sitting in the corridor reading books because they cannot be in a classroom of 30 people all day. No SEN school will take them either because they cannot provide for their academic or social needs, no appropriate peer group, and the presence of precisely the children they can’t cope with being around who are loud and disruptive.

They did a trial at a small private school with good behaviour policies and classes of 12-15 and could attend every single day, be in class all day and with no 1:1 and minimal support. So it’s clear what they need. But the LA has been dragging its heels for 6 months since the LA and school admitted this was the only viable option other than ETOAS (despite it being much cheaper than what is happening currently for them barely to be in school at all, as the huge cost is the 1:1 which isn’t necessary academically but only because they are so young so can’t roam around the school unsupervised all day and cannot cope with being in a room of 30 people without support because it’s just too overwhelming. But clearly a TA can’t given them the academic teaching they require, and this is also trashing their mental health). The EHCP needs revising - as it was drafted with the 1:1 etc for this inappropriate mainstream school environment, and the LA continues wasting extra money keeping them there with this 1:1 and ruining their education by delaying the revisions to the EHCP which would enable them to be moved to a private school with an appropriate environment even though they have already agreed this is the only option. So nearly another whole academic year of this torture has taken place.

For the other child, inexplicably, they still won’t even issue the EHCP even though again every single specialist and the school agrees that the situation is the same: no mainstream state school will be appropriate because there are 30 children per class. This child is now at risk of complete school refusal, despite being kind, calm, keen to learn and gifted and talented. It’s disgusting.

Their secondary transfer needs arranging soon and yet they still don’t have an EHCP in place despite being diagnosed with autism and other issues in YR1. Not content with having ruined the whole of primary school for them and their mental health, the LA are STILL fighting the latest tribunal case against me and their school and all of the child’s specialists to even issue an EHCP without which there is no way to arrange an appropriate secondary place or EOTAS (and we all know for a fact that there is not a chance in hell they will cope in a mainstream secondary because primary school is already too much and the only things that make them SOMETIMES able to go - like a consistent class all the time etc - will vanish).

It is an absolute joke. I have no idea what to do for the best. In an appropriately academic school without tolerance for disruptive behaviours (like the small private schools locally) both would thrive. But it seems that even if they are finally, having been traumatised, granted this the Government may then try to take it away again at a crucial point in education later on the basis that it is working and therefore their support needs have decreased because they are no longer in a traumatising environment throughout the school day.

There are no state schools that can meet their needs, specialist or mainstream. There are private schools that can do so, so I suppose they won’t qualify for ETOAS now this is established. But what I do not understand is why moving them to an appropriate setting is not being done, or why the LA is allowed to continue fighting spurious legal battles it cannot win purely to delay things with NO SANCTIONS for this knowing that it is trashing their education and mental health. It has wrecked a large part of their childhoods already as well as ruining their education. And my career opportunities and physical health and if they continue this and push my health over the edge (which my recent ambulance trip to hospital and subsequent medical advice suggests is a strong possibility) then they will also lose their home and private healthcare and have no family at all to care for them and end up in care. I am not sure what these idiots at the LA are trying to achieve.

I have followed all of the advice, fought every spurious tribunal case (including the LA originally refusing to even ASSESS either of them for an EHCP despite stacks of medical reports, because they are not disruptive at school!), paid for healthcare, paid advocates and lawyers and done everything SOSSEN and IPSEA advise and yet here we are, years later, still having our lives wrecked by these criminals who deliberately and repeatedly break the law.

Yes to all this!

No one has made any "personal comments" or been "attacking" at all.

Not agreeing to independent despite it being cheaper can be for various reasons. One of which is the political climate towards funding independent placements. Another, partially related reason, is some safety valve agreements include limiting independent placements. Another is they know some parents will give up and EHE which is cheaper for them (in the short term at least anyway).

The legal test for EOTAS/EOTIS is that it is inappropriate for provision to be made in a school.

LAs regularly refuse to provide section 19 provision until parents enforce provision, including via JR. That’s why I said requested and enforced. It shouldn’t be necessary, but sadly, it is.

I take it you are in appeal for the DC who now has an EHCP too? If they are unable to attend school full time, have you requested an expedited hearing?

And now, the Education Secretary wants to legally UPHOLD such behaviour and remove the right to appeal, without which neither would ever have got ANY HELP AT ALL and both would already be out of school entirely.

So rather than address the systemic and deliberate illegal behaviour of Local Authorities which refuse to comply with the law, to pretend that the problem will go away if the Government simply removes the right of the school and parents like me to take the LA to court to enforce the law, which we have to do over and over and over again at huge financial, emotional and physical health expense when the REGULATOR should be doing this instead and coming down like a ton of bricks on these unlawful Local Authorities who are wasting enormous amounts of public money meant for education on spurious legal battles.

It is disgusting, all of it. And I’ve had enough of it all for one day, particularly with having been attacked for even discussing it.

I have another tribunal bundle of documents I have to review once I get my children to bed. Fortunately at least work is off my plate for the time being having had to be admitted to hospital at risk of stroke or death earlier this week and now been released, so I won’t have to stay up until 3am getting my actual full time job done on top of dealing with the latest unnecessary extra legal work being dumped on me as a result of the Local Authority continuing to refuse to comply with the law.

No-one has attacked you.

Yes. I appealed the contents of her EHCP as soon as they issued it. They were forced to issue it by the tribunal then issued it without consulting me and it is inappropriate so I immediately issued an appeal and yes an expedited hearing was requested. We are now in discussions with their lawyer to get it amended but the school has stated neither it nor any other mainstream state school can meet her needs and the LA has accepted this but regardless has been dragging out amendments to the EHCP to facilitate a transfer for over 6 months now. The appeal hearing date is coming up so they will have to get their act together if they don’t want to look like the idiots they are at that hearing but that doesn’t help her. Time is running out for me to get an appropriate EHCP agreed so I can actually go and look at appropriate independent schools who will not even consider her with it as currently drafted, and it’s clearly in her interests to have the transfer agreed ready for September (when she will move to YR3 and many others will also join independent schools so she won’t be the “new girl” trying to fit in to existing friendship groups etc) but their delays are yet again harming her as we are running out of time to approach independents with the revised EHCP and have the LA consult them, presumably the schools would want her to do a trial there first, plus they break up earlier and there needs to be time for them to negotiate the funding package with the LA, so yet again they are harming her needlessly if she has to go through another summer holiday not knowing what will happen and then transfer during an academic year when all of this is completely avoidable because everyone agrees that she must transfer to an independent as this is the only option because the state has failed to provide a single school in the entire country that is appropriate for her, with small classes, good behaviour enforcement and a calm, nurturing environment and a high level of academic challenge).

Meanwhile, my other child who is older still has no support whatsoever despite having precisely the same issues, and we need to start looking for secondary schools for this DC in Sept at the start of YR5. They refused to assess him for an EHCP. Tribunal, we won and they were ordered to do so. Then they did the assessment and despite stacks of medical reports unanimously stating he requires an EHCP and his school stating it would cost £30k pa to meet his needs in mainstream school the LA refused to issue and EHCP. Immediately taken to tribunal again. The tribunal then bizarrely dismissed the evidence from his school stating “it didn’t know where it came from” (a signed statement from the Head Teacher and a provision map produced by the SENCO, both submitted by email from the school’s SENCO) and therefore illegally refused to order the LA to issue an EHCP. Obviously I appealed this again and won.

Now they want to have yet another tribunal hearing to discuss the unanimous evidence from his SALT, EP, OT, ENT, child psychologist and school who all unanimously state he requires an EHCP with the LA having provided ZERO evidence for their position, which is untenable. And if they don’t get on with it then we will not be able to get an appropriate secondary place for him in place in time, with primary school having been a write off but not content with that, clearly. Because he is kind and calm and masks and isn’t disruptive nobody cares that his mental health is collapsing and this gifted and talented child who is a sponge for information has had his self-esteem completely destroyed and now believes he is stupid even though it’s almost statistically impossible for there to be another child in the school as bright as him, except his own sister who also shouldn’t be there. And he now hates school, a child who always loved learning, who understands general relativity and started worrying about the Fermi paradox and Descartes meditations himself aged six without ever having read or heard about either.

The whole things disgusts me beyond belief. I don’t know how the people who work for the LA sleep at night but one can only hope that an especially painful place in Dante’s 8th circle of hell awaits them.

Lots of SEND petitions like the one below doing the rounds - please sign one

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/764268