Teachers do not adhere to Statemented 1 to 1 support, do not believe in sub-levels, make APP assessments up....How much of what parents are told by schools about teaching is a box ticking exercise?

[Regards]

Following on from this thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/1859219-Im-a-teacher-and-happy-to-answer-any-questions

and this:
community.tes.co.uk/tes_primary/f/36/t/381051.aspx?pi2132219857=1

I realised I was incredibly gullible when my DC first started school. What exactly should we believe concerning what the teachers tell us, how much is a PR job to cover up the ugly truth?

getstuffezd stop being all logical.

It will get thou no where fast.

I know, soapbox. Must...make...brain....switch off! Need bloody sleep!

My reasons for posting is to ensure that people, parents, parents of children with SEN, worried and betrayed TAs, good teachers, those thinking of going into teaching, journalists, lurkers, professionals in other countries and researchers are made aware of :

• how badly children with disabilities in the UK are failed
• how opaque our education system is
• how terribly parents of children with disabilities are treated
• how little training teachers get with regards to SEN
• how often the law is broken for seemingly 'common sense' reasons
• how impossible it is to police a child with a disabilities provision
• how defensive teachers can be
• how hard won support can be reallocated at the whim of a teacher and without knowledge of the parents

Where have I said that everyone is shit and dishonest?

But if you'd seen a number of crap hip surgeons and set up a support group for post-surgery hip correcting and 99% of them had also had a number of bad experiences, and then you found out that the hip surgeons were actually elbow surgeons who had suddenly found themselves responsible for hips too with very little training.................

• how badly children with disabilities in the UK are failed all of them?
• how opaque our education system is all of it?
• how terribly parent of children with disabilities are treated all of them?
• how little training teachers get with regards to SEN all of us?
• how often the law is broken for seemingly 'common sense' reasons you have figures?
• how impossible it is to police a child with a disabilities provision do we ALL need policing?perhaps we can be trusted?
• how defensive teachers can be understandable, see previous posts
• how hard won support can be reallocated at the whim of a teacher and without knowledge of the parents discussed at length on thread.

Well, I hope you find some schools that impress you as you'll need some good examples to hold up as models of good practice, won't you?

Are you interested at all in the experience of Mums with kids with sn?
Er, yes. Three of my children this year are statemented. I care very much what their parents thing. Luckily we talk regularly and co operate. None of us have an agenda apart from ensuring the best for the children. They don't cast generalisations about my colleagues/qualifications/classroom management and I don't question their parenting. It works great!

Actually, Bangor is pretty good as an LA. I'd send my child to one of their schools.

Perhaps you're in Bangor Get?

I met some amazing teachers from there. They invited me to come and visit their schools to show me the work they are doing and how much progress their children with SEN are making. Some of these 'ordinary' teachers are carrying out research, refining and adapting their strategies and then publishing their results. I am hoping to learn more from them. I was VERY impressed.

Why on earth would I? Of course I haven't!
That doesn't mean there ARENT many schools that blah blah blah. Because there are.
This is silly. We will never agree with what the other is saying And are probably at the stage where we will wilfully misunderstand.
IPad is now OFF!
Good night!

Sorry Starlight but I though we could refine and adapt strategies because we didn't know what the hell we were doing?

That should be couldn't

I am framing your post of 01:30
books tickets to Bangor

wow lots of reading this morning.

sadly i'm left with the impression that some parents would be outraged if whilst their child was doing fantastically on a task their ta had the compassion to give 2minutes attention and care to another child who needed a bit of help whilst the teacher was busy helping 28 other kids get on with the task.

a statement means extra support for the child statemented and of course they should get that but it doesn't mean they become the only important child in the room. if you have two adults in a room who have chosen to work with children and in education because they care about children and education do you really find it so surprising that those adults feel compelled to help all children as needed?

if my job was to work with child x it wouldn't mean sticking my butt on a chair next to child x and willfully ignoring every other child and the realities of what was going on in the wider group dynamic. if child x is doing fine and child y sat nearby was clearly struggling why the fuck would i ignore child y's need rather than turn and give him a few minutes attention and support? i wouldn't have to be 'nabbed' to do so, it would be a natural, resourceful response that allowed for the maximisation of my usefulness in my role.

tbh after reading this i'm thinking the whole statementing system needs scrapping and instead every class should have a high level ta whose time is allocated as needed in the context of that class rather than this whole individualistic that's for my child, my child's funding is paying for that malarchy.

that was a bit of knee jerk reaction sorry.

what i really think is that we need to rethink how inclusion works and what it actually needs in order to work.

inclusion to my mind shouldn't mean everybody altogether, all day every day in the same room. schools could do with sen classrooms and resource centres and children with extra needs need to be able to float between ms lessons and that resource centre where more specialised help is available.

so literacy lessons tailored to children with dyslexia or learning difficulties around that area could be run in that centre by specialised staff for example. a child might have one a lesson a day in that centre of that specialised nature and that would count as part of their provision and imo be a hell of a lot better value for money and better for educational outcomes than a bum on a seat next to them in a classroom having a lesson on the great fire of london.

inclusion to means needing specialists on site who are able to provide specialist support still in the same building but allowing for a flow between specialist support and provision and mainstream inclusion.

i also think that support centre would be where you have counsellors, where you run anxiety management classes or work on specific behaviours that need addressing.

if schools are expected to be doctors, psychologists, educators, nurses, etc then give them the facilities and the specialists to be all of that.

sure you could enforce a unit on sen onto teacher training but realistically it's still going to be superficial because it's such a broad area and no one professional be they teacher, doctor, whatever can know everything about everyone's condition. if schools now need to meet the needs of mentally ill children, physically disabled children, developmentally delayed children etc etc then put the professionals and the resources for dealing with those children in the school instead of pretending a teacher can be everything rolled into one for 25k a year.

'it would be a natural, resourceful response that allowed for the maximisation of my usefulness in my role.'

But your role wouldn't be to maximise your usefulness. If that were the case an argument could be easily made for justifying ignoring the child with SEN as they can only make x amount of progress with your input as opposed to the whole class making 3 times that.

THAT is why the law protects the child's provision.

your ignoring the common sense reality that if child x is doing fine and child y needs a bit of help any self respecting adult would turn and help child y.

'if my job was to work with child x it wouldn't mean sticking my butt on a chair next to child'

I should hope not. I would hope instead you'd be considering your behaviour including where and how you sit in the context of how it maximises the progress of the child you are funded for, even if that time is spent in thought or observing to assess improvement or fluency opportunities.

Who defines 'doing fine'?

How do you know?

And if you DO know, why not feed into the annual review process your professional opinion and request that the wording of the statement is changed to 'At times when the class teacher thinks the child is doing fine, this resource can be used for whole class support'.

Otherwise you are breaking the law and depriving a vulnerable child of his entitlement as well as hoodwinking the parents.

'Common Sense' is not above the law.

And I suspect the sense you are referring to is the 'common' behaviour of teachers rather than an expert consensus.