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?

i can only recommend that if you are this passionate about your child's education you educate them yourselves or become a teacher. if, as it appears, you really believe schools and teachers are so utterly incompetent, dishonest and out to ruin things for your child why are you sending your child there?

we'll end up with a new DSM entry along the lines of munchausens by proxy (sp) but with teachers and schools as the attention source rather than health professionals at this rate.

you know i can see it's stressful to feel you have to be on guard for your job all the time and to have to fight to get the the help you need. i suspect though there's a point where that fight can turn over into something else and become obsessive and controlling to the point of unhealthy.

See what I did here?

As a parent, you don't start your child at a school with suspicion in your eyes, with fight in your heart.

You arrive humble and hopeful.

You are let down.

You spend a while trying to get to the bottom of why and you are told to trust the school.

You try.

You are let down again.

You raise it and are lied to.

Rinse and repeat for several years whilst that gap between your child and their peers increases and is blamed on their disability.

A sense of hurt and sadness hits you with regards to your bad luck so you seek out others with children like yours. And you hear your story back at you, often worse. And then again, and again.

And so you ask reasonable teachers on an internet forum 'why? why do you do this?'

And they reply 'You can't expect us to adhere to the law, that would be ridiculous!'.

nope, as i explained yesterday it's not my job anymore - i left teaching a while back.

yes, i see what you did there but the reality is that teachers are actually far too busy teaching whole classes of kids and planning for each and everyone of them's development and progress and provision to develop obsessive control issues in the same way that parents can.

Hmmm gone into psychiatry by any chance swallowed?

I suspect not...

'if, as it appears, you really believe schools and teachers are so utterly incompetent, dishonest and out to ruin things for your child why are you sending your child there?'

I'm not.

But the point is, I've done years of research and started with the advantage of education being within my professional work to begin with, as well as luckily, aspects of the law and Local Authority Policy.

It took me 3 years of constant challenge to finally understand the depth and deception of the culture in schools and LAs and how badly my child was being failed. It would be utterly impossible for the majority of other parents to do that or even know what questions to ask.

What, do you suggest I do about that, other than highlight the issues in places like this?

ok - so you don't actually even use schools? you home educate? and your purpose of this thread then isn't about learning more or understanding things as you said given you don't even use a school so what is it about?

sorry - mixed up OP and another poster. ignore my last post then.

Not quite sure that you mean by that. My whole family and extended are teachers, and they're all flipping control freaks with some kind of brainwashed ideals that meant they were my first 'challenge' when I realised things were very wrong.

They are now onside and absolutely horrified at the behaviour of their colleagues and admit that they were absolutely unaware of how bad things were, - as I showed them evidence and research and policy and law documents that they never even knew existed that were totally ignored, flouted or simply remained unknown, and certainly not adhered to.

My ds attends and independent special school now.

He's too capable for the provision that is available in most mainstream schools and would be (and was) one of the first to lose his HLTA for 'other duties'.

I could not be a teacher because his holidays do not co-inside with state terms and he needs his education supplemented at that time. Additionally, I have 2 younger children and a teachers salary would not cover them in childcare.

But, if that was all taken care of, I would LOVE to be a teacher, though not especially keen on the idea of demanding that the HT give me a class TA to take the class occasionally n order for me to help me provide an education for the undiagnosed and therefore difficult children as I am unwilling to stick them in a group with the statemented child and his 1:1 and break the law.

I don't imagine it would get me promoted very fast.

But, that aint the point is it?

zzzzzz nobody is suggesting that ta's abandoning their child to do photocopying etc is right.

I'm not so sure.

When you switch 'abandon' to 'helping them to develop independence', all of a sudden photocopying is positively beneficial to the child.

What about when you switch 'abandon' for 'taking a group of children within which the TA's child is placed'? Is that wrong?

I certainly hope you think so.

starlight if really cannot see the difference between carefully crafted opportunities for children to progress and depriving a child of support, then I fail to see the purpose of this conversation.

I really wish you would stop making out that all children with support fit one mould and must be supported in one way. Your child may need one thing, mine needs something else. However they both may need 1 to 1 on a statement of provision.

While I do understand that some schools do ride fast and lose (and have already discussed why it occurs), demanding that teachers cannot use their professional judgement in order to best support a child is throwing the baby out with the Bath water. Good practise will disappear in a race to the middle. The minutes will become the focus not the progression.

I've already suggested ways that parents can police this. In the end if you don't trust the school, they're is nothing they can put in place to reassure you.

The only way to change the situation in those schools where it does occur is to have more funding so that statements are quicker and easier to obtain and so that children before the statutory assessment stage can get the support they need.

this thread is horrible for that reason imo - scaremongering that will cause some parents terrible anxiety about sending their children to school.

I read the original linked thread. Disgusting, but clearly trolls and the bottom of the professional barrel having a whinge.

The real life teachers I have encountered are much more like the teachers on this thread who have explained and tried to soothe the worried parents on this thread with endless patience.

The teachers responding on this thread have made me more confident than ever with the state school system and more awed then ever about what the average teacher manages to accomplish.

Shrilly demanding your rights and taking away ever more discretion from classroom teachers would only make things far worse. Individual teachers efforts and professional nous and opinion are the best part of an imperfect system.

If things seem wrong at your particular school, you need to address it directly. If you have tried half a dozen schools and they were all terrible, then you probably need to examine your own expectations.

Remind me Soapbox How can parents police this?

Swallowed I'm sorry I started the thread..I thought it might bring to light some of the issues - on all sides.

soapbox Have you read the new funding legislation?

In all fairness regards looking at you thread title, it wasn't like you were coming from a neutral standpoint.

My point was that in any event the only way to know that your child is receiving what they need was to police the school as a parent. No law or outside agency can ever guarantee anything all of the time.

For my own ds I ask him, although he struggles to make sense of what is asked and to properly formulate answers. I ask various adults eg his helper or teacher or anyone else. When something happens I question what led up to something, why was this not done etc. Staff don't get their stories straight before hometime so its usually easy to pick up on inconsistencies.

I trust the staff at my son's school to do a good job but I also appreciate the reality of a busy school with more than one child with additional needs.

missinglalaland Do you have DC with SEN? What expectations do you think are reasonable?

meh you started the thread to bash teachers and schools and spread the idea of a conspiracy to abuse children with sn of their rights.

i have to agree that if you run through five schools in a year then yes, it is your expectations that need examining, not the schools.