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?

Regards, where have I admitted to hiding the truth? I'm not asking for anyone to be happy when things don't go the way they should. What I'm saying is that when I have seen support by misdirected I have told parents so they can tackle Senior Management. Teachers have very little say in how a school is run. We can say it is not right until we are blue in the face but if our bosses say that's how it is to be we have little influence/ ability to change things. Parental pressure is more influential. I tell people that I will deny it because I have no whistle blowing protection in these situations. I have a family to feed too.

Denying though is lying by omission. Does your paperwork accurately reflect what is happening?

The hell raising I have done though HAS made a difference. I have got whole departments to change their policies, given hours and hours of my time to ensure that parents are aware of their children's rights, joined consultation groups and improved draft guidelines, got a whole Local Authority to stand up to Central Government. I have got LA departments to account for their money, their spending, their targets, their staff appointments, and used the complaints procedures to get illegal documents that were going out changed.

I have done this at considerable cost to me and my family and not a penny of tax-payers money.

you are advocating that posters should raise hell as you believe this will raise standards for children with SN.

so you have been raising hell.....what has your hell raising achieved?

I'm not asking poster to raise hell. I am asking people who are PAID to do a job, to raise hell if they can't do it safely or without breaking the law.

Honestly regard I am not getting your point. I will deny to my head I told a parent this if I am directly asked by them. If the 1:1 is put into a different class or removed by management I do not have any power to tell them they have to stay in my room. I am not their line manager, the head is. If the TA is in my room then I will always have them doing what they are there for. Always.

My IEPs will always state targets achieved or not and the reasons why, including lack of support.

We do raise hell but that doesn't mean that we can change things or make it right.

starlight - but the LA know they have not given out enough money.

what would saying to them 'you have not given us the funding' achieve?

it is completely understood to all involved on the finance of schools in the area.

indy Denying to the head is not standing by what you have said, it is refusing what you have witnessed. It is lying.

If you refuse to deny what you have witnessed, indeed every teacher did, it would force some sort of confrontation. The HT would have to deal with it.

I get teachers are scared they will be risking their jobs, but many parents with children who have SN do not have the luxury of being able to work. They have to be carers for their children.

But I am pleased you at least tell the parents indy

Seriously Regards, you are asking the impossible. I will not put my family in jeopardy for anyone. Just as you wouldn't . I am more than aware of the challenges faced by families. Please remember that you do not know my own personal circumstances or experiences. I go to the HT and complain. We all do. You would think that would make a difference but it doesn't. I have told parents there is a problem when I cannot, on my own, make a change happen. I'm sorry that's not good enough for you but I cannot and will not risk my own job by going to the press etc which would be my only other course of action. If I was lying about it then I would not tell them at all.

Where I am just now the support is rarely misdirected. The problem is that the support hours allocated are insufficient.

Cross post.

You are You said that no child in your DHs school has a statement that specifies the amount of 1:1, or any support really and that it is up to the teacher how to deliver it.

If that is the case, then he has no legal duty to supply well, anything really.

But where he does, in a specified statement, he MUST or ensure that there is a written paper trail to both those responsible (i.e. the LA) and the client/service use (i.e. parents), to cover himself legally. He must NOT pretend there is enough money to either the parents, the LA or the public, hide the fact a statement isn't being delivered from the parents, or ignore the problem with shrug and sigh that he is doing the best he can.

But this thread is a contradictory one.

On the one hand we are getting a whole bunch of 'We do what is in the best interests of the child and use our professional judgements about this regardless of what is in the statement'.

And on the other hand we are getting 'We don't have enough money to deliver all of the provision specified in the statement'.

Or are they not contradictory at all? Do teachers believe that one makes the other alright?

indy You do not have to justify yourself to me. As I have said I am sympathetic. I am pleased you have posted, it reflects the conflicted interests present in the education system.

Will I still point out your behaviour is not ideal? Yes. There may be people out there who are on the brink of taking a different course of action to yourself.

whatever you do won't be good enough indy for the two teacher bashers on here.

and don't forget you're only meant to care about their children because they are the centre of the universe don't you know. your children starving because you've been sacked? not a worry for them.

But what would you want me to do? Hang myself out to dry by whistle blowing to the Press? Lose my job meaning that I was no longer there fighting for the kids who need it most? Do you really think this would change anything? In the short term perhaps but until more funding is available we are stuck trying to juggle the impossible. Do you think that you would ever be happy with what a teacher did? I personally never withhold/ redirect allocated hours as I said up thread. I complain. I grouch. I say in meetings that targets are not realistic with the allocated amount of hours I have been given.

In this climate I doubt that anyone would take a different course of action. What we do instead is try to make it work, even when we know we will never get the support in class we need. In my current class I really need 2 FT LAs to make it work but this won't ever happen. Instead I get a piddly amount of hours, mainly shared between a group.

indy, if you're not in England then your resources don't have the legal protection like they do here.

It must be a very difficult position to be in with no law on your side and no law to hold your bosses to account.

What is extremely upsetting about this thread is how many people who DO have this safeguarding system in place, flout it and then can't make up their mind whether they do so because in their professional opinion the child doesn't need it, or because they haven't got enough money.

The thread started out with teachers adamant that they only make professional decisions with regards to a child's provision and that this is totally focussed on that child's needs, -

then when it is pointed out that they can't do that, fall back onto the argument that there just isn't enough money.

Can you not see how you are doing your 'profession' no favours and hugely bringing into question your 'professional opinion' by doing this?

5 outstanding schools were 'shit' according to you.

love you putting profession in quotation marks like that. nice touch.

all education is provided within a budget.

if all class sizes were 10 children, of course general standards of education would rise.

but the teacher/HT's role is to provide the best they can within their resources. they use their judgement to make the best of what they have.

this brings the best outcome they can for their children in their school. this affects children with SN and those without.

there is not magic money tree and raising hell wont make it grow. it will waste a lot of time and resources though.

5 schools WERE shit. It isn't according to me. We took the legal route and produced enough evidence to secure ds' current placement on that basis.

They weren't shit schools in many ways, but they were shit at meeting my child's SEN and they never EVER admitted it, nor did they admit that they weren't delivering the provision in his statement and when caught out insisted that it was overprovision.

Now I have no doubt that the provision in his statement was more than other children in the school were getting who the teachers felt merited it more, but those parents had the option of selling their home too in order to get their child's needs met, and the teachers had the option of advocating for those children that they felt were being failed.

Teachers have no right, and no business making judgements in their classroom that overrides the provision as is outlined in a child's statement. The law expects that they will not. End of.