Unsupported SEN pupils taking priority in DD’s class

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Just looking for some advice please from parents or even better from teachers on here.
My DD is a very young Y4, but even so managing to achieve above average results in maths and reading. Writing, and in particular handwriting, are more of a struggle.

Her class is Y3 and 4 combined, but even so, only 20 in total. There are two SEN children who have most of the teacher’s attention, one of these children has medical/special needs, and several phobias. The second SEN child’s behaviour has deteriorated since the arrival of the first SEN child. Neither child has an assistant.
My DD estimates that her teacher spends 40% of her time with these two children. If any of the middle-ranking children have problems in maths/English, they are pulled out of assemblies and given one-to-one’s. The higher performing children seem to be left to their own devices, and I’ve come to the conclusion that this academic year will have been a write off for my DD. At parents evening, I did say that I thought my DD could be stretched more and the teacher agreed.
The teacher is exceptional and totally in the right profession. She is in her second year of teaching and i don’t want my grumblings to be discouraging for her - I think she is fantastic at her job but has been dumped in the deep end! I went in this week to talk to the principal and feel I have explained things badly! In the meantime, my DD has a couple of instances where she didn’t understand work (unusual for her) and not only was not not picked up, but even when I I pointed it out, it still wasn’t followed up (the teacher just doesn’t have time when coping with these two high needs children). How to approach this and to instigate change for the better? TIA.

Complain to the Headteacher, and if possible, see if any other parents will also join you in complaining about this matter.

This is a terrible situation for the whole class and the Teacher, and it shouldn’t be allowed to happen.

I was always a high, and above average achiever throughout Primary and Secondary School in the days before ‘Gifted and Talented’ existed, or at least in my area anyway. The Teachers pushed me and the others who were of similar ability as much as they could, but the vast majority of their time would be taken up with my peers who had SEN and behavioural needs. Many questions we had relating to our work would go unanswered, and often we’d invent tasks for ourselves to do, or just end up sitting and talking rather than be given any extension tasks by the Teacher. The Teacher would just be far too busy.

My Mum and other parents complained, and they all threatened to remove us from the school. 6 children of above average intelligence was too much of a risk for them to lose, so they reluctantly placed a TA in our class. It was all a bit too little too late in our opinions though.

I always wonder how much more I could have achieved if the situation had have been different to the above.

I agree with BubblesBuddy that one of the main problems in your dd's school is that it is simply not sustainable to have only 20 children per class. In my county, classes break even when there 28-29 children in each class.

With a class of 20, the school cannot possibly consider having TAs in school unless they are receiving "top-up funding" for specific children with additional needs. As it is, schools have to provide the first £6,000 of any additional support needed.

Also as someone else said - I would be very wary of believing your child's opinion that 40% of the teacher's time is taken up with these children. I also agree that with only 20 in the class, she will already be benefitting from additional teacher time compared with being in a class of 30.

I would agree with PPs about being sceptical of your child's ability to estimate time. I have a DC the same age, very bright, but experience has taught me to take a lot of what he says with a large pinch of salt!

Also, what do other parents think? If I had an issue with the school I'd ask my friends what their children thought.

Also a class of 20 is very good. But if you're not happy with the school and think this is a real problem, look elsewhere.

The attention given to these other students is none of your business, and you will get nowhere with the school by bringing them into any conversation you have with the school. By all means, ask what they are doing to extend your child, but leave the other children out of it.

It's really irritating that this school, like so many, has bought the line that it's just too difficult to get EHCPs. The statutory criteria for assessment actually set a very low barrier: the local authority simply has to be satisfied that the child might have SEN, and might need extra support through an EHCP. The criteria for whether they need an EHCP are essentially that they are not making progress and need more support than is available through normal mainstream resources. The success rate of appeals against refusal to assess, or refusal to issue an EHCP are very high - over 80%. But unfortunately school SENCOs rarely seem to have any training in the law and/or believe the rubbish local authority education departments feed them.

In this case, given that the school will be struggling financially anyway, I would have thought it would be relatively easy for them to show they cannot meet these children's needs without extra funding. If the behaviour of one of these children is deteriorating, obviously they aren't making progress despite the teacher's best efforts. Can you have a tactful conversation around whether it would be helpful to have a TA and whether they are right if they believe they wouldn't get EHCPs for these children?

EHCP or not the school still funds first 6k

The notional SEN budget can be much less than the £6k schools need to spend per pupil. I know one local school with Notional SEN budget of less than £1k

Tbh the notional funding is really wierd and it can be hard to get what your child needs if they have additional needs. Blood and stone comes to mind
www.schoolsweek.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Sen.pdf

Cross post lol.

You say that your dd is above average and doing well academically. Did this concern start like this
Dd I didnt understand this at school today
Op ask mrs x
I did but she was helping child with sen
Op she should help you too. How much time does she spend helping child with sen?
Dd nearly all the time.

I do not think your dd's estimste of 40% is likely to be accurate. I think you have probably convinced yourself of this now. The issue now is that you have nowhere to go with this. If child is not deemed to need 1:1 then the school won't pay for ta for them. You then have two options decide to forget it given that your dd is fine or move schools.

I'm assuming this is a villages school. They won't be able to afford many if any TAs. The budget has been really tight for years. Village schools have been more affected than urban schools.
Every statemented SEN child costs the school the first £6K of any TA salary. Given that they are probably getting under €3K in funding per child tells you something.
If you want to help the school write to your MP.

£ not €

Not sure where the "EHCP's are easy to get" comes from. I have a child in my school in Year 4 still working at P levels, with a medical condition that affects learning and cognition, she has Global Development delay AND autism. She is unable to access the curriculum in any shape or form without 1;1 individual attention. Her EHCP application was turned down as she "has been shown to make progress within the school's current provision"- ie a class TA is with her throughout the day, which means the TA is not supporting elsewhere.

spanieleyes, did you refer the parents of that child to one of the support organisations like SOS SEN or IPSEA so that they could appeal? It sounds as if it would have been cast iron with the school's support. In fact, I strongly suspect that the local authority would end up conceding - often they seem to refuse applications virtually automatically because they know so many parents won't be encouraged to take it any further.

I've referred parents to the organisations mentioned when applications for statements (old system) and EHCP have been turned down on the grounds that school was meeting the child's needs. I've not had one decision overturned unfortunately.

Like you I've seen the different sides of this coin. Eldest is Autistic and needed 1-1 from starting school, middle one managing mainstream middle of the road, youngest very bored and understretched with high levels of not first language English families and several as yet not formally supported SEN pupils. She also has emotional SEN and is supported for that.

School covers far more than academics and I feel good foundations at primary are far broader than that which is represented by the SAT's score in year 6.

For DD we make sure we do lots of reading at home, she choses a book that we read, one that we alternate page read and her school book. She gets books out from the library and the very small unmanned school library.

We've just signed back up to maths whizz for DD which DS2 had free through primary school. He was above average at maths but flew with a few sessions a week of independant learning. Its not free for DD. At £150 for the year, we're motivated to gently nudge her to use it.

With hindsight, I wish we'd done more with DS2 at primary to help fill the gaps. His handwriting is not great and spelling painful, something for which I have great sympathy. We're now on to it in early secondary. I get him to write my shopping list out for me. Write ittinaries down, oh can you write a post it for dad etc. Its amazing how many little notes I can come up with. I also make him rewrite scrappy homework which is more of a chore - but I was too soft when he was younger.

My elder two moved primaries several times. I don't think any mainstreams were perfect. You'd gain in certain areas but lose out in others. If you're going to jump, you need to be confident that it's to something better. Things like friendship groups can be fairly established in yr 4 (DS2 moved early in year 4) it can be hard for a less confident child to break into the established groups.

Village schools have been more affected by budget realignment because they have smaller classes and are inefficient. 20 in a class is not spending teaching costs wisely. Why should they get more money to provide this luxury that is only a dream elsewhere?

Having one sendco for 70 children is also a luxury. Other schools have one for 270 children, as where I am a governor. We have no class less than 30. One class is 31 due to a looked after child arriving. We are not that short of money. It’s a tight budget but workable. We do have a “floating” DH without a class who works 4/5. She is the sendco and our supply teacher!

Schools should reform how they work. I am not suggesting huge MATs, but lots of small schools are expensive and teachers have to teach more than 20. I guess the teacher is trying to have an inclusive class but extra help for the Send children could be provided if they reorganised the classes. They just don’t want to, undoubtedly, because parents love 20 in a class. Can’t have it both ways though.

Norest, your experience must be very unusual. Statistics show that, of the parents who appeal against refusal to assess, over 90% either succeed at the hearing or don't have to go that far because local authorities concede.

There isn’t enough funding - it’s as simple as that. School real budgets have been cut 1.5% every year for at least the last 9 years. The % of children with additional and/or special Educational needs that are expected to be met in mainstream schools has increased exponentially in the same timeframe. The notional SEN budget is paying for 1 teacher per 30 children.
And yes as a PP said, the threshold for an EHC plans is more flexible than the old statements but they aren’t magic bullets and what you see more and more is EHC plans where the additional resource is 10 hours do intact has to be almost entirely funded by the school. Some authorities are now issuing entirely unfunded EHC plans so there is no money at all but the school is expected to meet all the additional needs on the plan.
School funding is in crisis and so many many children with additional and/or special educational needs are not having those needs met and that knocks on to all children in the class.

That said I do really wish someone would close down that school funding cut website - it’s utter made up rubbish and inaccurate made up figures dont help!

• do intact = so in fact

Sorry zzzz but it’s simply not true to say that schools receive ££££s for additional needs. My DC’s primary is medium size (approx 220 pupils) and as you would expect has several children with SEN. The total amount of SEN funding received in the current academic year (including the amount received automatically plus any additional top-ups) is under £13,000.

Yes there is pupil premium funding on top of that, but the pp kids aren’t usually the same as the children with SEN.