Why such low SEN?

[gobbledoops]

Help me solve this mystery, please! I have two primary schools near me. They are very similar in results and demographics etc except for this weird anomaly with the number of SEN kids.

One is a standard local primary school with about 13% SEN kids which is average for my LA. Another is a Catholic school with only 4% SEN kids. Why would this school have such low numbers? Do they discriminate somehow? Are they just rubbish at identifying additional needs? Help me solve this please!

When dc2 was at primary not on sen register or ehcp despite asd and adhd.
Likewise friend on neither list. Largely sen was driven by parents as school never suggested.
But the kids identified were more deprived.

Re RC schools possibly stricter parenting / schools not so compatible with adhd. Or the strictervrules for all children reduce the sen showing.
As our school with 60 intake was very chaotic in reception. Other badly behaved kids impacting our dc.
So as eg a child telling mine we dont play with xyz children.
Other kids throwing things in playground.
The senco just believed in punishment

My friend had a dc at cofe school - it was smaller. The work itself and homeowrk more organised. They picked up on sen before xmas yr r.

However i would say the variation between kids going on lists and ehcp is huge.
You have kids with dyslexia getting top marks. Or adhd with no behaviour issues.
Asd and lots of friends. Or you have undiagnosed kids who cant read or write at 11. Or have 0-1 friend or behaviour issues.

How can a child have a reading age of 5 at age 11 and not be picked up as having SEN? They clearly have and won’t access the secondary curriculum.

There is still the phenomena of children with mild sen being noticed very quickly in leafy lane schools. No parent at these schools expects a chaotic YR! They expect dc to be reading and learning. I’ve seen dc with sen and their parents really struggle at such schools. A child who is very disruptive would be suspended and urgently found a special school place. The idea that all dc flourish in mainstream is becoming a myth too.

It could be that the school with more SEN kids has a great reputation for providing for kids with additional needs, so people apply there?

All schools discriminate against SEN pupils. I work for an 'inclusive' LA and have had to whistleblow on a few schools for their discriminatory practices- SEN children being ignored, taken out of the class and placed in a room somewhere with an unqualified member of agency staff until parents get frustrated and remove their child, labelling pupils as 'deliberately' challenging knowing they have diagnoses of attachment disorders, PTSD, ADHD, etc. it's horrible.

I should've said all schools discriminate against SEN pupils but some are better at hiding it than others.

Thanks everyone for your input. As far as I can see my DC are neurotypical (maybe with some speech delay - hard to tell at this age), but I would not want to send them somewhere that would discriminate against them if there are any issues later on.

The ofsted report for the catholic school is complimentary about their SEND provision and they have very detailed policies around it. I’d like to think that the SEND number discrepancy is indeed something about the demographics of who applies plus the fact that the buildings are old and not accessible rather than outright discrimination.

In any case, I liked the other school better so that one would be my first choice with catholic as back up.

I think part of it is that parents of children with SEN identify the local schools with a better provision for SEN and choose to send their children to those schools ...there are three primary schools within similar distance to our home and one has a far better reputation for dealing with SEN and I know two families THIS TERM who have transferred their children to these schools from the others.

@ladygindiva Interesting, I did not know about these type of “magnet” schools. The local school SENCO told me that they had 7 SEN kids in one class of 27 with no EHCP so no extra funding. Absolutely mad - they must make up some funding through the PTA.

@gobbledoops
You have to look at a wider area to see how parents choose schools. Where I live we have towns and villages. There are differences in the town schools mainly due to house prices and how many middle class aspirational parents live there. In poorer areas with lower parental attainment and income, sen Dc belonging to aspirational families go out to the village schools. Many of the village schools do not fill up from village dc so have spaces. The roads are clogged with cars. Other dc from the town go to village schools too but some of these schools have more dc with Sen than they should. The numbers don’t reflect the village. As not so many have a EHCP naming the school, most are being supported from the school budget. This can cause financial issues.

There are sen dc in the town schools of course but frequently not dyslexia. Usually behaviour, slow development and other needs are seen in the town schools. Few dc being ferried out to the villages are ethnic minorities. They stay in the towns. No school discriminates but the parents are clear about what they want and who dc is taught with and being with “people like them” is important. They cannot afford houses in the villages but they can send dc to school there!

I’m looking for at schools for DS who on the autism waitlist at the moment. Some schools seem to genuinely try to do there best with SEN children. One school I looked at the head could not whizz me round the school fast enough and push me out the door as soon as mentioned DS was potentially autistic.

At an open evening for prospective reception children, the headteacher at my local state primary wouldn't meet my eye when I was asking just one question about SEN provision and the senco wasn’t attending that evening. And apparently wasn’t available for a telephone call for a very quick chat for another six weeks at least. And nobody else could talk to me about Sen at all. This school had a very low rate of recorded SEN.

This told me that my son (who had already been diagnosed with ASD) wouldn’t be welcomed and would be unlikely to have any of his needs met. And so he went to a different school.

The reality is that a toddler with autism or ADHD or learning difficulties is very unlikely to sit through Mass every week. It's pretty boring for neurotypical adults unless you are genuinely devout. I can't imagine that many parents of such kids would put them through it even to get them into a particular school.