Special needs support in independent (pre-prep) schools - what is the norm?

[stealthsquiggle]

..before I go steaming in? Only for all the small class size and all that it seems to me right now that there are too many children in DS's (Y2) class who, were they in state school, would IMHO have statements in place and would be entitled to a degree of additional support in the classroom.

My entirely selfish concern is that since the school choose to ignore this / leave the class teacher to deal with it, it is depriving the rest of the class of their 'fair share' of attention.

What is the norm? Are parents asked to pay for extra TA support?

While I am at it, there are several parents who, in the state system, would be recieving visits from SS / attendance officers - what action if any do other pre-prep schools take in such cases?

I am genuinely interested in different viewpoints - I would like to know what is normal/reasonable before I voice my concerns to the head.

At my son's school they have detailed info for SN and also a SENCO. They assess and then suggest what extra tuition is required and then charge for this extra time. It isn't cheap as it is charged on an hourly rate (not sure of the exact details but this is what they publish in their info). They are known for taking SN seriously and get transfers from other local private schools who don't.

Why do you think the chn would have statements or extra support in a state school?

At my dd's independant pre-prep school there is a girl who has what I beleive to be the maximum amount of funding due to her statement so she has her own TA. Her parents top the TA time themselves up to full time.

I would have thought there isn't a norm? Probably varies from school to school. I think the statutory guidelines on statementing can apply to private schools- the local authority can have a duty to assess for a statement anyway. But they would probably argue that the child's needs could be met adequately at the local state and refuse to help.

You have to pick a school that does offer extra support, or head towards a school that is more selective. Some schools will have this as one of their unique selling points, other schools won't.

One thing that you are not paying for is private tuition - your child is in a class, not with a governess. What your fees pay for is only a share of the school's resources - not first dibs on them.

I don't understand what you mean about attendance officers? Are these children absent from school, and if so, doesn't that free up the teacher's time?

At my school we have tiny classes, and have a few TAs in the Prep/Pre-prep dept. There are no children deprived by lack of one-on-one. If children have a specific need, such as dyslexia, their parents can elect to pay for specialist lessons for them. I think this is unusual in pre-prep, though.

I would think that it would be very unusual for state school pupils to be statemented for educational reasons in Year 2. It takes some time for the teacher to suspect there is a problem, and then the long process of assessing it and applying for the statement.

If they have a statement in the State sector, are have that level of need it can be transferred to the Private, it isn't easy but it can be done. So be very careful, these children may not be at the 'statemented level'

I'm not sure there is a norm . ds joined at Year 3 and we've had to fund 1 to 1 since(£30ish p/hr) but he has also had small group work included in fees. In practice there are very few children who have extra individual support within the classroom environment(ie dyslexia) and even fewer are statemented(one I know of moved to State and got one within months for ASD). Classes up until year 4 have a TA (if increasingly on a pt basis). I suppose it deoends on how selective the school is, demand for places and whether it is prepared to ask for children with issues they cannot properly support or poor attendance to be removed.

in some areas statements are rare as rocking horse shit. so i agree with mB - although kids may have evident problems they may not be at the statemented level.

We visited a pre-prep for a selective school where they made it quite clear that they were not set up to handle children with SN and more or less indicated that if it turned out ds had SN he would be advised to move schools. I don't think this is unusual in selective private schools.

Our school isn't selective although I know all the children in reception get one on one literacy lessons every day which I am sure helps to identify those who need extra help. In the older years I know there are children with SN that other pupils in the class aren't aware of (ie that they have SN). It is sensitively handled by the school.

The other local private school is viewed by parents as being more academic (pushes the children more - timed homework from Year 3 onwards) although interestingly their results aren't as good as ours. They also are intolerant/unwilling to deal with SN children.

I agree with TC's comments. A friend on mine whose child is in state school had to fight tooth and nail to get her ds statemented even though he had severe learning difficulties.

as far as I understand it, statementing only applies to state schools, so I fail to see its relevance to the OP, who is in the private system. If you think that there are kids with SN in your child's class and that your child is not getting any/enough attention from their teacher because of this, and you arent' therefore getting your money's worth, then yes, see the head.

It will vary hugely between schools - there isn't a norm. Unless you are looking at a very clear case of SN (eg a child with little or no hearing), then you may find that the school views that an entire peer group will be taught together regardless of ability.

Are the perceived SN truly Educational needs or are they behaviourial issues?

Even selective independent schools can have good SEN support - ds1 and dd are at a school that selects to a certain extent (through a slightly bizarre process, but thankfully it's looking for potential and creativity rather than an ability to do calculus at 4) and they have found that many of the children who are perfect for the school are also dyslexic. So the school has an excellent record in helping children with dyslexia/dyspraxia and there is a very active parents group for these kids to help with classroom frustrations and so on. The school also has a "Resource Room", as they call it, where children needing help either academically or with behaviour spend one on one time or group time apart from their class. What's nice is that the resource room also helps and co-ordinates the programmes for the high ability kids, so there is no stigma in attending sessions there. And they don't charge extra for this either. Having said that, I don't know what the school would do is faced with very severe SEN - one of ds1's best friends has a statement but it is for support due to a medical condition and he gets a certain amount time with an assistant in class, but not enough. The council won't give him what he is legally due because he attends a selective school.

Thanks for the input, everyone.

I am not talking about very severe medical conditions, so yes, probably more about behavioural issues / AS and maybe I am being unrealistic and should just keep quiet.

The attendance thing - children in question arrive 30-40 minutes late for school almost every morning (for example, I was 30mins away from school after dropping DS yesterday and I passed one mother going the other way - so yesterday that child would have arrived an hour after DS, who was on time). This inevitably disrupts the rest of the class to some extent and it annoys me that while a state school would have some form of sanctions they could at least try to apply it seems that the school can/will do nothing.

Squeakypop - "One thing that you are not paying for is private tuition - your child is in a class, not with a governess. What your fees pay for is only a share of the school's resources - not first dibs on them."

I agree entirely. That is what is winding me up - some of these children are getting a far larger 'share' of the resources than others (including my DS) and yet we all pay the same fees.

The attendance issue - we've had this too. Ultimately the school don't feel that they can do much for preprep. It is unfair to penalise children for the behaviour of their parents.

But by the time they start prep school in Year 3 the situation changed remarkably in the first week (as the boys are now penalisied if late).

maybe they had a doctor's appt? for their sn lol?

It does seem to be the case (based on other mumsnetters' experiences) that state school can be a better place for children with ASD.

I'd be absolutely gutted if I was shelling out a fortune in school fees and the school didn't properly support my child with SN, I must say.

I wonder if it's a tacit campaign by private schools (some of them anyway) to get rid of "difficult" children, though?

Our school is really strict on being in school on time. We had a note sent home at the beginning of term informing parents that being late was unacceptable and classed as an unauthorised absence and they were under an obligation to notify the LEA (it is a private school too).

If my ds turns out to have SN I would expect to pay for extra help at school to assist. This sounds more like parents not bothering to get their children up early enough to get them to school on time, which is a completely different issue.

their parents probably moved them because they were getting no additional support from the state (as they weren't sn enough) and so felt that the private sector and small class sizes would work better. i'm guessing it's working out perfectly for their parents lol. you'll have to raise it with the school though - and they obviously won't disclose any info at all, but it's right that they should know you are concerned.
speaking as someone whose dd does have state support, and no private school will touch her as she's neither fish nor flesh lol, thanks for an insight into the other side. don't forget that this is how most of the sn parents in the state sector feel all the time - they have no other option but are extremely aware of a crowd of mummies breathing down thier necks about how much time x gets from the teacher, leaving poor little y with none. tread carefully! hope you manage to come up with a tactful approach!

I think Scummy is right - there is a wide range of provision across the independent sector in my experience.

At my DC's prep school there were two full time SENCOs and a SALT who visited for a day a week. This was for nursery to Y2, with approx 45 children in each year group.

There were also a handful of children who had full time LTA's, but I don't know if the parents or the LEA paid for these.

Parents paid for any individual SENCO/SALT sessions. Any group sessions were free.

At the prep school attached there is about the same level of provision, but across a much larger population - partly I think because some of those with learning difficulties were screened out at the pre-prep/prep transfer (as blood boiling as that is)!

I am not forgetting the other side of the story, clearly these children need support -otherwise I would have steamed in long before now . In other cases (not int DS's class) the school have recommended that parents pay for incredibly expensive OT and other 'extra' support but it seems in one case that the parents have declined to do so and the class teacher is left 'coping' (or not).

MollieO - Interesting that your school takes such a strong line. In the attendance cases it is absolutely the parents not bothering, and I know it causes problems because DS, possibly the least observant child I know, has told me so. What can/do a pre-prep do with parents who appear not to care - I personally find it incredible that someone is prepared to pay an arm and a leg in school fees, but not to take the slightest interest in their child's education. Maybe that is because the fees are a lot of money to us and may not be to others?

the same thing that the state sector can do. bugger all. there are a lot of parents (actually more lol) in the state sector that can't be bothered to organise assessments/ appointments, or fill in the forms for statementing etc. and the schools are usually too busy trying to keep their heads above the tide of apathy to keep up with it themselves. oddly enough, it's also the reason that kids are still statemented with full support years after their needs have dropped to a more manageable size, but no-one has got time to re-assess and do a proper AR every year. lot of money being distributed where it is not required, and nowhere near enough being given out in areas it is required. it's a quagmire in state, it must be impossible in private, until the point that they ask the parent to withdraw the child or fork out the cash. you can understand why schools get really hard line about not accepting sn pupils at all.

I think the money point is interesting. I only have to look at the cars in the car park to realise that many others at the school are loaded (and I thought I had a good job!). Some parents send their children to private school because they want them in small classes, individual tuition, great sports facilities etc (that would be me). Others do so to boast about it to others - a bit like waving your black Amex around. They don't really care what their children actually do at school but they like everyone to know they are there.

The lead comes from the head. She is firm but fair. We had a note sent to all parents about taking holidays in term time even before we had officially started - it said that as there were only 173 school days in the year that left plenty of other days for holidays! In fact the note was sent home 3 times in a variety of guises.

The parents who can't get their children to school on time are also the ones that take their children out of school for term time holidays.

I would speak to your ds's form teacher. If she doesn't deal with it then you need to speak to the head of pre-prep and/or the head.

Don't know anything about it really, but presumably all schools have to provide attendance records because all parents have to ensure that their child is educated and if the child isn't turning up at school they aren't being educated.

However, annoying though it is, I would imagine that it would be difficult to argue that a child isn't being educated because they are turning up half an hour late. I think this is something you need to discuss with the school. However, its probably even more annoying for them than it is for you.