Possible SEN discrimination after child moved down maths set at school

[Meforthree]

Does anyone have any experience with SEN needs discrimination? Our DC is in year 6 at a relatively selective school with documented slow processing and dyslexia but regularly scores 129ish in maths assessments.

He has now been moved out of the top maths set (the lower sets do less challenging work) after having a teacher who was very noticeably resistant to making SEN adjustments for him - and given those grades, (which put him in the 97th percentile nationally) the only thing I can think is they equate his slower pace with lower cognitive ability. Surely this is discrimination?

Have written how (without affecting others) multiple times in this thread.

Whilst this really depends on the child, what is can see from my child includes things like acknowledging that she will get through fewer of the practice questions than her peers and also reducing the demand around other 'non-maths' parts of the lesson, such as drawing the margin and writing her learning objective and the date. It is genuinely small, easy fixes, with little to no impact on the pace of the class. My DD and the OP's DC need the faster pace lessons, just as much as the other pupils.

It’s different content, as I’ve written multiple times on this thread. It seems to me - and I think many people familiar with poor SEN provision - that this sort of decision is being made by people who equate speed with ability. And they aren’t the same thing. Which is precisely why the law (potentially) protects them.

I’m not hysterical. And I’m not about to go and “cry the Equality Act”. I’m discussing in a private, anonymous forum - before I go and speak calmly to the school - what other people make of the facts of this situation, which (among with other things the school does) appear to show they do not understand how to cater to the needs my SEN child, despite his ability to achieve high grades. I don’t mind at all people disagreeing or offering different views, but suggesting that it is hysterical to query why a child achieving high grades has been suddenly moved out of the top set without any communication or explanation is not hysterical.

But lessons in school are a specific length, and there is a specific amount of time to cover the content, often quite a pressured amount of time. So speed and ability are interlinked practically, although not the same.

I think you would be better advocating for SEN support sessions with gifted maths support, where he covers the additional content separately. So if for example only the top set does additional maths, he should go at the right pace in the second set and you should advocate for him to be getting the additional content at a different time, at his own pace.

Quite - when we have implemented small changes (and it has always been us suggesting them; the school is not familiar with them, and the SENco is just useless) they have helped enormously without disrupting others.

Very disheartened by the ongoing misunderstand of SEN needs here.

While I understand why you might think this makes sense, it’s just not the way schools are meant to approach SEN needs. Crucially, there ARE loads of small adjustments which people familiar with DC’s profile can easily make, which allow him to easily do these lessons without disrupting others. I didn’t understand it either before it affected my child, so I understand why it can appear confusing, but it isn’t actually that hard to make the adjustments, and shifting sets rather than introducing them feels lazy and unhelpful.

It’s an independent school for which you pay handsomely. They should be adapting to individual pupil needs - that’s usually their major selling point.

I’d ask for a meeting with head of department and his maths teacher. What’s the plan to maximise his ability and achievement? How are they proposing that he is enabled to cover the more stretching syllabus in the lower set?

It might be helpful to go armed with what you know happens at similar private schools to accommodate needs like this.

Well I must have missed that, so what is the answer.
Surely the class works at your son's pace or at their pace?
What action would the teacher need to take?

Well funny enough I do actually, as a parent of 2 SEN children myself, and a qualified education rights adviser. I haven’t said or suggested your son isn’t disabled.

I also know that parroting the magic word “discrimination” on its own is meaningless, even where disability status is not in doubt. You need to establish that the discrimination has occurred or at least facts from which the discrimination can be inferred.

I think your chances of claiming direct discrimination will be low, as a non disabled comparator with slow processing speed may have been moved down too. Your best bets will in my view be to look at a failure to make reasonable adjustments ( and also the potential justification the school may bring and be ready to rebut those) and a claim of discrimination arising from disability (and be prepared to identify the unfavourable treatment and to respond to any justification they have for their actions). Your anger over the situation is preventing you being clear about the situation and ultimately you will come across better if you can manage the situation in a more measured way.

Eg at one school I know the Support for Learning team would take him out of class 2-3 times a week for additional ‘stretching’ activities. There is no stigma at this school to support for learning as the very academically able with no SEN as well as those with ND attend extra out of classroom sessions to
maximise their potential.

Also, your job as a parent as I am sure you know and are already doing is to try and manage his low self esteem. He’s plainly not shit at maths or anything else if he’s in a selective private school. Being taken out of the top set doesn’t mean that and frankly if you also think that it does you should maybe have a word with yourself.

How do you know it’s different content? I would assume that at year 6, they are taught exactly the same content as per their year 6 maths curriculum i.e. all children will end year 6 having been taught exactly the same curriculum. It would be quite the administrative challenge for the school to have different curricula for each different set across each subject and continue that every year.

What is likely happening is that the top set moves onto the next topic sooner than the set below. But the set below will still learn that topic, just a few weeks later.

And no idea why I said “situation” so many times there. I do know other words are available.

I was privately educated from 7 - 18. I was placed in top set maths at senior school. After a year I was moved down to the second set. I wasn't terrible at maths but I wasn't quite at the level of the top set. It was the right move for me. The work moved at a slower pace which mean that I could understand it better. I still came out with a high grade B at GCSE. I would not worry too much at year 6 level. He is still building the foundations of maths and if he is slower at processing he needs to be in a lower set. it also stops the top set from being held back.

describing yourself as ‘so angry’ sounds hysterical. A complete over reaction.

I think the OP has been quite calm, despite the persistent provocation.

If the top set moves faster, what do you think they do when they run out of material earlier?

I know state schools talk a lot about mastery, which is often then implemented poorly. But the more able pupils thrive on non-curriculum maths as an interesting addition to their curriculum content. We explored different number bases at home with our DD in year 1. She was really interested and was able to convert between base 10 and binary. She also taught herself roman numerals before it was covered in school. Being in a higher set allows children to explore further and be curious about the wider maths world.

Oh gosh - what a frustrating thread. It shows an incredible level of ignorance about what a slower processing speed means.

My dd has a diagnosed slower processing speed. All it means is that she needs a bit of extra time in exams and sometimes she needs a bit more time to think about something. The one only real impact on her is that while at school she did have a handful of teachers who thought she was lacking in cognitive ability and who then were amazed by how well she performed in exams. To be put down a set would have been incredibly harmful to her.

She is now studying medicine and excelling in her studies.

We joke that her brain is like a clunky computer that sometimes requires more time for the inputs but once those inputs are there it works extremely well.

Well in my kids schools they have only been a week or 2 ahead of lower sets, often that just meant a more relaxed end to the year or additional revision sessions going over old topics. Any extension work for the super bright kids who requested stretch was given to be done at home or at the end of a lesson if they’d finished all their work early and purely optional.

By the time they get into secondary, there is very little difference between the top few sets, particularly in independent schools.

I don't think that's necessarily true for independent secondaries. My DD1 has bumped around between set 1 and 2 at a selective independent secondary. She finds the pace slow in set 2, but perhaps a bit too fast in set 1.

Thank you! So frustrating, isn’t it? (Although very illuminating as to what many of the teachers who don’t quite get it are probably themselves thinking.) yes, as I mentioned unthread, my DC’s confidence has already been knocked and it feels horribly unfair when it’s not necessarily the right choice for him I think. I like the computer analogy. The thing I always say to my DC is how deep his thinking is and how I wish they would call it deep processing. Of course you’re going to process more slowly when you’re doing everything so deeply.

So if it only affects her like that does it even fall within the Equality Act definition of disability?

Your DC's confidence being knocked is a wholly different thing though. This is a private selective school. He is clearly is doing extremely well academically but so is every other child there. Why has he got the message that being in Set 2 rather than Set 1 means he is doing badly? Lots of examples on this thread explaining why this may be a sensible decision and that actually the ability range may not be that different. Very important that he doesn't see this as something to feel despondent about. Why not tell him that Set 2 is the set where children get more time to do the deep processing, and focus on making sure he does get stretch work? This is only Year 6, how much difference is there between 2 sets in a selective school really?

OK, but if everyone else gets 40 minutes to do the mental maths test and your DS gets an hour, then what is he missing in the 20 minutes when he is still finishing the test? Either he's missing a bit of teaching, he's missing the teacher going through the test answers, or he's missing break. None of these are ideal for him.