Any other Scottish teachers sad and disappointed this week?

[tiredtiredteacher]

Year 15 in teaching and it's just getting too much.

The ASN failures are what are really getting to me. I am personally failing the most vulnerable children and there is no alternative. What can I do with a non verbal incontinent child while I'm trying to teach 24 others to read? Then there's the most aggressive, violent six year old I've ever encountered, who desperately needs psychiatric help but apparently only needs a play based curriculum- don't even get me started on freeflow.

What is it going to take? A child to die running away from school? A child to die being attacked in school?

I love my job but it is killing me.

Absolutely!
I work in a Secondary school in Glasgow. I've been there 29 years, and as much as I'm in a very decent place & still like my job, it does not even vaguely resemble the place I started work in : the pupils, the SLT, the staff are all unrecognisable. We do our best, but when we cannot exclude it's very, very tough.

I'm one of those who fought with every inch of my being to get my child (uncontrolled epilepsy/ ASD/ ADHD) alternative placement. It completely exhausted me. I only succeeded because I think Douglas Hutchinson (Head of Education) was sick of the sight of my name on emails. I involved everyone- MPs/ MSPs/ Local Councillor/ Govan Law Centre. Anas Anwar was phenomenal- I had a one to one with him.

I'm delighted that my DS has started in a unit within a mainstream secondary school which runs a hybrid system where he will access as much mainstream as he can, but he always has an alternative timetable with small numbers/ high staff ratio/ excellent facilities. I was constantly told there was no space in our nearest autism unit: I countered with they just need to make more space! I know that there are many, many parents out there without the confidence/ knowledge/ skill/ energy/ mental health to do what I did, and it's shocking.

On the first day of term when DS had a seizure, I wanted to phone Douglas Hutchison directly & say 'And you wanted him in mainstream, having a seizure in a corridor/ down a stairwell with 100s of kids flooding past him/ staring/ laughing at him whilst he may stop breathing. Shame on you.' It's heart-breaking.

If a pupil is getting a headmaster in a headlock they CLEARLY don’t belong in mainstream schooling. They need to be removed immediately. The HT ought to be commended for being exactly right, with safeguarding of the kids in his care to the forefront.

And jeez, no wonder there is a shortage of people wanting to be HT!

This thread and these examples need to be shouted from the rooftops, published in the press and handed to Jenny Gilruth on a plate. It's utterly shocking and so many people outside of education or without direct knowledge would be rightly appalled.
What a sad state of affairs.

JG was a teacher she must bloody know. They just don't care.

Douglas Hutchison while he was a Priest had an affair with the married RE teacher at his school and she became pregnant. He's a creep of a man.

I don't understand why parents aren't up in arms. Literally!

Kids are losing their minds, refusing school, unable to learn because the classrooms are covering a diversity of needs from dangerous to (in another world) future life-changing innovators.

Teachers are assaulted and have to still teach.

I'm scared about what the country will look like in 20 years.

What strikes me is that I know how hard a friend had to fight the council to get an appropriate placement for her non verbal SEN child - needless to say the council thought that mainstream was the appropriate setting. She is a massively experienced teacher who specialises in ASN settings and even she found it beyond challenging. With the greatest of respect to the other parents with SEN children, how many of them are properly equipped/supported to take councils on in the same way? I can't help but think that one of the reasons that so many children end up in the wrong setting is because they have parents who are not in a position to do the extensive paperwork/research/campaigning undertaken by my friend and who (because their own background is not education) trust the professionals who claim to be getting it right for their child.

The government called parents who fight to get the right placement for their children ‘sharp elbowed middle class parents’. The fact the courts only uphold the law and give them what they are entitled to, and those who do not have the wherewithal to go to court do not get what they are entitled to is ignored. Going to tribunal to get your child what the law says they must have is considered privileged/entitled/unfair. The government don’t for a moment think that they are the ones at fault for having a system that doesn’t automatically ensure all children get what the law requires them to have.

And the latest severely absent and persistently absent stats for Scotland are very bad - when will politicians have a plan? they should have been on this years ago the pandemic was some time ago now and this issue has been building for years.

this is the whole issue isn’t it - we have a system that rewards parents fighting for their children, whilst we also deride those that fight (moaners, middle class, snowflakes) and ignore the kids whose parents can’t advocate.

You really have to go in all guns blazing to get anything done at schools. If they can ignore you they will. But it’s horrifying to thing that a non-verbal child with no one to advocate for them will end up in mainstream schooling. So damaging to that child. Imagine working in the school and having to deal with all-guns-blazing parents the whole time, agreeing with what they’re trying to do and it being your job to try to brush them off.

It’s the gaslighting of the teachers over violence that annoys me. That if children in their class are violent that it’s the teachers fault cause their behavioural strategies are lacking, when it’s not. The child should be no where near their classroom in the first place

Yes the old favourite - that parents and teachers must be using the 'wrong strategy' if a severely autistic child can't switch off the autism in school - the strategy needed is to re open proper special schools with staff experienced and trained for severe autism - and in a setting with plenty of autism appropriate resources - swimming trampolining, outdoor space

Agreed @Sunsgoingtokeepshining thebwhiope system is reactive - see what they can cope with and fix on fail. No wonder teachers burnout.

Not all autistic children are violent. My oldest went to an enhanced provision school which had a fantastic ASN base and had about 50 percent autistic kids in it (including my son). The worst behaved and most violent child in the school was nuerotypical. He had never been set boundaries so thought rules didn't apply to him.

I did NOT know this! Jeez.

They can call me what they like. I'm certainly not middle class or privileged, but I have very sharp elbows- I sharpened them as my child can't fight for himself.

Staff also refer to parents as 'Heavily involved ' or 'involved' as code for pushy. But they're not pushy, they're just asking for what their child deserves & needs.

This is so true.

It would be so civilised if needs were met without the parent having to have sharp elbows / go in all guns blazing / being involved.

We bailed from state to private due to our SEN child not being able to cope with the constant distractions and unpredictable outbursts. One of the big differences is that I don’t have to be sharp elbowed. My child is a weak swimmer. This was picked up on and worked on on a 1:1 basis and now they are so much better. Weaknesses in maths are automatically picked up on and worked on. I cannot afford this for all of my kids, but the lack of parental involvement here is bliss.

Good old GIRFEC and SHANARRI - what a joke

This all started back in the late 80s/early 90s with this daft inclusion policy of giving every kid a right to a mainstream education. I had just begun my career as a Speech and Language Therapist in 1990 and I am afraid to say even teachers seemed to believe that if you put kids with speech & langage delays due to learning difficulties together with TD (typically developing) kids, they would miraculously catch up and become 'normal'

In those days, research into autism was in its infancy but there were a few children with Downs Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, Microcephaly in the schools I worked in.

Of course then specialist provision closes. And now look what's happened!! I gave up my career in 1998 when I had my 3rd child - a very slow developing boy who was way behind on every milestone.

So i had to experience the mainstream education system as a parent of a child that had multi agency support. What a battle! My lad was never violent. Quite the opposite. He was really slow and had difficulty initiating tasks, slow motor skills, full works really.

But he suddenly started talking and reading fluently at about 5! Hyperlexic, very little comprehension. And he made a joke of the C of E as he could pass any test with very little comprehension. Memory of an elephant. Tell him once, he repeated it back.

School used that as an excuse to pull support. Eventually, when he was 13, he got an ADOS and also cognitive testing done. Which resulted in a diagnosis of autism with learning difficulties.

He is 25 now and in a few hours of supported employment, under a guardianship order and cannot live independently at present.

I briefly went back into speech t in 2014 and was shocked at the kids now in mainstream nursery - non verbal (my son was verbal at 5 but about 2 yrs behind so short phrases only) and complex support needs.

I did not return to speech t. The local nursery in the town i live in has had a cage like structure build at the exit door to prevent one specific child doing a runner.

It is an impossible situation all round - failing teachers, parents, the kids that need so much support and the other kids in the class. These kids should not be in mainstream education at all.

And it is more failure in Scotland with the supported housing situation. My son was assessed as needing this by 2 psychiatrists yet he does not qualify in our area as they can only allocate supported housing to those with night needs. Not him.

Sorry for derailing the thread a bit. I do feel very sorry for all teaching staff, parents and kids in these situations.

Why are there more kids with SEN? Why??

^
Inclusion for most autistic children would be small classes, low arousal spaces, additional staffing support, filtered lights, everyone using laptops so they don’t stand out, no bell, carpets in classrooms to deaden noise, blinds on windows, fidgets, a supervised space to retreat to
^
Also : would an 80's style classroom be better for learning?? You've basically described my childhood village school, bar the laptops.

She was in Fife. Where Glasgow goes, Fife follows. I have friends teaching there: it's the same scenario.

Gilruth only cares about herself.

Was she not in an Education Scotland development role for a chunk of her teaching career?
Maybe she was always a bit far removed from the realities a lot of teachers face.

I don't think there are more SEN kids - there are more SEN kids in mainstream because there's nowhere else to place them.

And - modern life is just way more difficult for kids that previously would have coped. Some kids, years ago, had 'odd' traits but largely got by - the kids that struggled in PE or stood at the edge of the playground. Kids with messy handwriting, disorganised, poor listeners. They have always been there.

But, in classrooms of old with forward facing desks and didactic teaching methods where you were drilled in maths, spelling, handwriting etc. That is going to suit an autistic mind. Kids did everything en masse. They sat, were quiet, copied what was on the board, went out to play together. Pretty regimented.

Even life was easier - if you were female your choice was largely to grow up, marry and have kids. Clever girls might have been nurses or teachers.
Boys - a trade, army, traditional male role.

And more mums were at home with their pre schoolers so there would not have been all the rush and stimuli that there is in today's homes. Mum would have been busy with the chores, and less severe SEN kids would just have been able to develop in their own time .

Of course they'd have had an awful time from their peers - and class teachers also could be pretty harsh on kids back in those days.

I still remember when i was in P1 back in 1971, our teacher standing over a boy and being very intimidating because he could not/would not drink his school milk through a straw and she shouted at him that "even babies can suck!"

He might well have been ASD as, some years later, a teacher told him to "pull his socks up!" (As in improve your work) and he bent down and pulled up his socks. We all laughed, including the teacher.

My memory of him is that he was always the teacher's target in every year and us kids just thought of him as a bit simple.

But that was one child in 30. The rest of us managed primary but we definitely had our share of anorexics, nervous breakdowns etc at high school.

So - always been there plus modern life IMO

I suspect my dad was dyslexic, but he left school at 14 and went into a trade (where he thrived). Today at 14 he'd still be in school trying to get Nat 5s. So lots of young people who are in school now with ASN would just have been out of the system in the past.

And talking of kids being failed up here, if Rishi was still in charge down there they'd be doing maths until they were 18 in England.
None of it makes any sense.