Scottish education needs to change, right now.

[Easypeelersareterrible]

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/scotsnet/5217850-scottish-teachers-can-i-do-anything-apart-from-go-off-sick

I’ve just read the above thread and it’s just so shocking. I’m not a teacher and therefore don’t want to derail the thread, but everyone in this situation is being catastrophically failed. The teacher, who can take no more, feels she’s been put in an impossible situation and has no choice but to leave. The child with SEN who sounds utterly distraught in mainstream schooling. The other pupils in the class who are only P1 and have to try to learn in an incredibly distressing situation. Imagine being only P1 and this being your only experience of school!

We need to open more special schools and pupil referral units. Mainstream schooling needs to be for those who want to learn and are capable of learning. By putting children with unmet SEN or disruptive pupils into mainstream schooling we are not meeting their need while at the same time destroying the education and mental health of those willing and able to learn. ‘Inclusion at all costs’ is failing Scotland.

Why can’t politicians see this, and take the decision that desperately need to be taken?

Ah yes, training for teachers . What a joke.

Are there any legal people on here? If so, is there anything legally that parents can push for if child is physically assaulted by someone under 12?

The attendance picture is worse than the stats here - ticks in boxes for going into a 'well-being hub' and if you stay in there for weeks and don't engage, well too bad you were dysregulated.

The English system otoh where my sister was told she needed a dr's note for a sick bug is as mad in a different way, too much emphasis on parents being responsible - for teens bigger and stronger than them.

St George's is a brilliant school, both academically pursuing excellence across a broad range of subjects and nurturing and adjusting where possible and needed.

You can't make people respect each other. You can't make every child want to vlbe in school or want to learn. You can't actually force kids to follow the rules. You can't make school fun for all kids.

There have always been badly-behaved pupils in schools and there always will be. There will always be kids who don't want to be there and who aren't interested, in spite of heroic efforts by teachers.

Private schools don't always manage it. They manage it much more easily than state schools though, because they get to select their pupils and can exclude pupils if they want to. They also have smaller class sizes, better facilities, and parents who want their money's worth.

The situation is dreadful in England as well.

I think I’m right in believing that classes in Scotland can only be taught by qualified teachers though which is one thing we can’t guarantee in England any more :(

Yes that's correct.

In England it's very lax.

One thing that shocks me on a regular basis is the amount of nonsense that the teaching staff have to put up with to from THE PARENTS. Special treatment, special circumstances, meetings to discuss issues, mediation, complaints to the council, horror at the idea of composite classes, accusations, threats, constantly changing pick arrangements, lost property, the list is endless... the parents do not seem to support the staff let alone respect them.

Your last sentence exactly hits the mark.

Parent of three kids who have all gone through state school in Scotland, my youngest is in S5.

All of them have had children in their classes who would have in previous generations been in a "special school". A couple because of physical disabilities - there is no reason why a child in a wheelchair can't be in mainstream, yet in the 70s/80s that didn't happen. Similarly, there was a girl in their school and in DD's class on the autistic spectrum, she needed a lot of additional support but was not violent and could be easily be removed from a situation when she had a meltdown. There is also a child in their senior school with Down Syndrome - again he would never have been in mainstream in previous generations.

It's a balance, isn't it. I have a friend also who teaches in a unit for children with autism within a mainstream school, I think there are 5 or 6 children in her class altogether but all have additional needs. They join in with some whole school activities, but are taught in a separate classroom. More of that needs to happen.

There are also children who are not and will never be suitable for mainstream, and there needs to be proper provision for them which does not rely on a hattered teacher with 29 other kids and one child taking up 95% of their time. Especially in senior school - a 13 or 15 year old boy could easily be taller and stronger than teachers and it is simply not SAFE to have a child who is violent in school.

There needs to be more special school provision across Scotland. Because there is no point opening up new special schools in the central belt if you live in Arbroath or Kirkwall. However, this "treat everyone the same" and the race to the bottom is the battlecry of the SNP and nothing will change until they get their marching orders. What I don't understand is why the EIS and other unions are not shouting about this from the rooftops as it must put their members in danger.

On the exclusion thing - they seem to manage "problem" children by just shuffling them around. When DD was in S4 they had a nightmare boy join their year group after leaving another fairly local school, and at the same time one of their disruptive pupils was sent to the school he had come from. (Nightmare boy who joined DD's year group is now in prison for stabbing someone, aged 19).

So it's less exclusion, it's horse trading and shuffling people around. And yes, the Scot Gov thinks this shows how marvellous schools are and what a fabulous job they're doing.

I think it’s important on this thread that we don’t conflate SEN, violent behaviour and children who’ve experienced trauma. There may be many cases where it’s not possible to disentangle those things, but I don’t think bringing in lack of permanent exclusion is very useful in the discussion about what the best model of SEN provision would be.

It's actually one of the 3 priority areas of the current EIS campaign (ASN)
I suspect planned budget cuts will lead to a decrease in the amount and quality of provision, sadly. Bad times.

@Yolo12345 you are so right about parents. People wouldn't believe ths utter shit that parents phone and email schools to complain about. Our HT used to dread opening her emails in the morning as she knew it would be 95% crap.
Thank goodness we didn't go down the road of parents having access to teachers' individual email addresses.

They do in HC.

There is nothing legally that can be done if an over 12 year old assaults your child! An assault charge is just a caution. A second assault charge is just a caution. A nth assault charge is just a caution. It’s the SNP way.

I can well believe that stuff about parents is accurate!

For a Scottish thread, an amazing number of posters are using English terminology. It is ASN not SEN. And ASN is so broad in definition that getting on for half of pupils in some areas are considered ASN. ASN includes English as an Additional Language (by far the biggest single reason for ASN in some areas), SEBD, young carers, sensory (blind/deaf), bereavement, divorce, family issues…. It is such a broad definition as to be pretty useless.

Many children with ASN caused by a disability are impeccably behaved, sit quietly being failed in class or are victims of bullying and violence. Violent meltdowns are obvious, but having a child in secondary who struggles to read and write either requires a high level of input or is left to fail.

Withholding £145 million from councils doesn’t help either:

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/education-secretary-withholds-ps145m-of-cash-from-councils-over-teacher-number-row-4819800

My young relative is autistic and entered primary 1 this year. He had previously gone to a mainstream nursery with some support and got on brilliantly.

He was promised 1 to 1 and use of a quiet room when he entered school but the 1 to 1 never materialised and the quiet room was being used by another class for the first few weeks.

He has had a miserable time in school. He frequently has meltdowns the class teacher has told his parents it's not fair to the rest of the class to have him in school taking up so much attention. The other kids have discovered some of his triggers and will use them to prompt an explosion from him. There have also been far more issues than the ones I have mentioned.

The parents are fighting to get him a place in a special needs school, they have been gathering as much evidence as possible for some kind of panel and hope he can get a place from p2 onwards.

L is now miserable going to school, it's not fair that his experience of school has been so unhappy. I also agree that it is not fair on the teacher or other kids in his class when he needs a lot of attention. Nobody gains from this situation.

I genuinely think inclusion has failed the majority of children it was supposed to support.
There are so many children who would get so much more from education if they were in a well resourced specialist setting.
Reasonable adjustments are all well and good, but what is reasonable at 5 is no longer reasonable at 10 and certainly not at 15. Edit to add: no secondary teacher has the experience to teach P1 or P2 curriculum while getting the rest of their students through exams.
And in the great scheme of things the law doesn’t make reasonable adjustments - assault for example will always be assault and if a child has always hurt people due to their needs and for want of a better term ‘got away with it’ at school then what is it going to do to them when they are arrested at 25 because the real world can’t make allowances.

Lathallan is non-selective with small classes and a lot of outdoor time but that may or may not suit your child.

teacher has told his parents it's not fair to the rest of the class to have him in school taking up so much attention

Ask her to put that in writing…

To the wider thread - no, inclusion really isn't working. When I tell DH about some of the kids from my mainstream primary who either don't get a place in EP or whose parents don't want it, his mind is totally blown! I feel like I'm constantly letting one child or another down. And what makes me really sad is that there's no time to form relationships with those kids who could absolutely thrive with that bit of extra emotional support that we should be able to give them.

This is awful 😢

Teacher's comment was exactly the same comment I received from a teacher about my autistic child.

A friend of mine has been repeatedly been told by school that they cannot meet her sons needs and he should be in special school, however all attempts to gain a place in one have been turned down by the council. All the while her child has been put on a part time timetable and when in school he has frequent meltdowns leading to the classroom being evacuated.

The young and the dim vote SNP so it’s in the current administration’s interests to run down Scottish education.

I am joking - a bit - but …. Never allowing exclusion of the violent, treating teachers disgracefully and dumbing down the curriculum isn’t going so well.

My kids are just about through secondary education but I'll be telling them to think twice about sending any children they have to state schools. They seek to be making good career choices so fingers crossed.