Teachers, would you have time to read a statement of SEN?

[maddiemostmerry]

Hello, My ds is in year 7 attending a specialist autism provision attached to a mainstream secondary.

Do teachers read statements? If not is it a time issue or for other reasons?

My Ds has been given a detention for making a mistake. He suffers from anxiety and problems with confidence which is all clearly documented in the statement and we feel the punishment is heavy handed. He was reduced to tears at school, has already rewritten the work and now has a detention.

First of all he thought he had been warned he would get detention if he made the mistake again(mistake was taking in wrong history book, he has two but got muddled). This was also thought to be the case by his support worker. Now today he has been told it is a detention not a warning but I am confused at how he and his support both drew the wrong conclusion.

I don't want to go steaming in, so any input from teaching staff or parents is welcome.

Teachers should read the statements and IEPs of all the statemented children they teach. We certainly have time. Definitely contact the school and ask for more details about what happened and draw their attention to anything that you thikn has been overlooked with regards to the statement.

Hello, I am a teacher. I wouldn't give a detention to ANY child for that tbh, let alone a child who finds organisation tricky.

In theory, all the teachers should have read all the statements OF COURSE - otherwise, how would we know where to begin in including them in the lesson? However, in reality, some teachers are rubbish (and some are lovely teachers but forget to do 'little' things like read statements).

IN reality, support worker/form tutor should be emailing all staff who teach maddies ds and reminding them what the statement says and to give him a break for a few weeks. You could request this if it hasn't been suggested already. Hopefully, the teacher will then think 'oops, that was a bit rubbish of me' and rectify situation and keep an eye out and implement appropriate strategies for your ds.

Good luck!

I agree with CAt, yes the teacher should have read it but first few weeks of term may have lots to read, may not remember which bits go with which kids. As said above contact form tutor and ask for all teachers to be reminded of situation and ask for intervention on behalf of current situation.

They should but I was gobsmacked once by a teacher, who was head of year and pastoral care who said their school, mainstream with large proportions of SEN, ignored IEP's and statements. It does happen.

Thanks very much for this. Am being very careful not to over react as I know I feel very protective of him.

We have drafted an email to the school expressing our concerns. It is such a shame as he has gone to bed really worried about it. I have said that it's not really a big deal but he is so well behaved and frightened of doing anything wrong that he feels terrible.

Thank you all

Absolutely read all the IEPs for the children I teach and keep them in my planner to refer to. This is standard procedure. Is your DC very new to the unit (I see he is in Y7). The only possible excuse might be that the staff don't yet know him - but if he's in the unit then the IEP should be an absolute priority for them. :(

No new IEP in place yet, but placement is for children with quite a high level of need, those in danger of not coping in mainstream due to anxiety and difficulties coping so find it hard to believe that teacher would not know that.

This sounds very wrong. I've lost count of the number of times my son (also at autism unit attached to mainstream) has had 'detentionable offences' smoothed over by his TA. In fact, by last year, we had to ASK them to step back a little more and let him learn that he had to take the same consequences as the other pupils, but it was done sensitively and gradually.

This sounds such a slight mistake, frankly. Is this one of the old-style teachers who believes all this autism nonsense is just a newfangled term for bad behaviour, harrumph, harrumph? We've met a few, but none in a school that has a special unit, for goodness' sake.