0.5m SEN children 'don't actually have SEN' says OFSTED

[mariagoretti]

Anyone else hear the radio 4 interview this am? It seems that it's down to poor teaching, lack of assessment, pushy parents and underconfident teachers. She admitted it doesn't apply to the 'small minority with a statement' where 'numbers have actually fallen', but may affect those on SA and SA+.

DH left the radio on this morning, I normally avoid all media coverage of health, education, social care and disability cos I hate starting the day with futile shouts at faraway strangers.

So... how long till they abolish the (admittedly useless) SA and SA+ and the paltry schools' SN budgets?

Thats great news, if we are going to be getting more assessments and good teaching from confident teachers, our children wouldnt need statements or SA+!

DM readers have started their vitriolic comments already about it being down to poor discipline,bad parenting etc etc.

Christine Gilbert, the chief inspector of schools, said: 'Schools are identifying children and young people as having special needs when they need essentially better teaching and better pastoral support.'
In contrast, parents of children with the greatest needs or disabilities must endure the troublesome 'statementing' process.
Statements are legal documents outlining the support to which children are entitled.
But Ofsted found that, even when parents succeed in obtaining one, there was no guarantee of appropriate or good provision.

Lol at 'troublesome' statementing process!

Do you know what are they basing these opinions on?

here ds1 is on sa+ and I have to say I partly agree with this, although I wouldn't put it down to one teacher, more poor attitude to dcs that can't keep up with the pace. At least he gets a little help on sa+, get rid of it and they'd have an excuse to provide bugger all.

Perhaps numbers of statemented children have fallen because so many LEAs are refusing to assess.

SA and SA+ mean nothing, really, but then statements often don't either.

still digesting what this actually means, am going through various newspapers to see what spin they put on this.

here

Starlight I thought that. The tories will use this to justify their cuts in education.

Yup, the debates are starting everywhere. Been attacked on another message board by some ex-teacher who blogs about SEN who reckons that all autism, dyslexia etc is just made up and part of the "SEN racket". Like hell they are.

It's all so sad and heartbreaking. My 2 do have special needs - which has been made worse by incompetant teachers. And then been made worse again by professionals who believe they've had incompitant teachers.

All very upsetting.

oh goodie another stick to beat us with.
SN and SEN are not the same thing

I think I might actually give up and weep.

Oh yes.. How I already bloody know that it is my fault that ds has the issues that he has and what a waste of resources he is...

:(

Its very contradictory, they appear to be saying that all these children need is more specialist help and support. Everyone knows the only way to get specialist help and support is with a statement!

I think we would all agree that more specialist help/support is needed. They cannot expect teachers to be specialists.

Heard it on the radio this morning on the way to school. It is being headlined as "lots of children dont have special needs" how obscure.

Aren't Ofsted Inspectors ex-teachers?

They will use it as an excuse to remove TAs and funding.

"We believe that the needs of the vast majority of children can be met with improved teacher training and with liaising with parents and carers to maximise the child's potential. In these times of austerity - caused directly by the last government - we are not in a position to fund the entitlement that many parents have regarding their children's educational requirements."

Is what they will say, or summat very close to it I reckon . Not my views obviously!

As Claw points out, it's meaningless. There do exist children who need additional help to reach the national average attainment levels, and this can be proven - children are tracked and monitored to within an inch of their lives. What they need to catch up to national average is additional support, and that's what the whole SEN umbrella provides.

Schools don't make these children up - they're assessed at Reception, and then monitored all the way up. If they aren't making the progress the rest of the children are, and assuming that the rest of the children are reaching targets, then what are schools meant to do? Let them fall by the wayside? The methods of teaching and learning obviously do suit most of the children, so you can't just easily blame that as a catch-all.

Sits back and waits for the next "ADHD/ASD is caused by bad parenting" thread.

Bllody hell they can't have it both ways, a few years ago poor exam results and the fact that kids were leaving school unable to read and write was blamed on lack of early assessment and support, so they put in place assessment and monitoring tools to try to address this & these kids were identified as haveing SEN (not always the same as SN).

Now its costing to give these kids the additional support they need.. guess what... oh its all made up.... tis crap!

You wait the cycle will repeat itself, they'll withdraw additional funding (for things like TA's & external literacxy & numeracy support programmes) and in a few yrs when these kids can't read or write they'll take another look at the system

So yet more cuts aimed at some of the most vulnerable people in society. Nice.

There is a point to it, though, IMO.

I really dislike the way that some kids with significant SEN seem to spend a good deal of the day with a TA and are not really accessing good teaching.

Now we all know amazing LSA's/TA's who are worth a hundred teacher's weight in gold, but the fact remains that some kids with SEN receive most of their education from people who are not appropriately qualified. I remember working with a little boy with significant learning difficulties/on the spectrum a number of years ago and his LSA. I did twelve sessions of training with her, in clinic and in school 1:1 because I was so worried about what she was doing with him (basically, just getting him to point at letters all day long and talking to him in almost a whisper). She tried, but she really wasn't able to change and there was no leadership shown by the teacher who saw him as 'taken care of' by this LSA.

It took about 3 years to get this little boy a statement and I hoped things would change once he had one, but they didn't I'm afraid to say. He just had more hours with an ineffective LSA.

I think kids with statements should have access to specialist teaching in addition to support from an LSA that earns more than peanuts and undertakes suitable training and periodic review of their practice.

I also know as a fact that a vast proportion of children with speech and language delay who are on SA or SA+ would be far better served by quality teaching throughout the day and appropriate 'on the spot' differentiation vs being dragged into a corridor for 20 minutes 'input' or dumped in a group with an LSA who has been given no time to prepare and doesn't really know what they're doing.. I think it's quite exclusionary.

In Ireland where my mother teaches, students with the equivalent of statements have access to a qualified Resource teacher for their input. It's still not ideal (as the quality of training is apparently questionable) but where it works well, the resource teacher will do in-class input with the other teacher (push-in vs pull-out) and demonstrate planned differentiation in class.

I'd rather see resources ploughed into meething the needs of those who truly need it with significant needs than into making up for poor differentiation for even the mildest of difficulties (a child saying 'tat' instead of 'cat' beyond the expected age, for example).

I do appreciate that really, however, rather than a shake up of current services this will be about cuts

Arses, well said, It's always puzzled me why in my dc's school, the top set was taken by the class teacher, and the bottom by the TA. As my dd said, you can always tell which the bottom table is by seeing if the TA is taking it .

Surely the "less able" should have the "best" teacher?