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?

Peaceflower - it is the same in my son's school so the end result is that those who have fallen behind the 'average' slipstream are seen by the TA, the top set by the teacher and the 'average' set left to fend for themselves.

This apparent 'differentiation' seems set in stone and I see little movement between groups. So I could easily see Aspie DS switching off and gradually losing interest and only doing half a job on his work because there was no consequence.

It got put in a pile with a tick from the teacher every so often and as long as it is 'sort of ok' then who cares if he understands what he's writing or is retaining anything at all.

To obtain any kind of accomodation from this system, I have had to flag up his need for help which has resulted in a request for and agreement to undertake a stat ass.

Do I think his needs could be met without a statement? Well, not his need for SALT and OT but in teaching terms??

In a world of league tables (and here the 11+) where teachers seem to have little time to do anything pastoral or to differentiate with any real effect, than absolutely not.

In a different world, where kids were allowed to progress at their own pace, in smaller classes, with teachers who actually got to know them and work with ALL of them, and had the time to discuss worries and fears, then yes.

We don't live in that world though do we?

No wonder so many people Home Ed.
I despair of the system not just for my child with SEN but for any child.

So, although govs have the system this way, pushy parents and their focus on league tables keep it going. Just as schools and their obsession with children's progress as a reflevction on their own status and reputation rather than on their ability to meet a child's needs and potential.

Just look at the other boards and the comptetition you witness about numeracy/literacy from parents who are now concerned about their kids falling 'behind' but are worried about how 'ahead' of the pack they are.

These are the people who are ruining the system, not those of us trying to carve out a bit of equal space for our children with differing needs.

But then if you set up a system to cater for the average child, it will produce the average adult, weeding out imagination, creativity and difference as you go..... what a world we live in!

I agree with arses, but essentially think it is another stick with which to beat parents,teachers and children. That will essentially result in nothing being done to resolve the issue.

Part of the problem is that the distinction between SEN and SN is so widely misunderstood, so lots of people assume that all children with SEN have SN (even some parents of children with SN).

Most children with SEN do not have SN. Most children with SEN should not stay on the SEN register for their whole school career. They are there because they have significant speech and language deficits which prevent them from accessing the national curriculum, and/or other problems with school readiness (such as never having been taught how to hold a pencil or a knife and fork) because of their background.

OF COURSE these children don't NEED to be on the register -- if schools are allowed and able to do the kind of early intervention they need (such as diffused help with speech and language throughout the day and intensive social skills teaching) they will progress to the point where they can manage ok.

I've said it before, and doubtless I'll be saying it till I'm on my deathbed, but it can't be said too often. There is a strong correlation between SEN and other indices of deprivation (eligibility for free school meals, overcrowding, poor health, workless families and so on).

Any attack on SEN is partly an attack on children with SN whose needs are not met by the system. But it is also, and in this case more immediately, an attack on poor children (of course those two groups do overlap because SN are also correlated with deprivation). It is poor children, with all the burdens they already carry, who are the real target of this report.

I do think some children are labelled as SEN because of ineffective teaching. I have done supply in schools where the reading scheme is a joke, and the teachers themselves don't seem to realise that they are not actually teaching the children anything other than to memorise the captions under the pictures. Fast forward to year one and the teacher has a number of children who haven't a clue what they are doing so they are put on the SEN register. I think that is the sort of scenario they are talking about.I would agree that with good teaching many of those children would not need to be on the register at all. The BBC report did not seem to be talking about children who are actually Statemented.

I have a pdf of the relevant ofsted report if anyone wants me to email it them give me a shout on time torrent.

www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/sep/14/half-special-needs-children-misdiagnosed

I have a feeling that lots of TA jobs are going to be cut. I think that 70,000 TA jobs were created under the last government (please correct me if I am wrong). I have been wondering about this for some time and I am concerned that many teachers do not have the experience of having a whole class of 30 mixed ability children with no other adult.

So I see today's announcement as a preclusion )?) to TA job cuts.

What does anyone think about the future of TAs in the numbers we have become accustomed to?

Review Summary:
Around half the schools and early years provision visited used low
attainment and relatively slow progress as their principal indicators of a
special educational need.
In some local areas, assessment and the identification of needs were
well-managed and appropriate. In some of the best examples, the
non-statutory Common Assessment Framework was being used
alongside the Special Educational Needs Code of Practice to provide
better assessment by coordinating the work of a number of different
organisations. However, the majority of local areas found the Common
Assessment Framework to be burdensome. For children with the most obvious and severe needs, assessment was
relatively quick and carried out at an early age. However, this often
depended on a clear medical diagnosis. Beyond the children with the most severe needs, assessments of
special educational needs were found to be inconsistent both within
and between local areas. Children with similar needs were being
assessed as requiring different levels of additional support.
Across education, health and social care services, the approaches to
identification and the thresholds for intervention were very different.
This made joint working across services difficult and led to confusion
and a sense of unfairness among parents. It multiplied the number of
assessments that some young people had to undergo, and created
different and sometimes inconsistent plans for supporting them.
The review identified weaknesses in transition planning for young
people, and the need for greater knowledge and professional expertise
in relation to special educational needs and disabilities in information,
advice and guidance services.

PAGE 35:
In one area, a family that was having difficulties with their child at home,
particularly on his return from school, had asked for support. Initially,
after-school care, available in the area, and transport to and from this was
offered. The parents were unsure about this level of support and felt it
would prevent their child from being a full part of the family. After
discussions with the family, the social worker identified that the desired
outcome was for family life to be calmer and for the mother to be able to
cook a family meal after school. Following this discussion with the parents
and involving staff at the child?s school, a solution was found. The child
enjoyed using a trampoline. By providing some funding for the family to
level the garden outside the kitchen window and provide this equipment,
the child was able to return from school and enjoy an activity. This was supervised by his mother and she was also able to work in the kitchen at
the same time. This helped to ensure that evenings were calmer and one
of the parents was able to cook the family meal. The cost was far lower
than daily after-school care, with transport provided, and the intervention
met the desired outcomes for the child and the family.

"Some schools Ofsted visited believed that identifying more pupils with SEN could boost a school's contextual value-added score, a measure of how much pupils are improving which takes into account the challenges they face."

Dd's headteacher (a former Ofsted inspector, funnily enough) had the opposite idea: if his actions are anything to go by, he thought that by offering no support whatsoever, parents would eventually take their problem children out of his school and hence improve his statistics. It all depends on which particular part of the statistics they need to cook to improve their school's chances of hitting that Outstanding. In our case it was attendance

Creamlegbar - I think you are right.

It's very unlikely that any school with a significant no of children with SN or SEN will get outstanding because so much of whether they do is down to results . Regardless of value added, quality of support, teaching, inclusion, imagination, creativity, caringness etc etc

Page 71:
The recommendations of the review apply to many organisations and are also
intended to inform the way we think about the needs of children and young
people. They are set out in detail at the front of this report, but the key points
are summarised below.
A focus on the quality of assessment will improve the quality of outcomes.
The right support must be available when and where it is needed.
Schools should focus on improving teaching and pastoral support early on
so that additional provision is not needed later.
Specialist provision needs to be developed strategically so that it is available
regardless of where children receive their education, for example in a
maintained or independent school, an academy or a college.
Legislation should be simplified so the system is clearer for parents and
schools.
Schools should stop identifying pupils as having special educational needs
when they simply need better teaching and pastoral support.

The article did also emphaseise that teh register was also being sued to offer support to kids who did need it- such as those away in teh armed forces- but whose inclusion on teh SEN Register was not the appropriate solution. That was interesting adn I have certainly seen it used to support a kid who did need it but ebcuase of poor family home life rather than a SEN (child more stable now thankfully, has been a good year for them).

DS2 was palcewd on teh resiter last eyar as a precursor to assessment for dyspraxia and ADHD. His in schools creeningc ame back positive, somewhat unsuprisingly. He was pulled after six months becuase apparenlty he ahd ehaled () and it was at teh same stage the second batch of TAs was made redundant: they now only ahve statement allocated ojnes, and I did some maths with that oe day and from what I know the TAs are working 55 hour weeks in teaching situations to cover the statemented hours!

In truth the report was good: very good, so whyt ehn is it already being morphed to sound liek the kdis with DX's are being falsely dx'd or labelled? Grab what you can to fi9t your agenda eh?

Now, with ds2 a friend / colleague who can assess is seeing him soon. But normally that would cost ££££ (we will take the report to our lovely 'family' paed and ask what to do next). But if is happening to us who else is getting it?

Oh and wrt to pastoral support, a few eyars ago I worked on a mentor scheme within schools and whilst it was work focused we did a lot on family relationships, etc. Negotiating study space, that sort opf thing. Key skills. Our target group was last 2 years of comp and we were paid at about minimum wage after a week of training. That would be cheaper than much of the inappropriately delivered SEN (we could manage 4 kids in 60 minutes) and more useful too I would imagine.

The funding was pulled, though.

"Some schools Ofsted visited believed that identifying more pupils with SEN could boost a school's contextual value-added score, a measure of how much pupils are improving which takes into account the challenges they face."

this was part of the reason my mum retired from teaching early. The final straw was when she was told to put a handful of her nursery children on the sen register because they couldn't put their own coats on, not zips and buttons, just get the coat on. Of course it couldn't have been that only being 4 their mum/dad had always done it for them

wasuup, that's interesting to read, as usual the media has put a lot of spin on it!

'his actions are anything to go by, he thought that by offering no support whatsoever, parents would eventually take their problem children out of his school and hence improve his statistics' yept hat's what happening at our palce; I think they beleive that kids like mine stop them having space to offer to the lcoal well off lcoally who traditionally filled the places not filled through catchment (usually very few odffered as catchemnt about 3 streets. We just happen to live on one. Ha).

It's ahrd though; am well aware that the support offered is crap and every statement has been fought and won by me. SNAP gave u[p on our school and avoid it. Even LEA have washed their hands apparently. They get away with it though becuase they are at the far end of state dependency (what's called an endowed status) and teh current polictical emphasis on more of no-wholly-LEA variant is a scary thing.

in Scotland they have changed the nomenclature; special needs and special educational need are both changed to 'additional support needs', this obviously would cover both DS2 who has dyslexia and dyspraxia type issues and childrn with issues at home that could affect their learning. Hopefully it will avoid confusion, but the bottom line is that a child who needs help, needs help - I don't get the inference that children with real SEN's deserve help more than a child who is behind for another reason. I do agree with those who have pointed out that being on a 'register' does not guarantee quality help, I help DS2 at home because, bluntly, I am better educated than the nice TA's at his school and my research is more up to date and targeted just at him.
I also agree that most people confuse SN and SEN, to be honest I change my mind all the time about DS2 depending, at the time, on whether I think he is on the ASD spectrum or not (as he gets older he seems less spectrummy IYSWIM).

Wiggly i think the help that is required can be different.

Kids with what i would refer to as SEN under SEN guidelines will need longterm support, access to a SENCO, proper structured programs that take into account their DX etc.

Where as kids with difficulties can be addressed differntly- often in far less structured ways and usually for shorter periods of time. For ds3,, this school aplcement is a pre-cursor to a lifetime of suppoirt; for ds1 hopefully to a structured work aplcement that allows his independence and help.

For a child whose parent is away, who has had a bad family experience, etc it should be about shorter term support around the work of toehr agencies. For example a child being abused is praimarily a social services concern; education is supplementary in that role. Whereas education holds the primary responsibility for support for SEN kids under 16, and ssd supplementary.

Now chances are there will be crossover- many a kid with SEN would benefit from mentoringa nd many a child going through a trauma will ahev an academic delay to remedy. But fundamentally it's from differing angles.

niminypiminy My DS' (mainstream secondary) school has been ranked as Outstanding twice by Ofsted and has 70 Statemented pupils as well as pupils at SA and SA+. I think the provision they make for the SEN pupils is taken into account and the progress they make over the time they are at the school.

Bit appalled to read a linked BBC set of Case Studies based on this report. I hope this so-called SEN assistant gets nowhere near my DS

"She says that a great many of the behavioural problems are due, in her professional opinion, to the following main areas:

1. Teachers not being able to cope and using the label to obtain additional funding and support - it makes their lives easier.

2. Bad parenting - a) where both parents work and it is easier to give in to children rather than bring them up with boundaries and b) where parents want to use the label and try to get a statement. This can then open the doors then to additional benefits - some of which are mind blowing.

She says that in many such cases she turns the child around by merely applying boundaries and sticking to them - something that both parents and teachers should do anyway. She says some children have never been told "no.""

Sugar - appalling. Really F off around this whole report and the reaction to it. So many myths and lies being perpetrated.

There are good schools and bad schools and good teachers and bad teachers. There always will be. Some children get the support they genuinely need, some don't. I don't think there are very many kids who are getting support which they don't need.

Yeah - getting put on the SEN register is a magic pass to help and extra time in exams and 1:1 teaching and ???? - No. Not at all. Getting put on the SEN register means nothing at all.

I wanted to say that mothers always know if something is amiss with their child's development. They must trust their own judgement and intuition. More likely than not, if there is a problem with their development it is normally noticeable from a very early age, ie failure to feed well, failure to speak, failure to copy parents, failure to mix with others, etc. And as a result their difficulties will have an impact on their educational years. This is not due to poor teaching, but that something is developmentally incorrect in the child.
I had to struggle for 13 years trying to gain diagnosis for my son. He gained the ASD, ADHD and OCD diagnosis at age 17. During this time my son was passed from specialist to specialist (Ed Psychiatrist, Child Paediatricians and GP) and they all failed to spot difficulties or listen to my concerns about my son's ASD. I was treated as a fool and the professionals tried to make me responsible for my son's developmental difficulties. This is because they are inadequately informed in my opinion and/or do not want to find money. I was even labelled as odd and eccentric because I had to push and push to get recognition.
It is my belief that children need to be tested pre-school or, at least in the reception class to determine where difficulties lie. It is unjust to blame teachers. I was recently told that my son's reception teacher was very concerned about my son's difficulties but this was not relayed to me at any time.
As it is, my son is going to struggle in his adult life and if diagnosis had come earlier he might have been in a more favourable position now.

We have just received a report about our son who is coming up for 11 yrs, He has had a I.E.P since being in primary school, and we were always told he was 2 years behind due to us finding out he has Dyslexia, and his rating is very bad. We have always thought that he was receiving good care while at school and all his needs were being met.
This new report says his overall age is 6 1/2
yrs, and he is now 4 years behind his peers.
We are left feeling very sad and angry and feel as parents, we have let him down. But most of all his school has. We even put a home tutor in place, thinking we would be helping.
His headmistress has now put him forward for a statement, and I have tried to back this up with email to the persons connected with this. Has any body got any other thoughts as what more we can do, and badger the system. Even if so far it has let us down badly. {angry mother]

SEN code of practice is a useful resource, as is ipsea and sossen

if the head has already put the request in there is not a lot you can do as far as badgering goes until you get a response to that request, which should be within 6 weeks, do check it has been sent. What you can do is prepare for the next stage and get all your evidence together for your parental contribution if the panel agree to statutory assessment or, sorry to say, if panel says no, your appeal paperwork.