I have yet to meet a MS teacher who welcomes SN kids

[donkeyderby]

I haven't met millions of teachers and TA's, of course, but out of those I do meet socially, none have expressed positive views about the presence of kids with SN in their classes.

Please tell me that some MS schools enjoy having children with special needs in their schools

One teacher was positively prejudiced against one of my children. She got confused and thought my Daughter had Agoraphobia and wrongly punished her.

We've just worked through the secondary schools in the area (ds in Yr 6) and one school did stand out as very, very positive (and a couple of schools as rather negative, which gives a bad impression particularly on Open Evening when they should all be on their best behaviour). I always ask about SN provision first, as I think that says a lot about a school. The grapevine confirms that positive school is indeed very strong on pastoral.

There are schools out there who regard children with SN as a problem, and teachers that reflect that attitude.
HT and SMT set the acceptable face, and if they tolerate a poor attitude then that's what you often get in the classroom.
I have never chosen to work in a school like that, and never sent my children to one either.
So yes, I work in a school that enjoys the presence of SN children, and appreciates the different perspective they bring and the different response they require.
My son attends a MS secondary with a fantastic attitude and response to meeting his needs, and if they can do it with 1400 students, anyone who puts the same effort in could.
There are no excuses for not trying your best to make reasonable accommodation and provision to meet needs, whatever the financial limits placed on the school.

I have to say that apart from one teacher all my DS's teachers have been fab . Even the one who wasn't fab would grab DS for a hug - he's ASD and the only reason she got a hug is because she didn't ask permission - just dived in . Her issue was that she struggled to cope with DS in the clasromm so would often send him out with his one to one teacher. Apart from that all other exoeriences have been really positive.

I'm one . The only issue that most mainstream teachers have is that they're not trained for SN (you get virtually no training) and so they worry about getting it wrong. Also, cos the Statementing system is so crap, most have to manage without adequate support - and deal with 29 other children. If SEN was better funded and trained, most teachers would be much more positive. Most teachers go into teaching because they like children! I got 4 A grade A-levels and was considering Law, but went into teaching for the good reasons; most do, but people want to do a good job and it's hard to do that with a SN child in M/S without adequate training and support.

I've only had half a term of experience as DS has just started reception but his teacher and the school have been brilliant.
He struggled at the induction with all the other children there at once so they set up seperate inductions with DS on his own to explore the classrooom and get to know the teacher.
His teacher hugs him back when DS dives on her in the mornings (no sense of personal space!).
She set up his IEP with no prompting in good time, with really relevant targets on it that show she has got to knwo DS well already.
The TA does at least 15 mins speech therapy and 15 mins social skills work with DS every day without me asking.
They have been very very accepting and accomodating, despite admitting that they were nervous of DS's needs and if they would be able to accommodate him well enough at the beginning.

As a teacher, you get no special dispensation to only teach bright and willing pupils that learn in the way you prefer to teach.

SN children don't just cause problems. Their parents do, some of them big time.

As a teacher you always get at least one parent on parents evening telling you their child did better the previous year, with the previous teacher, and I think most teachers are used to that, - but if you get a SN parent you can get more emotive language and be accused of downright failure.

On top of this you get the complex relationship between parent and LA to deal with. Parent says your crap, LA says you're fantastic and that parents are deluded. If they said anything else the school would ask for more money.

As is human nature when presented with conflicting information, we'll choose the most positive, particularly if we are choosing a professional opinion over a lay person or parent, who quite frankly just doesn't appreciate the fact that you have bent over backwards for their child and attended out of school hours meetings for them.

Both my parents and many of my friends are teachers. This is how they tell me it is. Some of them have little niggles in the back of their minds about it not quite being right but feel powerless to apply the time to figure out why or what they can do about it.

Why are teachers so nasty to children with special needs?

Yes, Lucinda. All teachers .

Why are all parents so nasty to teachers?

Oh no, that's right, they're not. It's just another shite generalisation.

If the parents of a child with SEN make a complaint to the Local Authority, why is it that all the teachers "close ranks" and tell lies.

Yes, again, all teachers do that .

I am biased of course, but read the other posts. Your experience of M/S teachers is obviously crap, but you can't really believe that your experience means that every single teacher is like that.

our primary school was/is great with sn. they let (even suggested) I let ds2 go there for one afternoon a week from his special school. He couldn't access the curriculum but did singing, PE and golden time where they did various things like arts and crafts, games and sometimes drama. He was treated exactly the same as any other child and at the leavers service in Y6 when all the prizes were being given out, he got a prize too.

It really does depend on the ethos of the school and individual teachers. Our was a church school but I don't think if that made a difference. All teachers in all schools should be welcoming and caring, you don't need to have any sort of faith to be a decent person.

And fwiw, I have known of many cases of teachers reporting their own colleagues for mistreatment of SN children e.g. inappropriate language/ not making reasonable adjustments.

There are crap teachers and good teachers,
just like there are good parents and crap parents.

DS's school is MS and independent. They positively embrace all his physical disabilities and include him in everything, his teachers are a breat of fresh air. The head is amazing so her 'vibe' comes through the school.

I'm in a situation where I 'think' I am a good parent, and ds' teacher is a good teacher, fantastic in fact, but ds is still being failed. Not anywhere near as much as he was though.

Bloody good teachers are tricky to fight. They care, have listen and taken on board crap advice from the specialists and put it in place. How on earth do you tell them to forget what the professionals are saying and listen to the parent?

Almost all the teachers at my DCs primary are very good with SEN kids. At senior school it i more mixed, but then the range of SEN is mixed too.

Sometimes teachers are in denial about what SEN means (so would say no kids have SEN because this is a top set, and we have no deaf kids or kids in wheelchairs). But I have met a whole load of teachers who do try their very best, eventhough they've had inadequate training.

In many areas there is no contact between CAMHS and teachers. It seems to me that teachers do not respect the professional opinion of CAMHS professionals.

This is where the need for good support comes in, stark - if the LA profs were willing to listen to you and the LA weren't so paranoid about ABA, your ds would be getting a better deal as the teacher would be able to work with you without getting grief.

I had this with one of my son's teachers - the school aim was to get my son out so the teacher, who was on my side but couldn't say it (she revealed later) wad instructed to be as obstructive as possible to any of my ideas.

But he's also had some people bend over backwards to make things work for him.

One thing I have noticed about Lucinda's posts is how invariably consistent they are.
She must have had some seriously awful experiences which have closed her off to ever believing anything good about the education system.
I'm not being sarcastic, butI hope you are a home educator Lucinda. It would be horrible if you inflicted a system you despise and mistrust so much on your children.

Lucinda

In many areas there is no contact between parents and reality. It seems to me that parents do not respect the professional opinion of teachers.

Sounds ridiculous, yes? It's your sentence with only two chages. Generalising is bollocks and also unhelpful.

I hate it when teachers generalise ridiculously about parents and when parents generalise ridiculously about teachers. As I am both, I realise the importance of the two groups finding common ground and understanding, not finding reasons to pull apart. But, of course, some people always prefer to presume that their experience sums up everyone's, even when presented with evidence that says otherwise.

I hate that parents new to all this might read your posts and assume that their child's teacher will be the enemy. Not helpful to anyone, least of all the child.

If we had been given a sincere apology from certain teachers then I would not feel so negative now. We made a genuine complaint and the complaint was not handled honestly.
Many people in the LEA colluded in "stonewalling" and not dealing with the complaint in an honest and constructive manner.

Lucinda - what dx does your child actually have? (Remember to keep consistency here, because we do remember you from thread to thread).

I always assumed you were a teacher, because I know you post on the TES site a lot.

Anyway, back to the thread :) I have had loads of good and supportive teachers, and some who were ignorant and therefore incompetent - but only once have I thought that they didn't want my son in their classroom ( and that was a HLTA who was taking the class)

My new school very much appreciates all of my 3 kids for who they are. Their strengths and their weaknesses. My NT child has as many weaknesses as my 2 on the SEN register....

Dd2 started MS school in september, she has ASD and severe speech delay, her sister also attends the school and has Aspergers syndrome, when i told the school last year that i was trying to get dd2 into the sn school they spent hours tryin to convince me that dd2 would be fine at MS and they would do everything in there power to make it work, dd2's application was turned down for the sn school, the ms school were great and applied for funding straight away for a full time TA for dd2 (even though her statement only says 'shared 1:1). Dd2 settled in well and has a great 1:1, the head speeks to me every day and tells me how he enjoys having dd2 in the school.

Dd1 is also 'teachers pet' at school and the staff are great with her.

We have had a few problems with dd1 (mainly involving other children and bullying) but the school have delt with it and both dd's are happy at the school.

We moved house 2 months ago and have decided to keep the dd's at the school even though it meens a long drive.