Apparently 457,925 of the 1.65 million children who have been diagnosed with SEN actually don't have them

[nappyaddict]

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

For a start the headline is misleading. They aren't talking about the school actually diagnosing SN. Schools can't do that. They refer a child to outside agencies and if a diagnosis is deserved it will be given by them. The outcome of a diganosis or not is nothing to do with the school.

What the headline is actually talking about is schools "diagnosing" that children need to be put on a School Action plan.

Ofsted regard all children on School Action as having SEN, when actually a lot of them are NT. They just may need extra mentoring, coaching or counselling for example due to a trauma that has happened in their lives, due to their upbringing, due to being in care etc. They are saying this level of mentoring, coaching or counselling should come under pastoral care. Or the children may just be a bit behind the others or slow to progress and need some extra tuition.

What is actually at fault is not the schools but the system. They have to put these children on School Action so they can get schools mentors, counsellors, TAs for teaching small groups etc rather than have these children disrupting classrooms or get low self-esteem because they aren't progressing as well as they could with extra help.

This is an old article. Why are you reviving it now? We already discussed it when it was published....

It's only a month or two old isn't it?

Indigo, that's a bit harsh, isn't it? If people don't want to discuss it, they won't post. Nappyaddict raises a very valid point.

I think what is often missed on both newpaper reporting an MN as a whole, is that SEN and SN are two different categories of children. A child with SN may not have SEN (a child who is paralysed from the waist down but NT, for example) and a child with SEN may not have SN (a child who is struggling with the 3Rs but just needs extra attention, etc.).

The impact of that is that papers report on issues that aren't issues, but are just misrepresentations of the statistics.

Sorry, didn't mean to be rude. Just a bit surprised that this was being revived again.

Here's one of the original threads we had on it. 0.5m SEN children 'don't actually have SEN' says OFSTED

I think there were also threads on other boards....

Ofsted said in a tiny section of their report:

If children were supported better, 'some' of them wouldn't have SEN.

It then goes into great detail about how the ones that DO have SEN are being ashamedly failed.

Funny how none of that made it to the papers.

I'm with Lougle who put it more eloquently than I can.

I suppose things may be a bit different here in Scotland.

I think the difficulty is in defining SEN. Here in Scotland, any child who requires any extra support with their education for whatever reason, disablity,bereavememnt, exceptionally talented even, is seen as having SEN and I agree with that.

SEN does not necessarily = disabled. It means exactly what it says the child has special educational needs ( needs extra support in order to achieve their potential educationally)

Ok will get off my soap box now.

Sorry Indigo I wasn't trying to revive it or start an arguement or something (don't know if any of the original threads kicked off?) I've only just seen the article didn't see any of the threads on here in September.

Like Lougle said children with SN can have a disease, illness or disorder that affects their bodies but not their brains.

Some children with SEN may just be ones that need extra attention at school and so they are rightly put on School Action.

The way Ofsted were saying it is that because these children don't have a neurological problem or some sort of disorder they don't have SEN.

If schools had more money they probably could give these children the extra support, mentoring, counselling and tutoring they need without labelling them with SEN. However, that is not the case, and so to get these children the help they need they do have to give them a label.

I have heard the term AEN used sometimes. Is that used for some things and SEN used for others or are they both used interchangably?