What do you think about these SEN figures for local schools?

[moosemama]

Our school 396 on the role 53 SEN pupils in total (21 incl SA+ and Statements and 32 at SA)

Other local schools

1. 354 on role - 10 SEN in total (6 SA+ and Statemented and 4 at SA)
2. 226 on role - 8 SEN in total (4 SA+ and Statemented and 4 at SA)
3. 470 on role - 8 SEN in total (2 SA+ and Statemented and 6 at SA)
4. 610 on role - 15 SEN in total (11 SA+ and Statemented and 5 at SA)
5. 163 on role - 5 SEN in total (2 SA+ and Statement and 3 at SA)

The second is VA Catholic Primary, all the others are CofE and either VC or VA.

The School Action number has remained roughly the same since 2004, but the SA+ and statemented number has more than tripled. There has been a lot of intake of SEN pupils mid-term over the past few years and interestingly, the number doubles in one year, the year the new Head took over.

I'm not sure what to make of it, I wasn't actually looking at the SEN pupil levels when I noticed the huge discrepancy in the number of SEN pupils at our school compared to all the other local primaries.

The other thing is, that both services have told me that until I brought in the EP and ASD Inclusion Teams myself for ds, our school was 'off their radar' so to speak, having not been in there for several years! So its not as if they have a reputation for being a good school for SEN pupils. Our experience of the school, along with that of other parents in my ds's years has been that the school is hopeless at (or unwilling to) identifying SENs and offers almost nothing in terms of support (although this has improved recently).

It doesn't make any sense does it? Do you think its just a statistical blip, or could it be part of some sort of wider plan or funding trick on the part of the Head?

Not being paranoid by the way, was just surprised when I noticed the figures and intrigued.

The two schools at either end of our road have much higher figures than even your school but our area is quite deprived so don't know whether that makes a big difference.

Our school's stats are:
Total number of pupils on roll (all ages) 308
Pupils with statements of SEN or supported at School Action Plus: number
55
Pupils with SEN, supported at School Action: number
68

and the one at the end of the road has these stats:
Total number of pupils on roll (all ages) 354
Pupils with statements of SEN or supported at School Action Plus: number
47
Pupils with SEN, supported at School Action: number
58

This is quite a posh, middle class sort of area. In actual fact it the area with the highest house prices, as everyone wants to move here because of the schools.

The only higher rates are from schools in the deprived area of our LEA.

I have just noticed that all the other local schools, SEN numbers have been reducing at the same time as ours have increased. Am now wondering whether SEN provision is so bad at those schools that parents have been removing their dcs and putting them in ours as there's nowhere else to go - either that or perhaps exclusions? We do have quite a high number of children with behavioural problems now, compared to almost none when ds1 started there in 2005.

Its gone from being a middle sized village school with a real village/family feel and very few problems, to one that now has endless problems with difficult pupils and and increase in violence and bullying. I'm starting to think its being turned into the local sink school, where children end up when there's nowhere else for them to go, but still end up with little or no support.

Results at KS2 have remained high throughout though and I suppose that's all the Governors and LEA care about.

I have no problem with high numbers of SEN pupils, of course my ds is included in the figures, what worries me is the lack of support for these poor kids and what's going to happen to them if that doesn't change.

This is the average for England (state funded schools only)
with statements or supported at School Action Plus 9.8%
School Action 11.9%

Therefore our school is double the national average for both.

From what you say and from your previous posts, the school is overstretched with the numbers of SEN pupils for the amount of support that they can/wish to provide. It doesn't sound good if the school is going downhill from when you started :( Is there any chance of getting him into a school that is going to provide him with more support?

No chance.

Firstly, he desperately wants to stay with his best friend and secondly the other schools listed are the only ones in the area and are all oversubscribed with long waiting lists. I suppose if/when he gets his statement that would change, but I have to bear in mind his feelings as well as his academic/SEN needs.

Anywhere else and we would need transport to get him there as I don't drive and we live in a village, so from here to anywhere is at least two bus journeys.

I reckon you'll be able to charm/convince/force the school/LEA to give him the provision that he needs. You are so coherent in all of your postings on here that I am sure that you will succeed on his behalf. Your local school sounds like just where he needs to be for lots of different reasons.

Thanks Ben10, I feel anything but coherent at the moment. I feel lost in a fog of what he needs, what we want for him, what they can or will supply and the whole blooming fight to get it.

I don't know who to trust. Everyone on here says just apply, then worry about it and gather the evidence, when the advice I'm getting in rl (from someone I think I trust and is actually involved with ds and lots of other children with ASD who either have or are going for statements) is that in her experience of our LEA we will just get turned down for SA based on the evidence we have, but if we give it a few more weeks, with the work she and the new SENCO are putting in he will stand a much better chance.

Dh is siding with this person and wants to wait, but I keep getting told off on here for not sending the letter yet.

Schools with not many kids on the SEN register are the ones to really stay clear of.

They have either not identified existing SEN - or have driven out the kids that do have SEN.

20% on the SEN register sounds about right.

Thanks Indigo, that's what I think. Judging by the figures from 2004 onwards, it looks like all the kids that have SEN have been leaving the other schools and arriving in ours. Which is fine, if they now pull their fingers out and get some support for them all.

Thing is, for some conditions it's good for the school to have multiple kids with the same ds.

e.g. you can run a better dyspraxia intervention for a group of kids, then for just one.

Also when the staff see multiple kids with dsypraxia, obviously who are all a bit different, that is when they really start to see what dypsraxia is and isn't......

Also if you have multiple kids with the same condition, it becomes worth getting some training in it.....

I agree, but at our school a few of the teachers seem to be becoming pretty anti-inclusion, primarily, I think because they haven't been supported through the rapid rise in SEN pupils, so have struggled to cope. Things are changing and improving slowly on that front though and the staff have had some excellent INSET training around SEN this year.

I did wonder whether the Head was thinking about trying for an ASD unit, as I know the Inclusion team have been lobbying the LEA, saying our area is in desperate need of a unit attached to a primary school and at the same time they've told me that they now have so many children from our school who are on the spectrum, that they are in there most days (bearing in mind, when they started with ds back in January they hadn't had any contact with the school since their service started three years ago and ds was the only pupil they were involved with). That said, the LEA is totally anti and had so far refused to budge on creating a unit.