Can 20% of pupils really have Special Needs?

[moondog]

Good article from the Telegraph on the inexorable rise of the SEN industry.

From my perspective this is absolutely correct. All smoke and mirrors.
Meanwhile children who really do have special needs are not having them addressed properly.

sure tart Gotta love a good typo.

Individual learning - surely the best option is to remove the stigma from feeling obliged to send your child to an educational setting until the parents feel that they are ready (obviously starting at some age point )
I have been very happy with DS3 being in YR and is 4. He is NT with medical conditions. Educationally and socially it is the right environment for him.
I also get that there are children who are 5 in his year that really struggle with social/educational aspects.
We also have to remember that there are shed loads of parents who send their DCs to school who are not interested, for whatever reason, in seeking support from outside the home in tackling issues of behaviour, s & l, social issues etc.
How do these children get help? We all on here recognise that early intervention is the most productive. A good school will try to help these children just as a bad school will still fail our children.

I think the thing I struggle to understand is delayed entry. You delay your child going to reception because he's too immature to cope. But then he still has to go to Yr1 the next year regardless. Makes no sense!!!

In the states, if you delay your child one year going into Kindergarten, then the next year he starts Kindergarten, and moves up normally - the time isn't made up. Because surely if they are not ready for reception at age 4, they're often not ready for year 1 at age 5, right?

'And I don't think kids need to learn to read and write at 5 either'

Paisan, do you know that if you can't read competently at 7, your chances of ever doing so are pretty slim? By 14, they are more or less non existent.

Do you know that the state of Californai plans its prison facilities on the basis of the % of 5 year olds in the state that are struglling with literacy?

That chills my blood.

'struglling with literacy'

As am I obviously.

Triggles - I prefer the more flexible Scottish approach to deferring, where parents views seem to be taken seriously! And yes, we also fell victim to the blithe assumption by everyone, including professionals, that attending toddler group and nursery would magically improve language delay

Moondog/Paisan - I found that literacy has helped with DS's language delay - e.g. it was seeing the past tense of verbs "ed" in books that made him turn the corner with that in his speech. Also if a child has anxiety issues they may be more responsive to visuals than speech during bad patches.

LP yes, I would agree with that-both as a parent and as a professional.Literacy even more important to children with comm. issues.