Gove does it again....

[StarlightMcKenzie]

and so does the Daily Mail

Main Board discussion here

Yes Schobe I agree with you and hearty guffaw at human chocolate teapot comment..
In principle it would be lovely if we could translate left wing principles into action but I think they get lost in the delivery.
We need a different form of politics. All that red flag stuff was needed when peopel sweated in mines and labour rights non existent (I speak as the great grand daughter of a mining union man) but times have changed.

It is a mistake to think that right wing = evild money grabbers and lefties are all noble. Unwittingly, left wing policies have caused huge damage to education.

Ironing is very relaxing.

I iron nothing either. I ocassionally look at my ds in his shirt going to work and on days it is VERY crumpled I might ask him if he is meeting anyone important. If he says no I shrug, if he is then I'll quickly iron it for him. That's about it though.

Not that I see it as my job to iron his shirts, it's just that I care very slightly more than him about his appearance at work

Will you iron my red flags? I CAN'T let them go I tell you, I just can't .

I have red flags. I have to keep them. I often yell at them though. And sometimes I attempt to set fire to them. But whatever I do they haven't changed to blue. That is too frightening for me.

I think I just want better red flags.

I happily iron for my dh.

I iron his boxers even.

Roar at surrendered wife. The very idea.

I think you'd iron anyone's stuff if it turned up in a big parcel. Which it now might

And yes indeed to shouting at red flags. It's sad isn't it?

I have stumbled upon this thread... I think the point is being missed. Early intervention is nothing to do with children with disabilities. Early intervention is about catching those children whose parents have failed them and doing the best we can to help those children to succeed. It is not about blaming parents either...

There are parents (with severe problems) out there who simply fail to parent. They severely neglect their children and set up their children for a lifetime of failure, including failure to parent their own children. It is a vicious cycle. It is hard to believe for most people (just as abuse is hard to believe) because for most of us this level of neglect is unfathomable. These are not the parents who use Mumsnet- these are the parents who barely notice that they have children at all.

These children are otherwise potentially normal children who are emotionally, socially and intellectually let down from the very beginning of their lives. Brain development is stunted. They are unable to learn to read and write because language is unknown to them. Ultimately they fail as adults. Intervention at the earliest stage in their lives will provide benefits which are far beyond the initial 'investment' in the child, but can only be demonstrated many many terms after the current government leaves office. Intervention will hopefully give these children a 'fair go.'

Just as we would expect the state to remove a child from abusive circumstances, it is right and proper for the state to remove children from circumstances of severe neglect (where the child is not taught language, life skills, is not fed or clothed properly etc despite adequate resources being made available to the parent).

Read this report:
www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/early-intervention-next-steps.pdf

Food for thought?

No, we are not missing the point. Thanks.

Disabilities can easily be conflated with this argument about intervention. What is the evidence base for the argument about these families who are neglecting their children? How many?

I think you are missing the point cooking one.........

I am still mystified by moondog's conviction that Gove is wonderful news for children with SEN. He's had almost two and a half years to improve things, and all he's come up with is this pointless bill which takes away the right to ask for statutory assessment, takes away the duty to specify provision, probably takes away the ability to enforce speech and language and occupational therapy provision, and puts in pointless mediation hurdles. He had a good chance to impose some joined up thinking between social care and education and has fluffed it. Once again, how has that improved things for children with SEN?

CookingOne, substitute 'Local Authority' for 'parents' and 'disabled children' for 'children' in your post and you'll have a bit more understanding where we are coming from.

And I am in turn mystified by your tacit assumption that what we have is fit for purpose.
You do realise don't you that your 'statement of special needs' is a cut and paste job that is churned out in near identical form to hundreds, nay thousands of others? That the promises to 'monitor' and 'review' and 'asess' and 'advise' are euphemisms for doing as little as possbile while simultaneously filling in paper designed to perpetuate the illusion that everything possible is being done? That most of the peopel sitting in meetings with professionally caring expressions barely know your child?

A statement means nothing. You can have the tightest and most quantifiable in the world but unless it is administered it means nothing. And you will never know whether it is or not as the SEN industry will close ranks as soon as you dare dig a little deeper.

Getting down on paper what you want and actually getting it in a way that is meaningful or measurable are two different matters. You need to remember that after you climb Everest, K2 is still there waiting until you catch your breath.

What does an hour of s/lt/OT/music therapy actually mean?
The fact that you receive something doesn't mean it is any good and quality control in the SEN industry is virtually non existent.

Unless the person who is with your child all day, every day (the LSA) knows what they are doing, all the pieces of paper and reams of oratory emitted by the big cheese mean nothing.

Gove has the intellignece to see this.
It seems however you want more of the same.
Why?
It's way past its sell by date.

What's needed is a wholesale insertion of some transparent mechanism of accountability from root to tip of the whole damn system. If the concept of measuring the effectiveness of interventions could take root, as well I'd be ecstatic. Gove isn't offering us that.

The reality for most parents is that instead of the caring carrot, we are about to meet the patronising potato. I'm not gonna get excited about that as our children are still gonna be failed at every turn.

Don't make the mistake of thinking others can do it for you.
Gove isn't a god or a saving angel.
Just a bloke doing his best who can cut through the bullshit.
Change is a bottom up process and not a top down one.

You have to be the one to challenge effectiveness of intervention and request evidence.
That's K2.
As CookingOne says, most paretns are not like the people who use Mumsnet.
If they can't be bothered why should anyone else be?

"Change is a bottom up process and not a top down one".

True & that's why the mechanisms for bottom up challenge are being systematically & very effectively removed!

Nonsense.
You as the parent are the first and most important port of call.
Parents have no idea how powerful they are and how much change they could effect if they worked together.
At its most basic level, attending reviews in groups would be the equivalent of a nitrogen bomb.

Shame many don't either bother turning up at all.

Parents aren't allowed to attend reviews in groups.
Non-relatives can be asked to leave, (police can be called to eject them off the premises). That's also the sort of bahavior that gets families targeted by SS.

My statement is fantastic and every hour DS gets is meaningful intervention (except for the NHS salt we are stuck with). The State pays the bill but every minute of 'LSA' time is provided by a non for profit private ABA consultancy whose staff training is phenomenal. Accountability is very clear, if I am not happy I can take my pot of money elsewhere.

The only way I can see change is if more parents & schools can opt out of mainstream SN services and use private providers - and then that will drive up quality in mainstream. Good practice in maintained schools is so rare and just 'pockets' that there is no way it can be bottom up change because the people at the bottom are so underskilled and so unaware that their skill level is inadequate (having spent years blaming lack of progress on the child, the disability and the parent) that there is no driving force to improve. They don't know what they don' know. They don't know what good provision looks like. They don't know what is possible.

Our school has now got experience of good ABA provision and will be able to use that as a comparator for children who come after DS. They will now know the LA provision is inadequate and ineffective when the next child with ASD comes along.

But most schools, SALTs, outreach staff, respite staff have never seen good autism provision. DS went to a holiday club in the summer with other ASD children supported by carers from various voluntary agencies - mostly people who worked in respite homes or as LSAs etc and his ABA staff were pretty horrified by the inexperience they saw there. They are concerned by the children they see with untrained LSA's in school who don't know what to do with the children they are attached to - even though the child's needs are less than DS. They see children who just need differentiated teaching whose behaviour could very easily be improved by simple strategies but the school, outreach, behaviour support teams don't seem to know even the basics of behaviour.

I'm not sure Gove's reforms will do anything to help parents or schools use private ABA instead of mainstream resources. None of the documents on early intervention, SEN Green Paper, draft legislation have done anything to make it easier to use funds for private education / ABA etc. How may Pathfinders have allowed parents to use ASD specific private SALT? The NUT response to the SEN legislation is to say parents must not be given direct payments for educational provision under any circumstances - the funds must stay with schools because they know best and parents would not spend it wisely. Parents should have no say which say autism advice is used / bought

ABA is very conspicuously absent from every single document even though I have pointed out in every single consultation it should be in there. If every child with behavioural difficulties be it due to disability or deprivation had ABA evidence based data driven approaches huge costs would be saved long term. I don't see schools buying in ABA expertise, I see most Academies buying in the cheapest SN provision they can get.

Free schools & Academies are being funded at the expense of other schools and the funding is not sustainable. Many schools regret becoming Academies now the early money has dried up and realised they are not going to be as well off as they thought.

Lighthouse School was 6 years in the pipeline before free schools came along, it was not envisaged to be a free school, the free school pot of money was just timely, but the parents involved would have made it happen anyway. Just as those who set up Treehouse made it happen before free schools came along. Gove needs a Lighthouse to deflect attention from all the middle class free schools which are not widening participation - how will non SN free schools manage to fund small class sizes long term once the initial funding has dried up? If a free school becomes popular how it will resist appeals that the school can take an extra child or two until their numbers also creep up to 30?

accountability from root to tip, caring carrrot, patronising potato?
Seems to me like a mash-up is needed

Agnes, in response to your last point I believe that it is only a matter of time before schools are asking parents for voluntary donations, then pressurised voluntary donations and then compulsory donations (with caveats) etc etc.

I'm quite certain free schools and academies have always been set up with the intention of moving to a predominately private education system.

Moondog: your posts go at some length into what you perceive to be wrong with the current system, but you still say absolutely nothing about what you perceive Gove is going to do to improve it . No-one is saying the present system is perfect - obviously it isn't - but are you seriously suggesting that the draft legislation (apart from elements such as the extension of EHC Plans to 25) will bring about an improvement? How? Because Gove has wimped out of making the social care element either appealable or enforceable, the EHCP is nothing more than a watered down version of the statement; it will be more difficult to get and, without the requirement for specificity and detail, will be much more difficult to enforce. If, as you say, Gove is the saviour of children with SEN, give us some evidence.