Special school to university?

[inappropriatelyemployed]

Does anyone know whether there are any statistics on the numbers of children who have been in specialist provision who go on to university?

Does a specialist school place impede in any way?

I look at reports for some Indy SS and they are often rated very highly by Ofsted but expectations of academic achievement are substantially reduced so you get phrases like 'compares favourably with national averages' even in reports for AS specific provision which is considered outstanding. Why? This wouldn't be considered outstanding for mainstream schools.

I know there is more to Indy SS than academic provision but at 65k a year, you'd be wanting some decent exam results too.

Wet - I agree. It is dreadful and I think this occurs because there is no oversight. Tribunals don't want to hear about what's gone one before and the LGO is useless.

But parents need to know that judicial review is a remedy that is open to parents because the LA is under a duty to educate under the Education Act and that education must be suitable to meet needs. A failure to put suitable provision in place is a matter for the courts and not tribunal and legal aid is available.

I am not sure it will solve our problems but I cannot stress this enough. Sometimes, it is important to get legal advice so you can consider all the options. Advocates can't undertake JRs or advise on them so people in this siutation need to speak to lawyers and should be advised to do so.

The divisional court and not a SEN Tribunal will deal with a JR with a proper judge and proper lawyers. Take advice if you need to.

But fighting them is exhausting. Even if the JR finds for you then that's just one case - they will continue to fail other children.

If, at that time, there had been a solution available to me that did not involve the LA I would have jumped at it. Unfortunately I did not feel confident enough to permanently home school (especially as he needed specialist residential input for the Aspergers). I just remember being permanently exhausted every day.

I think you have said yourself that solicitors/lawyers are not life-coaches and can't tell you what to decide.

tbh it is not clear what route you think is best in the circumstances - not perfect but the best for now and for the future (in terms of keeping options open).

No offence but you seem to be cycling between different options - JR m/s, HE, specialist school - without choosing one as the less worse option.

Of course lawyers are not life coaches. I am simply saying that if your child is out of school and you are not happy that the LA is giving them proper provision, then see a lawyer because you can take action to rectify that. As you so rightly say yourself, LA practices don't reflect the law. I was merely pointing out that there are ways of enforcing the law and that is by seeing a lawyer.

I mentioned much earlier on that JR is what we would be doing to at least establish some effective provision short term.

As for the longer-term question, that is difficult but I am not "cycling between different options". I am sorry if this is not clear.

JR is not a schooling option - it is away of enforcing legal rights.

Mainstream schooling is not an option at present.

We do not consider special school appropriate and I have never suggested otherwise. I explored people's experiences as it appeared last week that the LA may be considering this. They are not but that would be the way they would go. Because that is the way all LAs go if mainstream fails.

Our preferred option is very clear. We have asked for a out of school package. The LA have written to say they want him back in school.

This is nonsense and an irrational decision as a matter of law in the face of clear evidence from all parties including school

So, JR becomes the way to force them to make a proper decision to educate my son now.

HE is the nuclear option that can be considered if all else fails.

OK so the 'choice' (albeit limited) is between A, B or C but you choose D?

This is your choice but it comes with costs. I can see that you are willing to pay them but the rewards (if you achieve them) are likely to come too late for your DS

High altitude or low altitude nuclear response?

ie, JR is a good hammer to bang on LA head. You have to keep them under pressure. I wonder whether you can explore the LA position a bit further. You say they are irrational. Why did they change position, what are they most afraid of? Is that the big bill for SS? I get the impression somehow that they perceived your intentions being very "dangerous" for them. They think you might succeed. That means they will be happy to compromise. Who is the person at the LA driving all the mess? It could be a professional, whose recommendations you rejected and their position became untenable, so they fight for their job and pull the LA along. I experienced that. You need to isolate that person and establish communication with those who want a compromise. You need to decouple the reasonable LA people from those who cannot make a u-turn at the LA. Find a way to talk to them, not necessarily through lawyers. Once the LA will talk to you through lawyers it will be impossible to communicate constructively, LA lawyers will introduce confrontational dynamic as they need billable hours. Consider how you could reach the LA soft spot now and negotiate. You may have to compromise something, but it might not be the thing you really need. The JR will be very bruising and will not necessarily bring everything your DS really need, which is education and well being now.

Thanks Vanilla. Sadly, there is no one reasonable in this SEN team. Two years ago, they branded me vexatious when they failed to put provision in place for my son and refused to answer my correspondence.

There has been no change in position. The professionals supporting my son say one thing, the SEN team do the opposite.

They did this last year when school was asking for additional hours supported by all professionals.

They follow professional advice when it suits them and when it doesn't they ignore it. Delay saves them money.

They are deliberately confrontational. I have lawyers deal with them to protect my sanity!

Also, when I say they're acting irrationally I mean that in the legal sense. This is why things actually improve slightly when their lawyers are involved.

They are so used to acting unlawfully and doing things the way they want irrespective of their legal obligations, that putting things though their lawyers does act as a kind of restraint on them.

Anyhow, thanks to all for your feedback throughout this difficult time x

IE my sibling went from SS to Uni, with a further education college in the middle. She came away with a 2.1 - very respectable by anyone's standards. My best mate went from SS to college to do a HND (catering cos that's his passion), and from there around the world as a chef.

It can be done, IF the parents are 100% supportive in maintaining the child's self-esteem, and don't let the child think that the exams at age 16 are the end of the road iyswim. My poor sibling got a burst appendix in year 11 right in the middle of the GCSE exams so had to retake most of them in the sixth form. This is the sort of bad luck that can happen to anyone, SN or no, but had my parents not been successfully communicating their aspirations and belief in her abilities all through her entire childhood, then I don't think she'd have overcome that hurdle to be frank.

For my lad - I've now identified appropriate secondary provision in a fantastic unit and am moving cross country to make the application. What happens for the last 2 years of Primary is my worry. I am investigating home edding to help my son make up the lost ground in time to get the full benefit of the secondary unit.

This is because after four mainstream school failures I've lost faith, and am increasingly feeling like "if you want a job done properly do it yourself" as the window of opportunity is closing. I know he could catch up, but am unsure if the state would be willing to put in the intensive effort required at this stage, no matter what his written statement says iyswim.

We need to move from level 2 NC to level 4 in just two academic years, thanks to the crazy shenanigans of last year. This is going to be very hard, but DS has proven he can make almost vertical progress when the right support is in place. He's so keen to learn that I'm desperate to provide him with the opportunity to do so.

Too often our children achieve to the level of expectations set for them. Sadly in the state sector too many people set this bar so low its criminal.

Thanks Bochead. I am sure you can get your son to catch up. It is far easier to focus on what they need help with out of school and it sounds like you have plenty of time if you have two years stil. With your dedication and ability, you will do it.

I know what you mean about mainstream but I have also found a culture of low expectation at SS in terms of academic results. To be honest, I find that pretty shocking given the funding these places get.

That culture of low expectations at MS is exactly why I'm having to move 4.5 hours cross country to be near a unit that doesn't assume statemented automatically equals thick as Pg S&t.

I wholeheartedly agree with you. The upsetting thing for me was discovering that the very same SS school that my sister attended, has in the intervening years fallen victim to this fallacy, as it's only about 3 miles from my current home. At one point they COULD do it, now they WON'T (and no the funding hasn't reduced, taking into account inflation etc).

The old guard have retired and with them went a wonderful culture of achieving to the peak of an individual child's abilities. I cried on the way home from my visit. Progress for me should mean moving forwards, not backwards iykwim.

Does anyone know what the "rules" are for temporary home education as regards school applications? Can I apply in year 5 for a place in the secondary unit same as every statemented child in school, even though he'll be educated at home? This is my intention, as his statement was only amended in year 4, but I'm concerned he'll slip through the net & miss the opportunity if I don't watch out.

Am intending to online homeschool so there is an independent measure of progress made (it's only 6 hours at primary level so leaves plenty of time to do what I feel needs to be done too). I intend to send the LA termly updates of progress made etc, so they can't say they forgot he existed and to stay in close contact with them. They'll also be more than welcome to come visit etc to see how he is doing. I actually WANT them in the loop to facilitate secondary transfer so am happy to be totally transparent.

What with moving house & recovering from last years nightmare, I'm not sure DS is ready to head straight into yet another major school change on top at the moment. I think he'd be ready after Xmas though if I really HAD to, but his AR review date in our current LA is end of Nov.

Nothing is simple in practice is it?

I think you would apply for secondary school places in the same way but you should have a transition review for this in year 5 anyway to discuss placement.

What online school are you using?

I think units can be great if a child can cope with a mainstream school as they want them in the mainstream all the time.

I'm doing pretty much what boc's doing, from a slightly different setup. But the root cause is the same - a fundamental lack of expectations for kids with SN, at every level of the SEN industry.

I'm not saying that every SN professional acts like this - far from it. But my experience is that some professionals on the front lines do act like this - and every single professional I've encountered who doesn't work on the front line has had appallingly low expectations of the children they draw a salary to help.

DS1 scores in 98th-99th percentile in various non-verbal reasoning assessments, 1st percentile for expressive / receptive language. He is a frighteningly gifted thinker whose development is crippled by several serious dx'd language disorders. With the right support and expectations at the right time, he could do very well in life.

But he hasn't had that - his primary school had the right expectations, but couldn't offer the right support. As for his secondary school....

We recently went to tribunal to secure a place for DS1 in an indi SS with a proven ability to enable children with severe language disorders to achieve 5 A-C grade GCSEs. We asked for evidence of outcomes from the school. They provided it - in spades. We felt this was a reasonable thing to aim for - outcomes regarded as the minimum acceptable standard for a school to achieve with NT pupils, even though DS1 is cognitively more capable than this.

The tribunal hearing didn't go well for us. In part, it was because we didn't know which school the LA were planning to name until a few minutes before the hearing started. But mostly, it was because the panel found our expectations for DS1's education to have outcomes to be outrageous. The panel found our request for the minimum floor standard to be applied to DS1's objectives to be speculative. They found our request for DS1 to be educated by qualified professionals with a proven track record of success in helping kids like him to be unwarranted. And they dismissed DS1's high non-verbal ability as an irrelevant factor.

I was warned before the hearing that the panel might appear to be emotionless. Far from it - when we argued for meaningful outcomes to be written into Part 3, one of the panel members half-launched out of her seat and started to jab her finger at us. She was genuinely, personally outraged that someone might expect a statemented placement to have meaningful academic outcomes as the end result.

In the end, DS1 was placed in a maintained SS a lengthy daily commute away from our house. It's a fairly old-fashioned SS with embarrassingly low expectations of its kids. He left primary with a solid NC Level 5 in maths. He's spent most of the last year working alongside his peers at NC Level 2. And he still doesn't have the support he needs to manage his core language disorders.

If we'd have kept DS1 at that school, the end result would have been no friends, no GCSEs, and no functional language. Fuck that. I'm not waiting for my fight against the system to play itself out whilst his future dissolves away. So I'm moving, giving him a better shot - whilst keeping up the pressure on the unaccountable sociopathic carrots who have let him down so badly....

Oh God, ugger, it is so depressing isn't it? Thank God he has you to fight for him.

The number of times I have heard the line 'Rolls Royce' provision trotted out when you are just arguing for something that actually has an outcome is outrageous.

The constant testing of these kids to suit the LA purse is also an outrage. As adults, we don't get hauled off and assessed by clinicians without our consent or without bloody good reason if our consent is not needed. Yet, our children are treated like play things. Test him again on the off-chance we will find something that helps us.

I've found expectations to be low in mainstream and S School. However, if you get into the right specialist FE college they will certainly accommodate your aspirations and abilities (if helps them on Open Days and Ofsted inspections to be able tell prospective parents and inspectors that they got x students to Uni).

DS's Spc FE college made it possible for him to follow GCSE and A level studies, while some of his peer group there did mechanics or gardening or just life skills courses. A real mixed range of abilities. The idiot inspectors criticised the spec college because it did not offer it's own in-house maths and English tuition (at a very basic below GCSE level). A pointless criticism as some of the students were studying A level Maths so didn't need the spec college in-house Maths course - but were forced to go along so attendance could be tick-boxed for the inspector's next visit. What a waste of resources and time.

It is awful that parents aren't supposed to have NT expectations of their child if the child has the demonstrable innate ability to achieve.

Well to be fair many ethnic communities started Saturday schools for their kids for exactly the same reasons in the 1970's - it did lead to changes in expectations for the generation after that.

We've also seen the exponential rise in home education over the last decade ruffle a few feathers at governmental level (eg the last governments desire to regulate home ed in England , and the Welsh assembly's attempt at the same over the last year or so). The increasing population of home educated children terrifies the bejeesus out of some segments of the traditional educational hierarchy - as well it should!

I honestly believe the change in culture we want to see is coming. The trouble is that it'll be our Grand kids that see the benefit, not the current cohort. The current generation of professionals is fighting the "evidence based" and measurable outcomes part of the proposed ECH plans with everything they have but the idea is out there now, and like the genie in the bottle will only be held at bay for a time, not stopped forever.

None of that helps us get our own children through the next decade of their education or preserve their childhoods, but we shouldn't despair completely iyswim. Our kids are at the fore front of a massive cultural shift and every single one that "makes it" can be considered a beacon for those coming behind them.

Very eloquently puts. I agree.

I think that our children represent something more than just a failure of SEN provision. Their experiences expose deeper deficits in our educational system. A system which is now so profoundly out of step with our globalised, flexible world that it looks jaded and Victorian - because it largely is.

While schools obsess about ties and blazers, hairstyles and time off in term time, they miss the seismic changes out there in the real world.

They are raising children to think that doing everything they are told without question and doing everything that is asked of them is good training for the real world.

But we don't live in a world where people stay in one place and do what they're told as they gradually get promoted through the heirarchy of a company they'll work for for 30 years. We don't live in a world where doing what you are told is enough.

Kids need to be independent thinkers, prepared to change and to challenge and follow what they're good at and do it in their own way if they want to be able to keep adapting in the 21st century.

This is what works for many SEN kids and it demonstrates how antiquated our system is as if it can't adapt for them, it can't adapt for anyone.

Just my opinion any way.

Aspies are I think along with ADHD kids, the canaries in the coalmine of an educational system that is no longer fit for purpose.

The other KEY indicator is the total number of individuals with average intelligence who leave school, after how many years of compulsory education with no functional literacy or numeracy. Frankly this figure still shocks me, as does the number of youth that end up behind bars every year, in large part because their years of compulsory education have prepared them for nothing more than a future behind bars.

I have male contemporaries I was at primary school with now in their late forties who have NEVER worked. (I mention that they are male as women can have the excuse of being out of the workforce to raise a family.) That was Thatcher's legacy, and it seems determined to perpetuate itself ad finitum.

I agree with IE's view on the inflexibility of the current system, but argue that successive governments have sought to make it MORE, not less rigid and that consequently fewer and fewer children find themselves to be the right shape of sausage for the machine and are rejected and spat out by the system at younger and younger ages.

We complain that the old grammar system wrote children off at 11, yet our modern one is happy to write off kids before they've left the infants. In other words children's futures are now being determined at an age when in most of Europe they are not even considered old enough for formal schooling - wtf is that about ffs? Children this young should be seen as chock full of potential.

Agree entirely boc. Futures set in stone at an early age and tracked through the system as 'data' which follow a line - and as long as they follow the line everyone is happy.

Ask an Ofsted inspector - you say children make good progress if they are level 2 at the end of KS1 and level 4 at the end of KS2, but what if they had the ability to be level 5? Haven't they been failed? They can't answer. The data just helps those at level 2 not fall below where they 'should be'. But who says where a child 'should be'? Who cares about potential? No one.

I agree completely that in a pursuit of a Daily Mail type dream of Latin and blazers, and consistent Governments' pursuit of target driven data to show how effective they are at running our education system, the system itself becomes more and more rigid.

Add to that profoundly decreasing social mobility, the rise of personal tutors and all the additional accomplishments children are supposed to have to get into Uni (swimming, ballet, music, charity projects blah, blah etc etc) and you get a whole population of kids who are just left behind.

I was a comprehensive school kid from an industrial town in the north west in the 1980s - the daughter of a factory worker and a cleaner. My town was blighted by unemployment. My school was profoundly inadequate in many ways. But teachers never told me what to think or demanded that things be said or written in a certain way. I was just left to it. This was not 'good practice': on the part of many it was sheer laziness. But I got to Oxford and I got a first. Would that happen now for someone like me from my background? I'm not sure it would

I think that has actually got much harder rather than easier over the last twenty years and this makes me ashamed of our system because currently compounds inequality rather than reducing it at every level.

Ooops! I am definitely going to be the odd one out here with my views.

I think the whole state educational system has very low expectations of its pupils. Our local comp is supposed to be in the top 3 in the county and has never had an Oxbridge entrant in living memory. The catchment area is predominantly middle class, middle income, the sort of community that, under the grammar school system would have expected a few Oxbridge candidates at least.

So my view is that the school is failing dismally - even though its overall rating is slightly above the national average

Meanwhile the good universities are being populated predominantly by pupils from the non-state sector.

So I so hark back to the days of grammar schools in which their pupils did have a good education, regardless of income, but based on ability. My friends at grammar school ranged from the daughters of GPs and civil servants to those of bus conductors and railway signal men, with just about every over occupation in between.

There was absolutely no bullying - we were terrified of the teachers so naturally behaved. We had a strict dress code, a strict homework timetable - no excuses for being late. All the rules and regulations were perfect for Aspies to understand and the bonus was the bullying-free environment.

People say that that system was wrong as we were learning by rote, not being encouraged to use creative thinking blah blah - but it did produce people who made one hell of a contribution to the country's development in the last century, while today's 'talent' sits rotting in the local comp dragged down by the slowest performer in the class.

Turning into an old gimmer

Autistic DS is in grammar school with a statement. It works quite well for him and there is no bullying.
Concerning rote learning, it appears it is the mantra of nowadays grammar school education in subjects such as maths! Aparently examiners reward rote learning more than proper mathematical reasoning in GCSE exams.
Particularly striking is the final comment which appears to suggest that examiners favour the method of rote learning .., rather than ... applying mathematical skills.

Here last page 3rd paragraph.