So, what cuts would you make to SEN provision?

[StarlightMcKenzie]

In light of the Wirral report and the suggestion that the parents they interviewed were 'pioneers', innovative, open to change, outcome-focussed etc. and of these parents a total of 4% listened to the SEN team for advice etc... I was wondering if it would be possible and indeed desirable, to make whole SEN departments 'Big Community' run.

By that I mean, take said innovative open-minded outcome-focussed parents and get them to run the departments in their entirety. Ask them to get better outcomes for the same money. Ask them to get better outcomes for less money in fact.

I am utterly utterly convinced that it could and WOULD be done.

asda do a set of 8 bottles of water for 60p that would be good to use for that.

We got that "early support" pack for DS1, Starlight. No one ever asked to see any of it. I've disposed of pretty much all of it and use the pack to keep some of the correspondence re: the boys, plus ARs etc, though, even with pruning, it's not big enough any more.

Some areas split their portage team into asd and not asd and give the asd ones ABA training, I am sure I heard a team from Manchester talk about doing that. I think moving away from idea everyone can be expert in everything and concentrating training so people specialise in asd, deaf etc would help.

Our portage was ABYSMAL. Maybe it varies from area to area but ours was shockingly bad.

Came once a fortnight (term time only) and did nothing apart from blow bubbles, and follow ds1 around copying his stims. Oh she also found time to tell me that ABA was the work of the devil and that I didn't need to worry my little head re getting a statement. No need, apparently.

And she was supposed to be the über experienced asd guru in our LA....

I would do away with PPA time (sorry teachers!) as that consumes TA's time to cover instead of helping the children with additional needs. and then the teachers still. However, I would also reduce the vast amount of box ticking/paperwork that teachers have to do and just let them teach!

The pointless paperwork exacerbates the utter in effectiveness of most provision. I once pointed out to a manager that if I did all the paperwork she wanted he to, I would be deskbound ( ie not doing the job I Sn employed to do ) for 40% of the time. She didn't flinch.

The pointless paperwork exacerbates the utter in effectiveness of most provision - this, in spades, and for many NT kids too, not just for kids with SN. The proportion of a class teacher's time taken up shovelling pisspoor quality data into the hands of statistically illiterate middle managers is truly mind-blowing.

If I wanted to free up financial resources in mainstream schools, then the first thing I'd do would be to dismantle the insanely ineffective and expensive data monitoring, tracking and assessment machinery used in every mainstream school for the purposes of 'school improvement'. Our kids need effective evidence-based practice based on objective expert assessment. What they get is a corrupt, bloated Soviet-style shambles.

So fuckety-bye, data managers, attainment consultants, and about a third of an average school's senior leadership team. Piss off, Fischer Family Trust subscription. Sorry LA, won't be needing your School Improvement Partner - if I wanted inept statistical analysis carried out by a burned-out head-teacher with an 'E' in GCSE Maths, I'd have asked for it right after my last mescaline hit.

For a single school of the same size and resource allocation that my DSs used to attend, that's saved me somewhere in the region of the low hundreds of thousands of pounds. Hello, light-touch informal monitoring of progress by immediate line managers - and hello, intensive outcome-focused monitoring of the progress and attainment of kids with SN by external specialists.

Rinse, repeat, transfer process to the LA school improvement level, send the consultants packing, defend the school improvement turf just long enough to let the SEN department grab it, etc etc....

IF you are going to diagnose a condition that specifies a discrete deficit you MUST embrace the idea that the rest of the child is functioning

This x 1000 - and where techniques, approaches or equipment exist that give a child a good chance of managing and / or overcoming the discrete deficit, you fucking well give it to them.

No one would suggest that it was ok for a blind or deaf child to not get xyz education/healthcare/opportunity

God, I wish this was the case. I really do zzzzz. But most blind and / or deaf kids I know have had pretty much the same experience of low expectations and thievery of opportunity that you described in your post.

'most blind and / or deaf kids I know have had pretty much the same experience of low expectations and thievery of opportunity that you described in your post'

I have seen this too. Though I don't want to 'compete', I do think they can have it a little easier because people aren't so completely baffled by their behaviour, but that makes it all the more wrong in a way, as there are NO excuses for these children failing.

IME (limited), that sounds absolutely fair star

In the case of deaf children, you look at the potential for success with the growing acceptance of BSL, the introduction of neo-natal screening for hearing loss, the (controversial) increase in early years cochlear implantation, and the existence of genuine centres of deaf educational excellence across the country. Then you look at how little outcomes have improved for these kids over the last decade.

No need to apologise at all zzzzz - different paths to tread, but the same fuckers in the way, that's for sure.....

We availed ourselves of another hospital where even those who can't sit still for a drill get to keep THEIR FUCKING TEETH

Mother of God....

At least one of my dd's needs couldn't be more straightforward. She can't self-propel her wheelchair, medical advice is that she needs the chair at the moment but an electric one isn't in her best interests. Therefore she needs someone reliable to push her round the school. The amount of paperwork and phone calls involved in getting that is unbelievable. She now has some provision but it isn't reliable. She sat through a lower set yr 7 maths lesson last week because no-one arrived to take her to the yr9 DT lesson she should have been in.

And zzzzz to the teeth.

"Piss off, Fischer Family Trust subscription"

I would certainly agree with that above point uggerthebugger!!!.

(And CAMHS should be completely overhauled from the ground up as well).

I love your style Ugger
I am also a school governor and dear God!, the crap that is talked and the pointless paperwork that is shuffled for hours at a time, even while the school freely admits they have no idea what to do with the 20% of kids who turn up each year from primary school, functionally illiterate.

Isn't the FFT lot that managed to produce very dodgy data on detrimental effects of taking your children out of school for just one day a year or something?

I've always wanted that piece of research because I bet it stems mostly from SEN kids and their unlawful exclusions rather than kids being taken to see a Mondrian on a less busy day.

The best professionals I've ever come across in any field are

1. A small team of care workers who look after some severely disabled adults I know. They identify a problem, think of a solution, try it, evaluate the effects, and adjust or abandon it accordingly. Even write this up in the care plan. For some reason, off-site managers keep trying to stop them.

2. Dc's teacher. Similar mechanism to above, but would be opposed by Head, so keeps it tucked safely in her mind (& lets senco write daft IEP)

3. DC1's first paediatrician. Always right, always one jump ahead. Because he listened, observed, remembered, thought, rather than just talking.

4. My old boss.
   Hated meetings, insisted on an agenda & ending on time. Would ask
   'Why are we here?'
   'How will this help the person we're employed to assist?'
   (Conditioned reflex when hearing any nonsense) 'How can you prove that?'
   No guilt whatsoever about skipping pointless meetings, forcing people to get on with essentials or leaving early if nothing important was happening

5. One of the admin team in my current job. Hyper-organised but knows no-one else in the place is. So created foolproof systems for everything.

The common factor making all of these people brilliant is the way they looked and listened first, worked out what the problem was, figured a way to solve it, and then checked out whether their solution actually worked.

I lived in post Soviet Russia (out in the sticks) many years ago and I swear there is very little difference between the drivel spewed out these days regarding schools and what Stalin and his cronies used to put out about tractor production in Tashkent.

Like many I am tempted to withdraw totally but I don't think that is the answer either because before long I would be living offgrid on a ranch in Utah surrounded by frothing dogs and to coin Prince, totin' a machine gun.

I try to remember Nixon's adage about it being better to be in the tent pissing out, than outside the tent, pissing in.

The best compliment I ever had when working was a senior colleague attending a large meeting I chaired saying to me with surprise 'Is that it?' when I ended it after 15 minutes with actions.

The thing is I was VERY Junior and it took a hellova lot of effort getting these senior oh so important people to MY meeting that was important to ME. I had no desire to have them doodling in boredom wishing they'd never made the effort, nor finding excuses not to attend future meetings.

Good for you, Star.
I generally find the penchant for meetings is in inverse proportion to competence and ability to get things done of person hankering for said meeting.

Actually I never was entirely sure whether it WAS a compliment or whether my worth was being judged by the length of my meeting.....

Still I wanted to be seen as efficient.

Ok, a roundup.

I would cut parent partnership. IPSEA give better advice. Annebullin

axe all LA SEN middle management. Keep just the case workers Towie

sack all the useless EPs who insist of robbing children of provision, resulting in them needing specialist placements in the future Oramum

Phone meetings
Dont print and post all the documents.. Use Dropbox
Type meeting minutes as you go and email at the end of the meeting
video evidence and upload to dropbox salondon

Fast-track support to children in need. I truly believe if appropriate intervention had been implemented sooner my ds's would have coped in mainstream and not needing specialist provision - which would save the LA tens's of thousands over the coming years. oneInEight

Provision should not simply be a "unit" tacked onto the LA school with most spare places where those children can do worksheets while children who aren't overwhelmed by their class of 33 can carry on with their interesting lesson. Ouryve

Change 50% of LA run parenting courses to ones appropriate for different disabilities. e.g Swan parents, strategies for behavior management of deaf child, challenging behavior etc. So much of the generic stuff is just not relevant. Boch

I'd cut spend on laminators.... star

I would like my LA to sack the middle SEN managers who have been employed to tell parents that their child doesnt meet their criteria for a statutory assessment and spend the money on just doing the SA which tribunal are going to force them to do anyway!! Ineed

we have ABA supervisor who does everything motor, speech, social, behaviour, academics, eating ,toileting we could have managed perfectly fine without seeing anyone else for the past 4 years. In fact most other people have made our lives worse and caused more stress through trying to persuade us to replace effective intervention with drivel Agnes

I vote for no need for paying an out of house contractors to copy and paste statements - just copy and paste from LEA and independent reports please! pinkshark

I would impose financial penalties on any professional who had not read the reports by their professional colleagues in advance of meeting the child with SEN. I would also remove the frankly ludicrous (where I live) and artificial division between mental and physical health issues in children which results in unseemly and costly ping pong between two different foundation trusts. oddfodd

The pointless paperwork exacerbates the utter in effectiveness of most provision - this, in spades, and for many NT kids too, not just for kids with SN. The proportion of a class teacher's time taken up shovelling pisspoor quality data into the hands of statistically illiterate middle managers is truly mind-blowing ugger

I am measured on everything but my work. Unbelievably I am even expected to complete a weekly hand washing audit although I work nowhere near a hospital Moondog

as soon as my dad died these sessions were stopped - and this was the ONLY point where actually we as a family could have done with some tea and sympathy type "support" of the nebulous fluffy kind boch

Commission proper controlled studies to show which interventions actually work and then scrap all the ineffectual ones OneInEight

It is so clearly laid out, and looking back it is a really good record of progress and events going right back to a year old. But it is also task based so it gives us stuff to work at at home and preschool. I will be really sad when it finishes and it stuns me that our local portage service has been slashed Hazey

I can't waste any more time on "help" that is no help at all. zzz

And my best contribution listed there is to cut spend on laminators?

Seriuosly. I SAID, Parents should run the SEN Departments as they have been identified as having the appropriate skillset unlike SEN Teams who parents don't listen to.