Why are some people against special schools?

[adrianna22]

.....especially at a young age.

I was talking to a mum who has a child with ASD, and I was talking to her and then she began to say that when her DS was young "...he did not go to a special school, he has loads of friends now" etc. I was struck at the bit when she said about the special school, so I began to tell her that I want my four year old DS to go to a special school and her face was in disgust.

She was like "no way, he is too young, wait a bit his language will get better, special school is not needed, it's just a language- disorder delay he will get better" and I began to question her that is it "earlier to get the help as much as possible" but there was no way she would change her mind about special schools...then back to her DS she said that he was going to attend a special school when he starts high school and I just gave a (Hmmmm) look.

I don't know, is DS too young to go to a special school? Or maybe I should wait a bit as everyone is so against it.

This thread is v interesting I never bought into the peer group discussion with dd2 and I grabbed the sp sch place with both hands as they are so rare

I'm another who loves their child's special school. ds1 is far more included in his EBD school than he was in mainstream. He has learnt far more about social skills in his fifteen months being there than his years mixing with "NT" children. Perhaps with a different mainstream school he might have survived but I do not think he would ever have thrived in the way he is doing now. I think he is much more likely to live independently and happily as an adult as a result of being in a special school now than if he had continued in mainstream. Sadly, he only has four days left - weeps.

We were in a different position to most on this thread, if not all, as DD had a degenerative condition. She was in MS until year 9, when finally we realised that a SS might be best. The difference was immense. She went from being a problem, however nicely the MS school framed it, to a member of class. The work was right for her and she had peers. Some of her specialist needs, like SALT and Physio, could be met on site. The school nurse was full time and made huge efforts to understand her (rare condition). It felt like finally being able to sleep after years of sleepnessless.

'I hear the "copying behaviour" idea trotted out a lot as an argument for ms and a "normal" peer group to emulate. My feeling is that if ds was THAT influenced and able to assimilate behaviour from those around him he wouldn't be struggling in the way he does anyway.

This made me larf

Ds has been in mainstream all the way... He's 17 now and at college. He has still not learnt to copy 'normal' behaviour. I reckon he would have made some headway in that department if it were that easy. In fact ... If it were that easy he would have been sorted without the need for funding surely?
Flywheel said it was like the breastfeeding debate... And my answer is the same I would give to that too- that we do the best we can for them with the information and tools we have at that time.
Someone once asked me if I ever wondered whether ds would have done better at a ss . My answer was " No..that way lies madness..I have enough to fret about without making shit up too!"

Trout sprout I agree totally with your post , we do the best we can

Re the copying, search autism and mirror neurons. Sorry I can't link on phone. PM if you have trouble accessing a paper.

My son is 4 and has ASD- complex as he has a Lang disorder and lots of sensory issues but is very bright, Mainstream has never been an option for me as he would stand out like a sore thumb and it would be much less inclusive than a mainstream. (but that hasn't stopped other mums having a word, one even said I was denying my son a future by not allowing him to go to mainstream).

Most of the units I went to see were much more geared towards typical ASD children and were two rigid for DS and this would increase his anxiety two fold .

I was also speaking to my SALT honestly about ASD and sensory issues and a lot of units /schools try to spend so much time stopping behaviours that they forget about the teaching and the educational prognosis is worse.

I have been looking into schools for my DS and have decided to go for a unit, which the way this one is set up is like ss in a mainstream school, not like most of the other ASD units I looked at, It's just over the border but they already have children attend from my area so should not be too much of a problem, I went to view the unit and the lady was so good and there were children just like my DS being taught in ways that allowed them to learn rather than a behavioural approach of you will conform (Disaster if you tries this approach with DS).

The other thing that swung it for me was the staff were coming over at the weekend to take a boy and his family out on the new mini bus as he was struggling with the change .

But I looked at SS, Units and mainstream until one just felt right.

I would love to send DS to Meath but I would have to prove that local provision could not meet his needs but it looks to be excellent.

Good luck in your search

, Mainstream has never been an option for me as he would stand out like a sore thumb and it would be much less inclusive than a SS.

Sorry typing with a wiggly baby.

zzzzz - we don't pay for the indie ss. We just had to prove to the LEA that they couldn't meet his needs at any of their schools. In the end they referred us to 3 different indie ss and we went for the one we felt was right for him. He has only been there a term but we already have a very different boy and things are easier.

I probably should have said I would have preferred my son to get the support he needs within a partly inclusive setting if such a thing was possible. By that I mean children growing up together and learning at their own speeds. However in our area nothing is that enlightened!

Oh - and one of the SSs that left me feeling that it just wasn't right? It's just been put into special measures. The report is pretty damning all round, including the poor progress made by pupils (where recording is sufficient to measure progress), but the safeguarding issues flagged up are quite terrifying. Just like MS schools, some SS are not everything that they should be. As I was visiting with my DS1 head on, I was asking about how they would accommodate his high academic ability, if he became a pupil there. I was given waffle about 1:1 teaching, where appropriate, and so on, but they didn't provide any concrete examples of how they could achieve that. The report pointed out that more able pupils were not making good progress at all and that many pupils were observed to spend a lot of time waiting around for attention and that children who finished work quickly wasted a lot of time colouring in.

If that had been my only option, I would rather HE.

And the peer group issue is particularly important for DC like DS1. He's intelligent and articulate, but struggles a lot socially and needs to be able to form friendships with other children of a similar age and ability, with similar interests. This could not happen if he was in a class of children at DS2's cognitive level. It would be very isolating for him. It would also be demoralising and damaging for a child whose idea of bedtime reading is The World Encyclopedia of Coins or Why Chemistry Matters: Metals to be in a classroom with an Aliens Love Underpants wall display, simply because sensory and social communication difficulties and the anxiety and behaviour issues that result make a mainstream classroom inaccessible to him.

So, for many of us, SS or not isn't merely a matter of ideology, but about what appears to be the best for our children, with the resources that are available locally. When DS1 started school, we hadn't really recovered from the national ideological backlash against the concept of special schools. For all the crap that this government has dished out, and even though their reasoning for it isn't particularly pure, the amount of new provision appearing has been quite exciting and I do hope that will continue, if for no other reason than the fact that all children with a similar profile to DS1 should be able to find somewhere that they actually fit and can flourish and that those like DS2 will also be able to flourish because parents will be able to reject options where they DC would appear to be merely contained in an environment with depressingly low expectations because the bar has been raised by other provision.

Same here, Hattie. DS1's annual fees and transport costs are more than our house is worth, but not ours to need to pay.

Ds is about to move from mainstream school into a specialist school. We did not want one of the local special schools as they would not meet his needs. The LA and his school have been on at us since his first term to move him to special school but we were determined not to move him until there was somewhere that was suitable.

I think I just saw the most perfect SS for DS.

They do ABA and verbal imitation something (forgot the name).

But the fees are £70,000 a year!

Why is it that much?????????

kyze I have the same issue about the Meath school, I need to prove to the LA that the local SS schools are not appropriate for DS. But, I'll try anyhow. Though a lot of people do tell me that the Meath school is cheap for an indie school.

Well, firstly, the published costs per pupil for LA MS or SS isn't realistic - it doesn't include the true cost of owning the buildings, for example. They pay a notional rent. DS1's school is a large country manor in extensive grounds in an expensive area for the region. It's fantastic for the pupils but does not come cheap.

1:1 and extensive small group work all cost. In DS1's large for the school class of 7, there's often 4 or 5 members of staff (LA/Academy generic SS have nowhere these ratios - the two I visited typically had 2-3 staff for 10-12 pupils - you have to get anything better specified in a statement, the same as for MS)

Therapies, training, specialist input, equipment etc all cost. DS1's school is aimed at cognitively able, high functioning boys, so doesn't go down the standard TEACHH, less than standard ABA or whatever route but employs a chartered pschyologist and has regular SALT and OT advice. The SS I mentioned above that is now in special measures has a SALT visit for part of one morning a week - that's a minute per week per child. In a school which includes pupils with severe and complex needs.

And it's the schools that cost 6 figures for day pupils but don't seem to offer all that much which truly baffle me.

Another thing I've thought of is the fact that dinners are included in the fees - and they're not typical crappy school dinners. It's nice food, well cooked, with generous portions. Lunchtime is as much part of the therapy as academic work, so staff and pupils eat together.

At DD1's state special school, all break times and lunchtimes are part of the teaching day. The staff engage the children at break times and assist them towards their eating targets at lunchtime.

My DD has been at special school for 3 years.

I can confidently say she has never copied any undesirable behaviour there ever and she is thriving.

That's definitely something need to ask about with DS2, lougle, as it never occurred to me for DS1. DS2 does have big food issues, though. Out of all the SS in the county, I have 1 state and 1 LA commissioned Indy on my long list. He's just finishing year 3, so, hopefully that will give me year 4 off, then, come the start of year 5, I'll be scrambling for Indy SALT and EP reports for him, so I know what to be looking for. Actually I'm thinking that the end of year 4 might be a good time to commission them for, then I'll have the info to inform school choices on my part, but it won't be too soon to commission updates with re-testing, where appropriate if/when we end up in the tribunal process after his year 5 pre-transition review.

IMO, there are several reasons for this:

1. some parents are in denial
2. some parents find it difficult to admit their child's brain is not working "normally" - as if it reflects on them somehow? (Especially fathers)
3. if they can tell all their friends their child is in ms, it masks the problems to the outside world and nobody else realises
4. it depends on the ss - in some LAs they have generic ss for all SEN. These may not meet the needs of high functioning children, who cannot cope in mainstream - what they really need is a language or ASD unit, attached to a ms school.
5. here MLD schools have been rebranded as specialising also in SLCN - when AFAIK, the speech therapy provision has not been increased. Its still one part time SLT for 110 children, and the class teacher just gets advice.
6. some ss can be used for all the children in the district, with ADHD, EBD, truants, etc, who ms schools don't want - a shy, well behaved girl of normal intelligence with SLCN, etc is likely to be bullied, no suitable peers, etc.
7. some parents cannot get over the idea of sending their child to a specialist school, where they have to board, because of the distance. Usually mothers, IME.
8. adults who are physically disabled, who have driven the inclusion lobby do not understand that some children with hidden disabilities cannot access the mainstream curriculum at the speed it is delivered; or the social skills going on around them in the playground. Some children don't understand complex, abstract language, with no visual clues especially at the speed in the ms classroom.

I'd far rather have sent DD1 to a specialist speech and language school, than a local MLD school - given she was a bright, but very vulnerable girl. She would have skidded along the bottom in ms, until she developed behaviour problems; or it destroyed her self esteem. As for the costs of these schools, it comes down to the provision of all the therapies, the specialist teachers (who may well be paid over the odds to attract them) and the high staff:children ratios.

Oh, there's one other thing cost - ss places cost more than ms. If inclusion were done properly, it would probably cost more than a ss place (where there are economies of scale), but it has never been done properly. LAs IMO use inclusion as an excuse to save on building ss, when more and more severely disabled, very premature babies are surviving and filling up the SLD schools in particular. SLD children then end up in the MLD schools, and all MLD children get shunted into ms instead, if they can cope at all.

Well said Tempe my mil and I had the disagreement from hell over sending dd2 to a sp sch because she wanted her to attend a dire unit because if she was in a ms she could pretend dd isn't disabled . I also agree that dd2 wouldn't cope at all with the huge primary the unit was in

In my LA all the special schools are generic ones, originally for SLD but now taking anyone who can't cope with mainstream or mainstream don't want. Both the local ones are in special measures.

Some may well have had experiences like mine.

When I was a teenager, I had a friend with mild cerebral palsey, she was just from her diagnosis sent to a Special school. As a result she came out with pretty low level qualification, and those she had were CSEs in a special "special school" curriculum. She may not have been a genius but she could have got a range of normal CSEs (he main issue was a limp and a shake). She then struggled to find a FE college which would take her, so she could train for a career.

If you had a friend like that you might want your child to be in MS because you don't want their life chances ruined.

The people who campaigned for children with special needs to be allowed in main stream schools did so because before too often special schools were just a way of hiding the issue.

The other big issues is that no child with SN just needs a "special school" they need the right school for their needs. This just gets even more complex when you have something like Autism where there is such a wide range of needs and abilities.