Articles in the Guardian about Special Needs Education review

[BriocheDoree]

Might be of interest. Several articles here

only looked at the first one linked, heartbreaking story. Very that the big commitment seems to be to advice/support rather than funding for better services. If the services weren't having to be so strictly gatekeepered, then it wouldnt be half so traumatic trying to access them/find out about them...

There arebig issues after 11 here: only one school offers SNU support,and that mainly takes the pupils it had at primary stage- IIRC last year in the whole city there were12 places available post 11 in SNU.I have no idea what will happen tods3,I think he'd be at a significant risk if he was placed in MS again.

There is a place for AS kids after 11 (strictly AS, autism diagnosed children have been refused) and ds1 will hopefully go there- its an LRC base. If he doesn't get it, he willgoto a boarding schoolor be hiome edded until they give in and offer a place,MS compis not an option tbh.

A lot of it is battling the lies though:weweretoldnot to send ds3 to the asd unit as all the kids were non verbal, but at the AS base we were toldmany kids there had comefrom the ASD unit: hence no langauge delays....

'children whose innocent immaturity would mark them out as different in a crueller world' describes ds3 perfectly:we werebeing toldconstantly that ds3was fine even though our hearts suggested toherwise: in the end a governor I wasfrinedly with approached us and told us that DS3 sat crying in the classroom and ignored as he was not disruptive. Crying ffs! My little boy does not cry easily, he is always happy and bubbly.That brokemy heart and if the SNU closes (constantly under threat) then the LEa will ahve big problems as he is not going abck there. Ever. I would have considered the Juniors as up to now they ahve proved themselves afr batter, but the HEad made all non essential TAs redundant last week: ds1 is safe to an extent as he has a statement, but ds2 receives a lot of helpunder SA and I just cannot see him getting it any more, we will try and get him a DX if it is deemed appropriate (my guess is DAMP by what I have heard,dyspraxic like issues with attention compliationms) but he is not severe enough for a sattement, he has a good reading age, great behaviour- and littlewriting or attention ability.I am scared enough for him,I couldn'tpossibly place ds3 there, and ds4 will go elsewhere also.

Some parents here have recently secured places for physically disabled kids in mainstream secondary (including severe - e.g. non-verbal, quad CP). It has been a matter of parent power and accessing one particular secondary school which has a better reputation with disabled kids - i.e. they've got a kid with DS there and no other school has! These parents have also fought for mainstream in primary as they were expected to send their kids to an out-of-county private school. Funnily enough, it was a tough fight to get the LA to agree to mainstream them. Weird eh. They have more therapists than DS ever gets to access in SLD school and I'm beginning to think there must be a link between the dearth of therapists at special schools and increased access - for some kids, I must stress - at mainstream.

I believe DS would cope at mainstream but would never be accepted cos he's severely learning disabled and mobile, i.e. too much hassle. Why can't there be a choice or co-placements?

A choice would have saved me years of misery and gut aching fear.

here there is only one Comp in the village;anything else would be unmanageable in terms of transport (based on what could be 4 kids in different palcements). That comp has a stunningly poor repwith Sn that led last week to them having the Police take a child with AS and attendance issues from his Mum'shome and not even leave her amessage to say where he was.

No chance

The reader's comments afterwards were nearly as interesting as the article itself. I noticed a comment from Nabil Shaban, actor, talking about disabled kids being banished to institutions in the bad old days and it's only parents and non-disabled people who like special schools. I think this argument is really past it's sell-by date, (and I say this as someone who ultimately believes in inclusive education for all).

Most special schools are different now and I've known lots of lonely SN kids in mainstream, especially those with an intellectual disability. Left marginalised with no friends, whereas at least my son as a peer group he can relate to and vice versa. I have heard parents talk about the isolation in the playground when they come to pick up their child, who has no friends and who therefore is not included in the community, but is just existing in isolation within it.

When you try to explain the horrors of mainstream education for some severely autistic children - the noise, the chaos, the constant changes - the zealous inclusionists just put their fingers in their ears and go la la la.

I agree DD.

When I was a child,we had a boy with severe CP in our class,and we werefirst choice as a school forkids leaving or borderline for SNU education; that was great,worked well on all sides IMO, certainly amde me apppreciative of the benefits of inclusion.

But its a different form of discrimination to assume that alldisabled peopleare the same. A child like ds1 cannot ciope with the generalchaod of school and has had his primary years tuined by that; ds3only satrted to developproper speech and be happy when we took him out. They positively need that small environment and without it become increasingly stuck in their own worlds with allthe negatives of that.

OTOH if they ahd physicalissues but no psycholigical/ intelectual ones then i would be pushing for MSall the way with them (I think- obv. cannot know). There;s just so much avriation in any one disability, let alone between all of them!.

Yes, Donkey, we're currently toying with what to do with DD next year. She's currently in nursery school (we're in France, nursery is from 3 to 6) and next year she starts compulsory school in primary. Options are either a trained autism/PDD 1-to-1 in mainstream or the equivalent of an autism unit - class of 5 kids within a mainstream environment. Even though lots of people say she's intelligent and should go to mainstream, I'm wondering about the unit because I think she needs calm, structure, a smaller group. She's very sensory seeking and one of her therapists pointed out the other day that a 1-to-1 is all very well, but not if they spend the entire time trying to get her to stay in her seat! Ho hum...however, the autism unit have given me an appt for January so we'll go and see...
However, on my earlier post Riven pointed out that her DD was bored stupid in special school because there was no interaction and not enough people to deal with severely disabled kids.
I guess the real problem is a one-size-fits-all approach to SEN, particularly when different kids, even with same dx, can differ so much in their requirements.

It does also depend on the SNu

AT ds3'sone child has an IQ somewhere around the 98th centile, they know that sn does not equal low iq and allofthem follow an appropriate differentiated curriculum. DS3will start to cover history /geography with the MS lot next year, with a 1-1 from the unit,and then return to the SNU for anything he needs help with as well as tutorial sessions. Fortunately the school is titchy- one class per year- so that is attainable.

DS3 is far from unable, but is made unable by an inappropriate environment, IYSWIM?