BBC 2 9pm Don't Exclude Me

[Snowdropsandbluebells]

Anyone watching?
It's an eye opener.

I am watching, very sad.

Very impressed with the advice from the specialist lady

She is so good, isnt she

She is very good. It seems she maybe gets results.
I do find it astonishing at the resources being given over to dealing with one child at a time.
I child - 4 adults!
All those other kids, it’s so hard to find the balance.

I felt that also. A huge amount of resources and attention but maybe it prevents more serious issues in the future.

A difficult programme to watch as ds1 was permanently excluded in Y5 and ds2 narrowly escaped it. All credit to the teachers for being open to trying out different strategies. And yes, it takes a lot of resources, but if you have even half a chance of turning these kids around then it will save a lot of resources in the longer run. ds1's education (special school) cost a stupid amount of money which is basically money taken away from mainstream education. Would strategies like those shown in the programme made the difference for ds1 and ds1 I don't know but would they be worth trying absolutely definitely.

The interesting thing for me was that I didn’t feel she’d really shown me anything I didn’t already know.
I teach primary and have had challenging children like this in my class is the past.
Jack in particular reminded me strongly of a child currently in our school. We use many of the strategies she did.
It does work to a point, the trouble we’ve found is that every year, every new teacher and the cycle starts again and so the work starts again. Building the bond, setting the boundaries. This child is probably going to need support for most of his school career. It’s rare to see a child that is actually ‘fixed’.
I still don’t know what the long term solution is.

It was really interesting
And really interesting reading the comments on here too
I too would be interested to know their progress long term
Olivia looks tricky. Seeing her hit other children like that
It'll be interesting to see how they deal with her next week

Just caught up. Not too impressed with some of the teachers to be honest. As the expert says, they all seem to allow minor transgressions. Why is Oscar allowed to wander around the classroom and disrupt the others? Wouldn’t fly at my school! The expert is great but it makes me worry that she’s the only one who seems to have a clue!

I personally found it made very uncomfortable viewing. Those poor kids clearly have needs that aren't being met.

I assumed that they were letting him get away with the more minor transgressions because they've given up and so are concentrating on the bigger transgressions

@Foolsrule

Just caught up. Not too impressed with some of the teachers to be honest. As the expert says, they all seem to allow minor transgressions. Why is Oscar allowed to wander around the classroom and disrupt the others? Wouldn’t fly at my school! The expert is great but it makes me worry that she’s the only one who seems to have a clue!

I’m assuming you’re a teacher? Have you never had that one child in your class that you’re constantly on edge about, waiting to see what they’re going to do next? What they’re going to say/throw/break? Who they’re going hurt? Sometimes you can spend ALL your time dealing with minor transgressions and then the fall out from challenging the minor transgression. I’m not saying it’s the right answer but I can understand why sometimes it feels easier to try and avoid the confrontation. I felt so sorry for that poor newly qualified teacher. I’ve been her and it’s the most stressful and soul destroying thing. My second class had 2 kids in it just like Jack only more violent. You feel your failing all of them all of the time. It’s shit. Like I said, I don’t know what the answer is.

It never said if any of them had any special needs

They all had special needs - special needs are determined by just that - needs. Not just diagnosis. They all had needs that were over and above the needs of an average child.

The answer is obvious: more early help, support services, funding and specialist support/ provision for children with additional needs. And all the above without waiting several years on a waiting list for assessment, without long winded and paperwork heavy funding applications. And mist of all - hold LAs properly to account for breaking the law.

I meant a diagnosis

I saw on the 'not fine in school' page that parents of SEN children have complained a lot about this show and the main lady in it doing all the work responded with info that all the children involved were being assessed for various SEN diagnosis but they chose not to focus on that in the program so not to distract from the behaviour strategies - or words to that effect.

It was pretty clear that they all had SEN and it was pretty disingenuous to not discuss that and just make it look like poor behaviour like she was some sort of supernanny.

That's interesting @yellowdinosaur

It was pretty clear that they all had SEN and it was pretty disingenuous to not discuss that and just make it look like poor behaviour like she was some sort of supernanny

I completely agree. The program made it seem that magic behaviour lady came in and came up with the idea of saying, ‘do your work, THANK YOU’ and saying, ‘look at me whilst I’m talking to you! and they would all instantly toe the line.

I’d have said all three of those children showed traits of autism. Where was the senco? Where was the EP?

I understand what they were doing by not talking about the diagnosis etc but I just would have been interested to know, to understand more about what it was happening

I felt so sorry for the 29 kids who were behaving. Sorry, not the pc thing to say.

Oh and the teachers of course.

Yes looked hard all round!

Well that's the problem when children with SEND don't get the support they need. It ultimately affects everyone, not just the kids themselves. That's why everyone should be campaigning for better SEND provision 😇

I don't think if the children featured has SEN, they could have been turned around so easily.
I did notice that Oscar's mum seemed to be rewarding him for his bad behaviour when he had been excluded.

But i noticed how we don't know how the children's behaviour is in the long term yet from this programme. It seems to have worked from what we've been shown but it would just interest me to see longer term