moaning again

[LKS]

I'm sorry that sometimes all I seem to do is moan about what is happening to my children at school. Some of you are going through such tough times with tribunals and exclusions, that my kids problems seem quite tame. However I sometimes wonder if the problems some of you have encountered have not been dealt with effectively by the school and so built up and built up. I am having slight teething troubles with my son but am keeping a close eye on things. My daughter is 8 in year 4 of mainstream school. She is working at about 3 years behind her peers. She has ASD and speech and language delay. Socially she manages quite well at school, but is very reluctant to try anything new and changes must be explained to her if possible. As long as her day runs along those lines she seems to cope well. One of her problems is she has difficulty with her 'volume control' and doesn't realise sometimes how loud she is talking ,she can also get very over-exciteable if she finds something funny. She has been door-monitor all this week but has had some problems with children tickling her or pulling funny faces as they go through the door. On Friday something funny happened during door monitor duty and she laughed out very loud Her teacher was cross and said who did that and bless my daughter she put up her hand The teacher said I expect far better behaviour from my class. (L.S.A. has told me all this) Daughter was horrified and has ignored the teacher since. I know a teacher has to maintain discipline but daughters loud voice is a documented part of her condition and I think this was handled very badly. The day before wasn't so good either. L.S.A. was not about in the playground in the morning. Found out she was on a course. Daughter was supported by a parent governor who had volunteered and a classroom assistant from year 6. Now I know you cannot always prepare our children for all changes, but the L.S.A knew she wasn't going to be there and daughter had never met these other helpers before. If they had only told me I could have helped to prepare daughter and talked her through, but no as usual school knows best. Will mainstream ever work for children when some members of staff do not have even the basic understanding of how a condition can affect a child

[oracle]

My own personal answer to your question is no - well at least not for the majority of our children. Those it does work for have learnt to adapt and found coping strategies. So really it's they and not the school who have made the effort.

 

But I do feel that you have ground for compliant and if I were you I would. What is this teacher trying to do cripple your daughter emotionally? The main reason that it will never work in mainstream is because autism is a hidden disability and for most people it's out of sight and our of mind. If it were smacking them in the face all of the time they could not forget. Also I would ask why you were not told about the LSA being off. Again they see this as 'pushy parents syndorme' and feel as if we are trying to find out information that we are not entitled to know We are not we need to know to help our children. If they keep forgetting that they have a disability then we need to keep reminding them. Until they take us to court like they did to the Mum in the Netherlands

 

Carole

Edited October 9, 2005 by carole

[phasmid]

Can mainstream work? Well, without some effort from those involved (and in some cases this means parents too) - No, or at least not very well with the envitable consequence that it will all fall apart at the first major hurdle. That's not good for anyone.

 

But my personal answer is; YES, with effort it can work. Phas jr is proof of that. I cannot say it has all been plain sailing - you only have to read through some of my posts to find that out! When problems have arisen we have met them full on and fought back. We don't back down in the face of anything if we think we have a chance we go for it. That said we are lucky on a few counts. My job means I have to be up to date with SEN as a classroom practioner, my degree and dissertation has seen me go into great depth on all things SEN. Add to that Mrs Phasmid's governor role and chairing of admission and appeals panels means she know the law. Our combined knowledge has seen us win arguments and battles where we have been told we have no chance. This is why I will always pass on what we know to help others wherever I can.

 

I get very angry when I see schools making basic mistakes such as the one in LKS's post. This bit:

 

Now I know you cannot always prepare our children for all changes, but the L.S.A knew she wasn't going to be there and daughter had never met these other helpers before. If they had only told me I could have helped to prepare daughter and talked her through, but no as usual school knows best.

 

to be really honest, pissed me right off! Telling LKS that the LSA was not going to be in and we will cover that by doing 'x', 'y' and/or 'z' is not asking too much. In fact it ought to be common sense where ASD is concerned. Like I said, a very basic mistake - one that could, and indeed should, have been avoided. The school need to be reminded of this - they ought to know the sense of passing this on, but they seem to have forgotten this. That is just not good enough. If they can't get the simple bits like this right...

 

I agree wholeheartedly with Carole - when they don't get it right then they need to be told. In this case they tried at least, but they still came up short. That deserves an explanation from them. They need to know they got it wrong so that they can get it right next time!!

 

Mainstream will never be right for all. But it could be a damn sight better for more if people took note of parents more and used their common sense in situations like the one LKS has had to put up with this week.

[Canopus]

My own verdict on the state education system is that it is a complete no brainer. It does not work, has never worked, and will never work. It is a rigid system that fails to treat kids as individuals and offers a curriculum cut down to the lowest common denominator rather than allows kids to succeed and excel in what they are best at. SEN is tacked on as an afterthought rather than used as an integral part of the system. If kids were all treated as individuals rather than being seen as all the same then in effect SEN will be applied to all.

 

I think the state should finance education but not provide it. Therefore I am in favour of privatising schools, abolishing LEAs and the National Curriculum. That way each school will be autonomous and able to model its curriculum and the way it is run to suit the needs and requirements of individual kids rather than the bureaucrats of LEAs and Whitehall. Vouchers will be issued to parents that can be used to buy education at a school of their choice and will also be accepted by most educational help centres dealing with SEN and private tutors as well.

[Zemanski]

The more autonomous schools become the harder it is to police them and actually get things to happen.

 

When schools were financed centrally a lot of money was wasted but when a kid needed something it was usually OK to ask for it, now when you ask for support for a child it is budget first and child's needs second.

 

20 years ago, when I started teaching, we didn't have the awareness or the knowledge to meet ASD kids needs but we did have the funds to do it if we knew what to do.

 

I know there's a lot wrong with the system we have but privatisation is not the answer, there is no profit in meeting SEN needs, there should not be profit in it.

 

Zemanski

[Canopus]

Finance is one thing but support is another. The problem with a centralised system of management is that it results in a cumbersome bureaucratic system where the decision making takes place a long distance from where the services are delivered by people who never meet kids and probably care even less about them.

 

The knowledge of SEN was not as comprehensive 20 years ago as it is today but there was far more autonomy in schools back then in the pre National Curriculum era. Therefore schools had the option to tailor services and facilities to individual needs. Nowadays teachers have to stick to a rigid curriculum and the be all and end all of how well a school performs are its league tables of SATS and GCSE results.

 

I agree that it is more difficult to police an autonomous system, but giving schools more autonomy means that they can adapt themselves more readily to dealing with SEN. The longer term consequences will be that many schools will specialise in handling different disabilities which will give kids a better chance of a high quality education adapted to their requirements than with a centrally planned system. For far too long SEN has been seen as an afterthought to be put in place as sparingly as possible. SEN will become an integral feature of a more autonomous system.

[mossgrove]

Finance is one thing but support is another. The problem with a centralised system of management is that it results in a cumbersome bureaucratic system where the decision making takes place a long distance from where the services are delivered by people who never meet kids and probably care even less about them.

 

The knowledge of SEN was not as comprehensive 20 years ago as it is today but there was far more autonomy in schools back then in the pre National Curriculum era. Therefore schools had the option to tailor services and facilities to individual needs. Nowadays teachers have to stick to a rigid curriculum and the be all and end all of how well a school performs are its league tables of SATS and GCSE results.

 

I agree that it is more difficult to police an autonomous system, but giving schools more autonomy means that they can adapt themselves more readily to dealing with SEN. The longer term consequences will be that many schools will specialise in handling different disabilities which will give kids a better chance of a high quality education adapted to their requirements than with a centrally planned system. For far too long SEN has been seen as an afterthought to be put in place as sparingly as possible. SEN will become an integral feature of a more autonomous system.

Canopus,

 

I wish I shared your faith that schools will do the right thing.

 

The eveidence so far is that many schools simply do not have the expertise to recognise and deal with Autistic Children. Remeber that under a fully delegated system, if the school doesn't recognise the special needs , there is nowhere to go.

 

Our 5 year old is now making good progress in his special school. Hi mainstream school thought he had no issues at all, and disputed the ASD/ADHD diagnosis, this is despite and Ed Pscych, his portage worker, Two consultant pediatricians, the Autism intervention team, two clinical psychologists, his SALT his CAMHS worker and his parents being in total agreement that he had major difficulties, which he undoubtedly does.

 

Has we had no recourse to a statementing system/LEA he would have had no help at all withh anything. Remember the school said he had no special needs, an opinion held by the only professional responsible who had no expertise whatsover in recognising and caring for Autistic children. The teachers opinion was based entirely on the fact that he was not disruptive in class. Because he had meltdowns when he got home, her expert opinion ws that we should go to parenting classes to learn how to deal with him as well as she did. Hopefully you will understand how wrong she was! Under a fully-delegated system her decision that he had no special needs would have been final. And that scares me.

 

 

Simon

[Zemanski]

the autonomy I was talking about was financial and it is the main reason many kids with SEN, particularly at secondary level, are left to flounder - that in combination with the current system that lacks accountability is why kids are not getting what they need.

 

20 years ago we had the autonomy to adapt th curriculum to children's needs and interests, we had excellent advisory services and in house training that was not always linked to targets. We also had the freedom to experiment with new ideas and strategies and nowhere near as much paper work to interfer with our teaching - I suspect that if we still had a system closer to the one we had then, now that there is some awareness of issues and strategies for working with ASDs, we would now be seeing a lot more sensitivity on the part of many teachers, schools and LEAs.

 

If you privatise the school system then you will find that schools simply refuse to take SEN kids, especially ASD kids because it is not worth their while unless the government is willing to pay through the nose which it won't.

 

Zemanski

[oracle]

If you privatise the school system then you will find that schools simply refuse to take SEN kids, especially ASD kids because it is not worth their while unless the government is willing to pay through the nose which it won't.

 

Totally agree with you on this Zemanski. It is a huge concern. BUT if no one will have our children then that sort of turns the whole issue of inclusion right onto it's head. How do you think that they will get out of that one?

 

Carole

Edited October 10, 2005 by carole

[oracle]

YES I just did my first quote - what took me so long? i must be a bit short on the white brain cells

 

Carole

[annie]

I had been trying for ages to do quotes, I finally managed it 2 weeks ago

 

I felt so chuffed with myself........saddo or what?

 

Annie

[Zemanski]

YES I just did my first quote - what took me so long? i must be a bit short on the white brain cells 

 

I did one too

 

I can do colour now too I think

 

thanks for the inspiration - took a few previews though

 

good point, but how are they going to make the private sector take responsibility for providing special schools if they can't make LEAs do it?

[helenl53]

Can I just say that my son attends an independent school and most of his SEN is delivered via the whole school ethos of supporting every child and their attitude is second to none. All support is delivered via the teachers and there are no LSA's. It is not a special school, but they have the experience and knowledge to meet the needs of the kids IN A CLASSROOM SETTING. There is no withdrawal from lessons, nor are the kids placed (segregated) in areas with a TA, away from the other kids.

 

There is no magic equipment or programmes - just a dedication and commitment to make the education experience a positive one.

 

My boy is fully, and I mean fully, included in every single aspect of school life and his comment last week that he likes Y school because he feels like a normal child, is enough to make me beleive that we are making the right decision to keep him there. The alternative that we have been offered via the Tribunal decision is, withdrawal from the class for 17.5 hours a week, playing in the playground before the other kids go out and being educated behind a screen. That is not education and respect for my son - it is downright ###### cruelty and is the opposite of inclusion in my book.

 

If a truthful comparison was made of the costs, then it is far cheaper for my son to be where he is.

 

However, despite medical evidence that he could not cope in a large mainstream, it has been decided that this is of no importance when you have a end of term report that says "although he got upset at times, he presented as a happy enthusiastic pupil and made excellent academic progress and was in the top sets for maths and english"

 

Sorry, but I thought it wasn't all about academic achievement. What is the point in being a dead achiever!

 

Best wishes

 

HelenL

[Zemanski]

I didn't say there were no places for our children in the private sector, nor that there are no special schools, but there are not enough places to suit all our children and their needs and would not be if the whole system were private.

 

Helen, it is great that you have found the right place for your son but we have not found one for ours in the private system.

My son needs a lot of support with things that would not be catered for in that setting so he would need most of his statement hours on top plus specialist interventions - this would push the price up well beyond the standard school price. Fortunately he doesn't actually need special equipment but many do and it is very expensive. Also, many are simply not responsive enough to participate so fully in school life or academic enough to maintain the standards required.

 

Canopus is talking about abolishing the state system altogether - currently we have some, albeit limited, choice. If everything were private I think a lot of us would be in a worse state than we are now.

 

Zemanski

[helenl53]

Hi Zemanski - state or private - our kids needs should be met. They are human beings.

 

I can see Canopus point of view - take away the monopoly from the state and schools will have to provide to stay in business, however, our kids are in the minority and so I can not see schools necessarily using resources to provide for a minority group - and as you have pointed out, our kids have different needs.

 

My point about where my lad is, is that the attitude is positively for including him and not paying lip service to inclusion. I am trying to get the point across about welcoming my child into their setting and how much this makes a difference

 

The whole system is cracked and ###### awful and I feel such frustration with it.

 

It always seems like we are living in a very bad dream and can't waken up.

 

Best wishes

 

HelenL

[Canopus]

If you privatise the school system then you will find that schools simply refuse to take SEN kids, especially ASD kids because it is not worth their while unless the government is willing to pay through the nose which it won't.

 

The way in which I propose that schools are privatised is to convert them to not for profit workers co-operatives that exist to provide education and all the money the school receives will be shared out amongst its staff. The schools will not be run by greedy profit obsessed managers nor shareholders who care about nothing but how well their investment performs. The funding will continue to come from the state via a voucher system and strict legislation will be put in place concerning activities which the school has the right to charge the parents for in cash.

 

The message I am trying to put across is not simply meeting the need of SEN kids but producing a system where the kids are all treated as individuals and services are provided in a way to meet their needs and requirements. This is also the case for NT kids who may excel in certain areas, require nuturing of talents, or require extra help in certain subjects but do not generally qualify for SEN status under the present system. The privatised state schools will be required by law not to refuse kids with SEN unless there is a damn good reason. In instances where extra funding is required for dealing with certain SEN requirements then it will be made available.

[Zemanski]

how do you put all that in place Canopus?

 

how do you make sure it happens?

 

I worked in a 'freeschool' where inclusion wasn't even recognised as an issue because it was abou the most inclusive community I have ever been part of - it was run on a shoe string mostly on the meagre assisted places scheme and gave people an alternative to mainstream that suited all sorts of kids and needs. It could have suited Com's needs and he would have had all those extras simply because he needed them, we even had our own ed psych and clinical psych on site.

 

unfortunately it no longer exists, when the head retired at 87 the assisted places were withdrawn and HMI moved in making demands the school simply couldn't meet from it's own resources

 

such a shame

 

Zemanski

[helenl53]

Zemanski - that is terrible.

 

I rememenr reading a story about a young man who had survived the London bombings and had been given the life skills to be able to ask for help by his school. Unfortunately, the inspectors in their wisdom decided that it did not make the grade for maths and english, and it has either closed or will be closing.

 

Doors slamming closed on these schools is not a good sound.

 

Best wishes

 

HelenL

[Zemanski]

the really sad thing about Killy was that it was only there in the first place because the head couldn't work the way he wanted in the state system - he was one of the major players in the glasgow experiment in the 30s and 40s but his ideas were too radical and required needs and rights of all children to be recognised and met

 

what I would like to see is the system in holland where groups of parents and educators can request a certain type of school and if there are enough families wanting that school (the number used to be 25) then the government must fund it to the level they would fund an ordinary state school.

 

I think charter schools in america have some similar set up procedures and I think there is a system for doing it here but it is only partially funded and very difficult to meet the criteria.

 

One of the major problems with the system we have is the increasing lack of access for parents - they are shut out of the decision making process, shut out of the schools themselves, and made to feel helpless in managing their children's educations.

Communication levels these days are abysmal - teachers don't have time for it and parents can't get access to it - how do they work together to meet needs?

 

Dot and Com used to go to a lovely inner city primary. It was small, family orientated, and open. Parents were expected to be in school, nobody waited at the gates. We had no locks and no uniform and we could stand around having a good natter with staff at the end of the day or come into the coffee morning to meet governors, the head, the senco or just walk into school anytime we liked. There were always people around doing something we could take part in and we loved taking part in almost anything because we felt part of the school community. On safety the head argued that locks on doors were unnecessary because everyone knew each other so well that a stranger would stand out like a sore thumb and because there were always so many parents around the kids were comfortable and safe. I never once felt that my children were unsafe.

 

that school is closed too.

 

it was too small and too expensive to run!

 

2 years later there's a bomb factory discovered round the corner - perhaps if they had still had that school the community would have still been the cohesive entity that could have given those lads (and they were young lads, kids whose community had fallen apart) a place to feel at home. Closing the school ripped the heart out of that community, the bomb factory and terrorist activities of its children have devastated it.

 

I am not condoning their actions but this school was in the centre of a community that was struggling already and that was earmarked for regeneration.

Closing the school was the last straw.

 

Zemanski

[helenl53]

Hi Zemanski

 

what a travesty and tragedy.

 

I must be having a down time at the mo - I can't think positively about how to change things - today I feel like it is an impossible task.

 

Best wishes

 

helenL

[Zemanski]

I did economics and politics for my first degree. The politics of choice are very interesting and the theories around economics of scale.

 

Education came late to economies of scale (the bigger the production unit, the lower the cost) and didn't look at the costs to the environment and community before it launched its huge flagship comprehensives and 500 place primaries.

The government is still not seeing these costs; there is no realisation that a school should be at the heart of a community and to be there it can only be the size that community can support. It is possible to have big schools serving large healthy communities but many of our communities are now so weakened that the larger schools have lost their links with the communities and the parents and they no longer have the input they need to recognise a child's personality and differences both within school itself and within the community.

 

The major plus of small independent schools is not just their size but the connection every member of staff has with the pupils, the head will know every pupil and every parent and at the least worry they will communicate and listen. (not all do this but they are in a much better position to do so).

If we were to look at the differences between the way state schools meet needs in small schools, say in villages, and in large schools in the inner city I think we might find that the smaller community aware schools are more welcoming and more aware of individuals and in a better position to meet needs - this may be nothing to do with autonomy or independence, simply that they have better contacts and relationships with both children and parents.

 

not every village school is good and not every large comprehensive is dire but I think there's probably a trend

 

Zemanski

[helenl53]

Hi Zemanski

 

I had a brief encounter with economics, but it has helped me to understand what you have just said.

 

I suppose it is like the High Rise concrete jungles that were built without true consideration for the effect on the residents and the community.

 

I think that the trend is now to move away from this and to build small low rise mixed community developments.

 

How long will it take for the powers that be to consider the long term cost of the 'inclusion in a large mainstream or nothing' policy.

 

Best wishes

 

HelenL

[Canopus]

I agree with this. Small institutions are better at adapting to the needs of individuals than big institutions. That is why I want to see an economy based around small businesses rather than big multinationals. However the trend today is for big companies to get bigger and small companies to go bust or get taken over, and there seems to be no serious opposition to this. Does Britain need a Ralph Nader?

 

I wonder whether certain small schools that have closed could have survived if they had autonomy and operated as co-operatives rather than run by an LEA. When an LEA says that a school is not financially viable do they mean that the school is lossmaking as an individual entity, or do they mean that the cost per kid of running the school is higher than the LEA average? Nobody ever seems to find out whether closed schools were financially lossmaking or whether they were just easy targets for LEA cost cutting.

 

I don't know where the bomb factory fits in with things but they can be set up anywhere. Perhaps there is some trend between the demise of community facilities and the uprising of disreputable industries.

[Zemanski]

There is definitely a link between the health of a community and the resources available to it, trouble is they have to be the right resources, also once you destroy an existing resource it is difficult to replace it because the links with the community have been broken and don't transfer easily. That is why closing long established schools that have strong community links is so disastrous

 

When our school was finally given the decision (the LEA had tried 3 times in 10 years) a group of us looked into taking it over as a small school but there were two problems: first the length of time it would take to get organised, funding raised, resources and staffing sorted etc. would have meant that we couldn't do it in time for the kids not to have to transfer to other schools anyway which would split the community and undermine committment; and second the community itself was not capable of supporting the school financially or in more practical ways because it was already under such pressure, this is a really heavy, long term commitment for a community.

 

cooperative schooling is wonderful and can work really well for all sorts of people but it does require high levels of commitment and skills from the parents and other community members - some communities have a lot more of these than others.

 

on the easy target point - our school served a very impoverished ethnic minority and a council member was overheard saying that this was why the LEA had chosen to target it in the second round, many of the parents spoke little English and couldn't fight back - this became a big issue in the fight and led to a huge uprising on the part of that community culminating with a bus load of mums and grannies in full traditional dress arriving uninvited at a lecture being given in the town hall by David Blunket - it was truly a sight to be seen

 

and on why big companies get away with so much - some of these multinationals have bigger incomes than countries and own more wealth; no government in its right mind will try to stop them or legislate in the favour of small business in a way that interfers with them. Big business really does call the shots; just these days it tends to be a bit quieter about it, doesn't like risking bad press.

 

ever read 'small is beautiful' by shumacher, Canopus? - probably a bit dated but some good arguments

 

 

Zemanski