Still very very very dry here in Yorkshire.
Students with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) are significantly more likely to be excluded from school than their peers. Data shows that pupils with Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans are five times more likely to be excluded, while autistic students make up the largest specific SEND group facing exclusion.
The school I went to all those millennia ago was truly AWFUL. A look back at its alumni and you can find one quite famous magician and an array of convicted felons, that’s it really. It was that bad, that every few years they would rename the School in a desperate attempt to erase all the bad memories and headlines. One strip of waste land maybe 50 yards square, with hardly any grass served as the football, rugby, athletics and cricket pitch. Half of the classrooms seemed to be permanently closed off due to a combination of leaking roofs and asbestos in the walls. Rumour has it there was a library but I never found it in 5 years. There was some great teachers, but just not enough of them, leading to massive class sizes.
At that time there was a national push for every student to learn a foreign language. Problem was that just after I started, one of the two language teachers left and was never replaced. Maybe it was a budget issue, maybe it was just the prospect of teaching our rabble. As attractive a career move as the poor sods sent in with a bucket to feed the Raptors in Jurassic Park. So half the kids learnt a language and the other half (including me) did something loosely called European Studies. Randomly shown pictures of various national flags and European Capital Cities for two years, zero exposure to any foreign languages.
Fast forward to Hawklad’s school days. He wanted to learn a language but the problem was that the school didn’t have enough teaches to offer individualised learning, AND actually weren’t allowed to. Languages had to be taught in a set way, one standard production line. If the teaching method didn’t work for the student, then tough…. At that time his dyslexia meant that he just couldn’t follow the text book method. We asked if he could switch to a graphical approach, something like Rosetta Stone, but the school refused. As he dropped so far behind eventually the school informed us that he would be removed from Foreign Language learning . A phrase sticks with me ‘one less subject for him to worry about’. It wasn’t just French, same thing happened in Computing. The classroom IT teaching was focused obsessively on Coding. Trying to accurately type words into a computer while trying to keep up with the class was a nightmare for Hawklad. The School again would not consider different teaching approaches, so inevitably the letter came saying ‘one less subject for him to worry about’. The School had classes organised on assessed performance levels. Sadly to be in the ‘Bottom Set’ seemed to consign the student to the educational scrap heap, no prospect of getting any positive final exam results. Teaching in that Class was often more about minimising trouble and disruption.
The scary thing is that unlike the dreadful school I went to, Hawklad’s School had a great reputation. It was always highly rated for its teaching by the National Auditors. The School clearly knew exactly what it would be assessed on and made sure it was good in those areas. It delivered on the prescribed national schooling production lines and it didn’t seem to matter if a few students dropped out of those production lines along the way…. How many are getting disillusioned, discouraged and disaffected within our schools.
ITV News has found that many parents of SEND pupils are increasingly opting to deregister their child due to poor provisions within the state sector.
A Dad trying to cope with the loss of his Partner and becoming a single parent. 