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Production Line.

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.

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53000

If results go his way and he feels ready, then September might see Hawklad start University. Hopefully in person rather than online. I so hope he can, hopefully the start of building friendships and a life outside of the home.

But here’s a scary fact.

Currently the average student leaves an English University with a debt of £53000. England has some of the highest student loan debts in the world.

£53000……

This is at the same time that prices are spiralling upwards, property costs are eye wateringly high and the jobs market is starting to collapse. More older people are staying in work way longer to pay rising living costs and to help out their younger family members. AI is starting to destroy the jobs market, remove the jobs that were once open to the younger generation. All this means that the younger jobs market is rapidly contracting.

£53000 student debt for limited job prospects and an uncertain future.

As a handful of global billionaires become trillionaires, just how many of the ridiculously rich and national governments are actively thinking about the future for this and future younger generations.

Maybe they are waiting to ask the next version of the AI models for an answer.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 36 Comments

Summer

Hot Summer lasted 2 days in Yorkshire…..

We headed to the coast on NOT one of those 2 days. Brave Souls still taking on the NOT so tropical North Sea.

Huge queues for the hot drinks, no takers for the ice cream. Perfect day for a stroll along the promenade.

A good place to recharge and forget the torture of A-Level exams, now it’s a waiting game until grades get published in August. The frustration is that two years of study, come down to exams scheduled over a couple of weeks. A couple of weeks that just happened to coincide with Hawklad battling a really heavy cold and rasping chesty cough. Just how many have to sit exams when they are not feeling well. Also not helped by the dreaded exam clash. Two exams scheduled at the same time, so feeling like crap, you sit one exam, then get a few minute break and then you dive straight into a second exam. But exams are the best way to assesses ability, that’s what we are told, so it must be true.

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Old and New

This is a traditional village graveyard. Small, quiet, attended by sheep and very very old. Apparently there are graves here from the 14th century. It’s hard to confirm as many of the stones have had to survive way too many hard Yorkshire winters, the names and dates are lost in time now. Many graves are unmarked or missing stones.

Time moves on, newer graves are still added here, but the graveyard is filling up. The free ground left for new graves is only the size of a small garden now.

So New Graveyards are being opened up…..

The New Ones around here are still very beautiful, set in beautiful moors countryside. But they are in many ways, VERY different. Neat lines, immaculately well kept grass, symmetrical, concrete paths, tarmac roads.

I was running past one of these new sites recently and I had to stop, yes I had to chuckle. This new Graveyard had a new sign on the Main Entrance Gates.

“One Way System in force in this Graveyard.”

Oh the irony…….

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Strikes

Walking on the Moors and another childhood memory floods back in. Walking above the wonderfully named village, Chop Gate. In the distance the huge Bilsdale Transmitter. Before Satellite and Cable, that mast sent out the TV signal across North Yorkshire and Teesside and when I was a kid, to our little black and white family TV. Every Lightning strike here (and there was many) and we lost our 3 TV channels (Hawklad thinks I’m joking when I say only THREE channels). It was radio or nowt for days, sometimes weeks,until some poor soul, climbed this monolith and fixed it. It’s over 300 metres to the top. No internet back then to keep you constantly informed of service restoration, Dad just would keep the TV on, static relentlessly flickering across the screen, waiting patiently. I remember Dad setting off to the Working Men’s Club and leaving me on TV watch, with instructions to come and fetch him if it came back on. He didn’t want to miss the Horse Racing and Wrestling. I wanted it back on as well, they scrolled the latest football scores across the bottom of the screen while the likes of Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks lumbered across the ring. I lived with the faint hope that my so called football team would manage to actually win a match. Bilsdale got hit by lightning more times than that happened…..

Chop Gate, pronounced here as, ‘Chop Yat’ is a proper Moors Village. If we had been a day later, Hawklad could have seen his first Brass Band concert in the Village Hall.

A few minutes steep climb and you are in the wilderness.

We walked for 3 hours and only encountered sheep. Even walking through the village, we never saw another soul. It’s wonderful that we still have places like this in our crazy, mad world.

We so need places like this. Trump Free Zones……Quiet, Peaceful, Unspoiled.

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Raise your hand

Mid March and it’s still two jumper weather here in Yorkshire, definitely feeling way more like skiing rather than bikini weather. I would normally say, the kinda weather perfect for huddling round the fire however given the current price of home heating oil…. those two thick, warm, woolly jumpers will have to do.

It’s been quite a while since Hawklad hit 18, when he was officially signed off from the NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS). As there are NO equivalent adult services here, any support he received, ENDED. His care was nominally handed over to the local Doctor service. But here’s the rub, sadly local Doctors are inundated with demands. In many parts of the country, available appointments are as rare as acts of modesty from the US Orange Nutter President.

It’s hard for local Doctors to be proactive, it’s mostly a call them service. Definitely no one has been in touch with Hawklad even to just say…

“Are you ok”

Here’s what really worries me.

So many kids like Hawklad are discharged from CAMHS and are lost in the adult health care system. The need for support doesn’t miraculously end on the 18th birthday, so what is supposed to happen next….. If they have any needs or require support they have to call the local Doctor. Firstly that usually means the dreaded 8am telephone scramble for an appointment. The record I’ve had on that one is

“You are caller number 57 in the queue….”

If you eventually do get an appointment, then mostly that will be a telephone call back by a Doctor. You get at most 7 minutes to explain what’s wrong and listen to the medical response. 7 minutes flies by, ends up feeling really rushed and pressurised.

Not exactly a welcoming experience.

Unless someone makes that call for him, Hawklad won’t. He won’t put his hand up if there is a problem. Just like at school, a large class would have a teacher and one teaching assistant. If someone needed help then you had to put your hand up and ask, support wasn’t proactive. As Hawklad used to tell me…

“I’m not putting my hand up in front of all the other kids and then announcing to the world that I can’t read something, or I’m struggling.”

School would assume if no hands go up, then everything is fine, no help needed. Hawklad ended up getting little or no in class support. The same will happen with support and the Doctor’s service. He won’t be the only one feeling this way. As a result, after becoming 18, how many miss out on the support they really need.

Way too many I fear.

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Signs…

It’s still looking like it’s Winter.

But if you look hard enough, Spring is coming….

Other signs of Spring include Tax Demands, eye wateringly humongous Utility Bill increases, Car spectacularly failing its annual Test, Postman wearing shorts and the first adverts for Christmas 2026. If only I could say Warm Weather as well…

Another sign of Spring is the start of revision for the May exams, Hawklad is definitely not enjoying that.

As he’s revising I must admit I do have a nagging thought. Hopefully the exams go his way and open up a path that will suit him. He’s super keen on University but is aware that there are many obstacles facing him on that way forward. My nagging thought goes beyond that point. What happens after University or whatever path he takes.

What jobs might be open to him, what jobs might still exist by then. A recent headline sticks in my mind.

“1.2 million graduate applicants chasing just 17,000 jobs in the UK”

And it’s only going to get worse. A friend’s daughter graduated over a year ago and after hundreds of applications, is still unemployed. AI is taking out more and more jobs that new graduates once started out in. Plus Graduates are saddled with huge student loans and when they do find a job, they then have the unnerving prospect of trying to find somewhere they can afford to rent or buy. Parents try to help out but here’s the trap. To help out financially parents face the prospect of working well beyond retirement age to fund this but by doing that, it means probably even less jobs available for young people.

I can’t help worry about the future for Hawklad. What career paths might be open to him, what might suit him and then just how many or few opportunities will there be for him.

It’s not always a particularly hopeful thought process.

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There is a storm coming…

A little bit of a Northern Lights Storm….

Need to keep remembering what a staggeringly wonderful world this can be.

The Government has started a formal review into the rising demand for ADHD, Autism and Mental Health services. But here’s the problem about that….

It’s the starting point for the review.

Setting up the review The Government has already stated what they see as being the key problem, ‘way too much over diagnosis’. Is this political opinion based on clinical or finance advice. Is it centred on a concern for individual welfare… sadly NO. The starting point isn’t about the families who can’t access the help and support they need, its not trying to help those struggling because they can’t access help, it’s definitely not about expanding and extending services . Rather it’s about a budget line on a spreadsheet which the Government wants to make much smaller. It’s about saving money. You can see what the end goal is….. Cutting the Special Education Budget by reducing which children can access services, cutting benefits paid to adults and reducing NHS services in these areas. THEN the Government will try to come up with a PR campaign to make it sound like it’s anything other than a budget cut. But it WILL be a budget cut probably dressed up as ‘helping’ those written off’. ‘Too many’ will be said to have been ‘written off’ by Doctors when they diagnose patients with ADHD and AUTISM, ‘allowing ’ too many education, benefit and support claims. And thus the Government will say that the best, and kindest way to help children and adults will be to just cut their benefits and services, ‘encourage’ them and families to help themselves. Remove more tailored education support and force more adults back into work regardless of their fitness to work. The last Government tried to do this, sadly this Government looks like they might do it this time.

Where are all these thousands of additional ADHD and Autism friendly jobs…..

What happens to the children who can’t access the Special Educational Services they need, have Teachers the training and spare capacity to pick up the pieces…..

Who’s best placed to make a clinical diagnosis, a Doctor or a Politician…..

Deep Sigh. It really shouldn’t be this way.

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Extra miles

A trip out to the beautiful Lake District, a three hour drive from us. Carefully chosen to be a safe, uneventful, Hawklad adventure.

Originally we had planned to park up by Lake Ullswater, well that was the plan. We made it to within a couple of miles of our parking spot and we hit road works. The road was closed and we were sent on a signed magical mystery diversion tour. This part of the world there aren’t ever too many alternative road options. We later found out that this diversion was over 50 miles long and given the windy, narrow roads, would have taken absolutely ages to drive. Thankfully the diversion went past another stunning lake, Thirlmere and we parked up.

You can see why Wordsworth was inspired to write here.

The trip back was an adventure…

A motorway tyre blow out driving at 70mph, two hours stood on a roadside bank waiting for a recovery truck. That wasn’t the place to try and change a tyre. Thankfully a very nice Highway Patrol parked behind our car to ward off any collisions.

Here’s the thing, Hawklad was perfectly fine with the breakdown but really struggled when first the Highway Patrol Officer turned up and then the Recovery Mechanic. It’s the fear that he could be seen, will stand out, will get noticed. Thankfully the tyre was safely changed and off we set again.

Another reminder that as much as you try to plan or micromanage a day, life still happens….

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Still Grey

Another grey Yorkshire day, just a bit stuck under this blanket of greyness. It’s also still very green for this time in Autumn, usually it’s way more yellow and red. Definitely feels like it’s been a longer growing season here. We also still have a handful of Swallows still hanging around, these fellows are usually back in Africa by now. They clearly are not hanging around because of the sun…. Maybe they are just putting off trying to get through the chaos and queues that is UK Passport Control these days. One of my neighbours foolishly tried and failed to get out of the country a couple of weeks ago to go on holiday. Apparently she didn’t look sufficiently like her passport photo anymore. In her words “you try looking like you did 5 years ago when you hit 84…”

Made me check my passport photo. I’m ok, still looks like me, still looks like Shrek.

I remember going to a fancy dress themed party years ago at University. Themed around cartoon characters. I went as Fred from Scooby Doo, back then I could rock an orange ascot….. A friend of mine put in way more effort to go as Shrek. He was mortified when the first couple of people thought he had come as Alfred Hitchcock.

Hitchcock was famed for talking about “always make the audience suffer as much a possible”. My so called football team have clearly been following that principle for decades now….

Another thing Hitchcock talked about was ‘DRAMA is life with the dull bits cut out’. I always think you could take out DRAMA and substitute that with SINGLE PARENTING. I’ve had a few people tell me they were sorry I was a single parent. Don’t get me wrong, it happened for tragic reasons, but actually being a single parent is such a wonderful privilege and experience. Being a parent has been the best experience and it feels like because of circumstances I got the chance to get just a bit more of that wonderful experience. It has been a wonderful experience.