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| Copyright Lovro Rumiha |
All well and good, you might think. Until you come across this rather alarming statement:
"We think a pupil’s behaviour, for example, should be placed in its proper context.
All children go through patches of bad behaviour, and all teachers know that life at home can show up in behaviour or results in the classroom.
Now there are a range of ways to tackle that. It doesn’t help if children who are behaving badly to be automatically treated as having SEN. Indeed, that approach can sometimes prevent schools from recognising underlying issues properly and mean that children don’t get the support they really need. We want to change that."Mmm, how many of us have children with 'bad behaviour'? Or, rather, how many of us have children with disabilities which leave them struggling to cope in mainstream classes without proper support and who, far too readily, get labelled 'naughty' because, well, it's just easier that way?
How many parents already have to battle through the 'blame the parent' jungle to get proper support because, well, it's just cheaper that way?
And we have, I am sure, all experienced schools rushing to provide SEN support to our children rather than punish them. So there must be heaps of evidence to support Mr Timpson's contentions. Do please share it with us Mr Timpson.
So a parent far wiser than me has provided an amended version:
"We think a child's behaviour, for example, should be placed in its proper context.
All children go through patches of bad behaviour, and all parents of children with SEN know that life at school can show up in behaviour at home.
Now there are a range of ways to tackle that. It doesn’t help if children who are behaving badly to be automatically treated as having no SEN. Indeed, that approach can sometimes prevent schools from recognising underlying issues properly and mean that children don’t get the support they really need. We want to change that."
Now doesn't that read better?
Timpson's statement is alarming and feeds a system that is already weighted against the parent/carer. Like many, I was routinely blamed for my children's difficulties which led to a significant delay in support and the development of mental health difficulties for my autistic children. You don't expect your children to become ill as a result of their education so to see it happening in the 21st century is shocking and upsetting. I still have not properly recovered from what happened to my children and I am not sure I ever will because all I see is the loss of crucial opportunities for my children to develop and have a life on par with non-SEN children. Now its up to me to pick up the pieces and rehabilitate my children as best I can but really it should not have got to this.
ReplyDeleteWhat Mr Timpson appears not to appreciate is that denying children the SEN label risks aggravating problems which then requires more resources to deal with. Not very cost effective is it Mr Timpson?
Thanks for your comment.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree. This is a huge problem but the simple fact is that blaming the parents delays things a bit and it's cheaper.
Yet, parents are left picking up the pieces for the lack of proper support time and time again at huge financial and emotional cost. It also blights the young person's childhood.
I hope things are improving for you now.
Thank you for linking to #ThisIsmyChild. Very well put, it reads to me as SEN = poor behaviour which is unacceptable.
ReplyDelete