is eleven plus fair to Sen

[Amber]

That's interesting. When I did my PGCE (not saying when!!) there was absolutely nothing on control. The assumption was that if the lesson was good enough, they would all be engaged, and there would be no need for "control". I didn't find it entirely true, but it wasn't too far off the mark. However, I would have appreciated some more about "control". How do they do this nowadays?

I probably trained before you did, mystery!
And yes, not much on control either. However, I have received the benefit of several training courses since. On one we were treated to a middle aged woman clicking her tongue and clapping her hands rhythmically - we were supposed to join in and this was a technique for gaining attention. It worked - 20 grown adults gaping in horror at this woman who appeared to have reverted to childhood. Another course, another 50-something woman, suddenly launched into "I can sing a rainbow". Also very effective in capturing attention and stopping us chatting. Can't say I have tried either technique with the teenagers I teach. Personally I find a hard stare usually does it. Nor have I sat them on my knee, cuddled them, stroked their hair, taken them into an empty room and shut the door, invited them to my home, nor told them 'you are very special to me". All pieces of advice from the child protection courses I have had to attend, all state funded. Nothing on how to teach though.

[mystery]

Wow, I love the child protection training!! Was it "how not to"??

[Amber]

Wow, I love the child protection training!! Was it "how not to"??

I think it was"Common Sense given a fancy name and some pretty free folders and a day off work" And I think to be fair it was "Safeguarding Procedures" because it had been renamed by then, hence the need to retrain in it.

[drummer]

I am doing a module with the OU called "understanding and approaching literacy difficulties". It is for qualified teachers. I am 99% certain that you could do this particular course, and do very well in it, but come off it with absolutely no idea how to teach a child to read who was struggling with reading, SEN or not. Worse still, one could come off the course probably with some very bad methods that you had picked up from some of the very dated course DVDs.

HA!! I was just thinking you and I seemed to have a lot in common!! I did this course when it first started. Or should I say, did most of it, I got so fed up with what a load of ideological tosh it was that I directed my efforts elsewhere. They would not even engage in any discussion that contradicted their line. It was a very disappointing experience.

[mystery]

If I hadn't paid quite so much for it, it would actually be quite funny. The tutor's answer to everything is "you must look at it from the socio-cultural perspective?" or "what would Rassool have to say about it?" or "what is qualitative research?". My impression is that the course materials have got worse, not better, so yours might have been the better version a few years ago!!

How come the course questionnaires from previous years give it positive ratings? Are people worried they will fail the MA if they don't say what they think?

[Atilla]

I agree there is an SEN problem, and I agree that not all teachers lack SEN knowledge.

But I am a realist. You have 1 teacher and 30 children. The teacher has not been given any special SEN training as part of their training. They have a family, they have their own kids, ...... and then they get a child with ASD, or severe dyslexia, or depression, or ........ And even though the school knows the children are there and know who their teacher is before they get them, the teacher is still given no training. Just told to get on with it. I do not think it is fair to the teacher at all. I do think that if their is a known child with a disability/behaviour/emotional/learning difficulty in the school, and the child is about to get a new teacher, then that teacher at minimum should be given some reading material about it. But that is not what happens.

So look at it from the point of view of the parents and the children. Every year a new teacher, some years you are lucky and get a teacher who has, because of their dedication and or experience, learned SEN on their own and have a talent for mainstreaming special needs children. However, others don't. And you get those teachers learning on your child year after year, making similar mistakes, having a profound effect on the child's self esteem. Or even worse, you get a teacher who has taught one other child with the same issue and thinks that every child with that issue will require the same interventions and reacts the same way, ..... and forgets your child is an individual, but is less flexible to change because they do not know enough to know they do not know enough. It is very difficult to stay positive when each new teacher has to learn how to meet your child's needs. Some would say there is not good handover between teachers between years, but I think that is slightly unfair when each teacher has 30 children to pass on info about and 30 to learn about and not many inset days to do that and set up for the new year. Some children are really being let down. My child has been let down. Again, I do not blame any individual, I blame the system which is inadequate for a vulnerable minority.

And the eleven plus is an example of this. I know my child is not the only child with ASD to have been traumatised by the eleven plus and I know many with ASD who are not, but for the few that are, when the parents are giving warnings before hand, why is it acceptable for our view is to be ignored just because the child "appears fine" and is intelligent? Why does it have to become a crisis to get help? What about those poor children whose parents aren't fighting for them? To me it is a preventable problem that is just being left because it does not effect enough children detrimentally. It is like the life saving drugs that are not given out on the NHS because there are only a few who would benefit. Someone has made a decision to allow the problem to continue to exist, full well knowing there is a problem.

Sorry if it came out as a rant.

[drummer]

How come the course questionnaires from previous years give it positive ratings? Are people worried they will fail the MA if they don't say what they think?

Because most people don't know much and it fits in with what is taught at Teacher Training. The research presented on the course is carefully cherry picked to back up their take on things. It was the refusal to even discuss latest research that really bothered me. And don't get me wrong, I was on the course to learn not to feed my own possibly pre-conceived ideas BUT they were so out of date and so ideologically stuck.

[mystery]

I agree with you Atilla, and I don't know what the solution is. I don't really think a teacher with 30 in the class can adequately address all the varying needs of all children in the class, SEN or not. Hopefully though a bigger school would have at least some "slack" to provide some (albeit limited) one to one or small group tuition / support, whatever. And presumably a child with really severe needs would still come bearing cash in terms of a statement? Also, some parents are very willing to do more at home given the right info, so it can be as simple as that. However, certainly at our school, parents are not given some very specific and quite easy info that would help them to massively improve their own child's arithmetic or reading for example.

I suppose it is a very tricky balance for schools as they have to be able to show to OFSTED, DfE etc that they are providing the right education to everyone. The most straightforward way to do this, perhaps, within the constraints, is to decide on all the children's relative ability, and what their expected outcomes should be based on that. This then means you don't have to try extra hard with the ones you have classified as low ability as they will just get what they are going to get with "normal" classroom instruction and perhaps a tiny bit of extra help, and there's something ready on file to explain why their progress is much lower than average.

[mystery]

Drummer, what do you think the "right" answer is that I should be giving in every assignment? I do want to pass at least!!

[mystery]

Drummer, what do you think the "right" answer is that I should be giving in every assignment? I do want to pass at least!!