Estimated reading time: 10 minutes
In the UK, Sky News has recently reported comments from a whistleblower working in education, concerning children with special educational needs. They have stated that they’ve witnessed schools excluding special educational needs children, in order to “protect their exam results”.
Education Whistleblower
The whistleblower is a senior figure who works in an education team in a local authority in England. To quote what she has said, “any child that looks slightly like they’re going to be a problem, they’re excluding them. The system’s falling apart”. You can read the full article by clicking here.
These revelations are likely to be shocking, upsetting and deeply concerning to a lot of parents out there. Particularly those with children who have Special Educational Needs or Disabilities (SEND). However, I expect that there will also be a large number of parents who like me, are completely unsurprised by these remarks.
My Experience Working in Education
I worked in education myself for almost 10 years in both primary and secondary schools. During this period, I started as a teaching assistant working specifically with SEND children. Eventually leading on to roles in which I was responsible for the safeguarding and pastoral care of all children.
It is through these experiences that I have witnessed for myself, the toxic conversations that go on about students behind the scenes. If a student is identified as an outlier, whether this be for behaviour, attendance, or attainment, it felt as though a target will be put on that child’s back.
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What I Have Witnessed in Education
I have personally been asked by senior leaders in a school I worked in, to start “working through” the requirements to permanently exclude a child. Making sure that “every box was ticked”. Ensuring that school had looked like they had “tried everything”. When in reality, the goal was for the child to no longer be part of the school.
Furthermore, I have seen on a number of occasions, schools just trying to make it look like they are doing everything they can to help children. I recall one example in which the school informed parents that children who are struggling to cope in the classroom, were going to be taken out for additional support. What was actually happening, was that all the children across the school that were causing behavioural problems, were all put into one classroom separate from their peers. This was not to support these individuals. This was for the benefit of the other children. No additional support was offered to these children taken away. They were simply housed separately for a couple of hours, then returned once the English and Maths lessons were completed. Meaning, “we will move you away for the important lessons, once they are done, you can go back”.
Why I Left Education
Ultimately, I made the decision to leave education. I could not buy in to the cultures that schools were moving towards. The job was moving away from genuinely helping those children who need it. Schools were becoming more interested in data, rather than supporting the needs of the individual. I could not get on board with the idea of pretending to help children. This is not why I joined education as a career and I decided I would instead try to help families fight this type of issue in a different job role.
Unfortunately, even though I had moved into a new role of supporting children and families in the home, this did not end my experiences of seeing schools excluding SEND children.
My Own Experience of Seeing a SEND Child Excluded Unnecessarily
There is a particular child who stands out to me as an example of this. He had a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and was also under assessment for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
This young boy was struggling to cope with the school environment. The particular needs he had meant that he struggled interacting with his peers and controlling his responses. This led to instances in which he would fall into verbal conflict with his peers. On one or two occasions, this got physical. There was no doubt that his behaviour could be challenging, but by no means was it unmanageable.
This child had an Educational Health and Care Plan (EHCP). This grants the school additional funding to meet the needs of the child.
I was involved with the family to support them with the challenges they faced at home. As I am sure many parents can relate, meeting the needs of an ADHD and potentially ASD child, was a daily challenge. Therefore, my role was to help meet these challenges and ensure all services around the family do the same.
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What Did The School Do?
This leads me on to school. School were not supportive of the child or parents. In meetings, school would routinely lay the blame at the feet of the child or parents. Rather than reflecting on the fact this child has SEND needs and he needs supporting not blaming.
The child would display typical behaviours for his diagnosis. Whilst other SEND children would be sent to the SEND base for support (which was a specialist area for SEND children), he would be sent to the behaviour unit, where he struggled to cope which usually escalates the situation. School also ignored his sensory needs, as there was no diagnosis of ASD at that time.
This all came to a head one day where the school decided to permanently exclude the child. School stated that he was sent out the classroom for clicking his pen and then argued and was abusive with staff afterwards. The child had previously had exclusions. However, this incident was on the back of a couple of months of progress and positive behaviour. So, the decision to permanently exclude was a shock to all.
In the EHCP plan, the child was supposed to have access to “fidget toys” in the classroom. These would help him regulate himself and his ADHD impulses. However, school were not giving him these. Therefore, this led to him clicking his pen as an alternative. Despite parents and I explaining that these behaviours are as a result of his needs not being considered, the school continued ahead with the permanent exclusion.
Appealing The Decision
I made the point in the exclusion appeal meeting, that the school had decided to permanently exclude him even though they did not follow the EHCP plan. They were not supporting a SEND child and were in fact blaming him for displaying traits perfectly in line with his diagnosis. He was treated as though these were all choice behaviours and rather than support him via the SEND base, would punish him with the behavioural unit.
Unfortunately, despite my best efforts for the family, the decision stood. I 100% believe through the conversations I had with school in the months building up to this, that school had decided to get rid of this child long before they did. They were negative. Blamed the child. They would not recognise the needs of the child and adapt to them and in the end, got rid of him because of these needs.
As a result, another SEND child was permanently excluded, simply down to the fact that school did not support him. He later was given a diagnosis of ASD, which further explained why he had the issues he did in school and why he needed more support.
It Is Not All Schools
Understandably, this post will have read quite negatively towards schools so far. Which in all honesty, does represent most of my experiences and feelings towards how some schools go about their business. Key words in that sentence being “some” and “business”.
The concerns we are discussing do not represent all schools. There are “some” schools that this will very much apply to and I am sure there are many parents out there with their own stories and experiences to back this up. However, it is important to recognise that there are also many schools who go the extra mile for SEND children. I have seen many examples of SEND children flourishing in schools, with a safe and supportive environment provided around them.
Pressures On Schools
The second word I noted, “business”. This is seemingly becoming a more prominent word with schools as many are converting to academy trusts. Which in essence run as businesses.
Like all businesses, intense focus is paid to performance and outcomes. When it comes to schools, these key performance indicators are in the form of student attainment, behaviour and attendance data. Furthermore, OFSTED judgements play a key role in all of this.
OFSTED
OFSTED put a huge focus on data. With almost everything they ask for needing to be backed up by a relevant stats or pieces of data to justify what they are saying. Therefore, is it any great surprise that schools pay so much attention to data, when their whole school judgement is seemingly based of this?
The culture this creates, is a one in which schools will look for the outliers in data, or ways of improving the data outcomes. As a result, which children will more often crop up when looking for children who are falling below targets academically? Finding it difficult to attend school? Or are causing more behavioural challenges? The answer is often SEND children.
This is not the fault of the SEND children. They are simply trying to cope as best they can with whatever support is offered to them. Which is often not enough. But even with the best support, these children may struggle to meet academic targets, achieve 100% attendance or behaviour as expected all the time.
This leads on to the question of how do schools respond if they have too many “outliers” in their data? Usually, they will try to resolve these issues to improve the figures. What is the quickest way of doing that? I will leave you to connect the dots. But the article noted above is seemingly giving one potential answer to this.
Summary
What it is important to recognise, is that the issues discussed above do not always land at the feet of the individual teachers and staff in schools. I have worked with some truly excellent school staff. Staff who fight day in day out to meet the needs of every child they work with.
However, there is only so much the individual staff member can do. The organisation above needs to be aligned and pushing in the same direction. In my experience, the higher up the management chain you go, the less it becomes about the child and the more it becomes about the data.
It is also important to note that Headteachers and senior leaders in schools are people with their own families and jobs to protect. Therefore, I can understand that if their school fails an OFSTED inspection or the data shows significant decreases, people’s jobs are on the line. Of course, these people will have to do what they can to protect themselves and support their families. As we all would. But the question is, why does this have to come at the cost of the educational futures of many SEND children?
What Is The Answer?
At this moment in time, I honestly don’t know what the answer is. It is too big of a problem that starts at the very top of the education hierarchy. Until there is a culture highlighting the importance of meeting the needs of SEND children, rather than dismissing them for the sake of data, I sadly don’t see much change occurring.
My hope is that this whistleblower starts a chain reaction of others coming forward and highlighting the shameful behaviour of some schools around the country. Maybe if this happens, those in power may start to listen and real change can happen.
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