SEND support survey feedback 2023
5. Schools
You said that your child needed greater support in school.
Several families shared the view that:
- a lack of funding, knowledge and staff time is a barrier to the school successfully meeting their child's needs
- school staff lack knowledge of SEND and some staff have not developed an understanding of their child's individual needs
- increased specialist teacher support is needed in schools, although a small number expressed that they felt that schools may be too quick to seek the involvement of external professionals.
- their child's school is not following recommendations from professionals, including failing to implement strategies effectively or to follow the provision outlined on their child's EHC plan.
However, some parent carers shared positive views regarding the SEND provision within their child's school. Some felt that their child's school is currently providing adequate support and working hard to meet their child's needs.
"Excellent hearing impairment services within the community, teacher of the deaf excellent." (PC)
"Schools need more help. The few staff there are, are fantastic but we need more allocation of funding for them and help for parents and carers." (PC)
"Having access to an iPad has really helped to give my son a voice as he is able to do written work using audio as well as prompts in spelling. He has really been able to get his idea down on paper." (PC)
"My son is now home educated where he spends time each day with other children socialising and his confidence that actually he is intelligent has improved tremendously because he is being taught in a way that works for him. Sen needs in schools in this area is woefully inadequate. The only thing that has ever helped my son is break-time hours. These are a god send. Thank you for whoever came up with them." (PC)
"High school support has been very poor, through lack of understanding of the health condition and not making attempts to understand." (PC)
"I don’t feel supported in my current maths lesson. I don’t understand my teacher and I don’t think he understands me." (CYP)
"I am able to learn if I have the right amount of support which at the minute I don't have which is deeply upsetting. At the end of the day all I want to do is to be able to learn and be taught." (CYP)
"Despite son being under CAMHS (which has been excellent) and currently on Neurodevelopmental Pathway for assessment for 3 years, I feel his school do not offer an acceptable level of support. Have to battle for this to get resources and constantly chase. His school “passport” was not relevant and took me 3 months of chasing The SENDCO to get it rewritten to be reflective on son." (PC)
"I feel, that only through me as a parent chasing certain help/support did we get it. However, I believe this should have been in place without me having to chase. If school don't have access to the correct tools and training how are they supposed to support my child the best way they can." (PC)
"There needs to be more education for teachers across the whole school to deal with children with autism. We have one or two teachers that seem to understand our son." (PC)
"The vast majority of schools are doing everything they can to deal with these issues, I think if anything there can be a danger to over diagnose and label every learning difficulty as something that needs intervention." (PC)
"Without an EHCP in place even though my child is diagnosed I feel we push against a "locked door" when it comes to support. Not due to school want of trying but the funding just isn't there, so we have low level workarounds to support my child in place but no assistance in class." (PC)
"My children get good support but this isn't the norm I find. We had a great handover from primary to secondary but many schools do no handover for children on SEN support with some primary schools being worse than others. Teachers don't recognize adjustments that they have put in place so don't mention them on yearly transitions, such as going to cloakroom5 mins early due to being unable o cope when all the kids are in there. This creates big issues at secondary both for the children and their parents." (PC)
"There is a fundamental lack of understanding of neurodiversity and how to manage neurodiverse children among teachers, We attended the incredible years programme run by Lancs county services, which was really successful, and we have always applied what we learnt at home, to the point where we have no issues with behaviour at home. There is a total lack of knowledge among teachers about the content of this program, Our son now points out his teachers seem incapable of understanding the principles of this (positive reinforcement)." (PC)
"Get better knowledge of PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance) and autistic burnout." (PC)
What we have done and are working on…
The local authority (Lancashire County Council) is supporting schools to identify needs early and implement appropriate support.
We've increased training through the Lancashire Professional Development Service to help SENDCOs implement ordinarily available provision and the assess, plan, do, review cycle (graduated response). You can find our guidance for schools on the education workforce development page.
SENDCO seminars and Inclusion Hub meetings are held termly to support schools. The Inclusion Hubs provide support to help reduce children being excluded from school.
A new SEN support guide for professionals has been launched following parent carer and practitioner feedback.
The Specialist Teaching Service provide support to nurseries, pre-schools, schools, colleges and universities. The service is part of the national Autism Education Trust (AET) network and delivers accredited training across schools and early years settings.
The new Inclusion and Engagement Support Team helps schools to support children and young people on the SEN register (without an EHC plan) who are struggling to engage with their learning due to a range of needs including social, emotional and mental health difficulties.
The Lancashire Emotional Health in Schools and Colleges Service (LEHSC) has been rolled out to most schools and colleges in Lancashire. Training events are delivered by psychologists from Lancaster University and Lancashire Educational Psychology Service. Find out more on the LEHSC website.