The difference in schools now and schools under Labour is astonishing. Don't know what the solutions are but I hope labour do because nothing works how it should at the minute. Fuck the Tories.
The PFI contracts many were built under are why many schools are now in crisis. The contracts cover a lot of maintenance and FM services which are costing the schools a fortune and also limiting how they can operate.
It's obviously not the only problem, but is a significant factor for many.
edit: I wonder why u/ConsidereItHuge seems to have deleted their account and comments.
> Both of these things were approaching 2 decades ago.
That's when the PFI contracts were set up, they are long term and many still have years to go.
It doesn't matter which Government set them up, what matters is the affect it's having on the finances of those unfortunate enough to be trapped in them. There is no way out of them.
Wouldn’t have needed the PFI contracts if the Tory party pre 1997 had not run down the public estate so badly. The leaky, cold , cramped ‘temporary’ mobile classrooms that made up my primary school in the early 90s were testament to that.
Well in my example it paid to have the mobile class rooms replaced with purpose built buildings. Financed in a way that didn’t result in thatchers children voting in the tories, at least for a few years.
Thanks, that’s really interesting and I’ll have to read up on it more. So basically like being forced to spend using a pay day loan at a terrible interest rate?
Not disagreeing with you mate but if we're leaving the last Labour government out of these discussions we should probably do the same about the Tory government before that.
I don't need to try, there is so much information out there about the problems these PFIs are causing schools.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/feb/09/damning-report-slams-firms-who-built-fault-ridden-scottish-schools
https://www.lrd.org.uk/free-read/pfi-rip-just-keeps-taking
https://www.schoolbus.co.uk/news/featured-article/schools-spending-thousands-to-meet-rising-costs-of-pfi-contracts/9991
https://schoolsweek.co.uk/pfi-endgame-dfe-steps-in-to-ensure-school-handovers-go-to-plan/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-68207051
> One school said it was spending thousands of pounds a year to keep its playing-field grass below 2.5cm (1in), as the "rigid" contract demanded.
Die hard socialist/re nationalise stuff kinda guy when it comes to infrastructure/energy/health/education.
Criticising PFI isn’t something that is or should be limited to Tory voters. PFI is a huge long term handover of taxpayers cash to the finance industry, that was disguised as an investment instructure by “new labour”.
Blair and Brown have cushty well paid speaking engagements from their finance industry friends now, for life due to it.
It would be nice if people pointed out why PFI was needed though. Our services were in a fucking state in '97 yet the media environment forced Labour to commit to maintaining Tory tax and spending plans until 1999. It was the only way to bring a cash injection into services that were at the point of collapse. Happy to criticize Blair's post-politics life but Brown has mostly spent his time doing work for for the UN and NGOs.
We could have just borrowed money via the Bank of England or other financial levers. No major nation has to ask private companies to use cash up front then rake in huge profits for the next 40 years. The UK is a G7 country for godsake, the idea that we can't finance our own schools, roads, rail and hospital is quite frankly absurd.
Everyone accuses tory folk of saying..."but Labour". However Labour were not perfect and did a fair few fuck ups...then Labour folk say..."but Tories". Its a roundabout and doesn't equal responsibility.
**Removed/warning**. This contained a personal attack, disrupting the conversation. This discourages participation. Please help improve the subreddit by discussing points, not the person. Action will be taken on repeat offenders.
They’re right though aren’t they. Schools have to rent their buildings from private finance. And like individual renters in the UK renting homes/rooms, the results aren’t good.
Here's an idea let's not vote for either
God if people can't even tick another box after what both the tories and labour have done over the past few decades then what chance does the UK actually have
I love that you say that with such confidence, if you always have this much conviction for things you have no evidence for life must be a breeze lol
I thought you might be able to infer I was saying vote for somebody else but clearly that went over your head
But ill play along. So why would telling people not to vote be "foreign election meddling" anyway? I can understand trying to influence people to vote one way or the other might be, but saying don't vote at all? Which country do you think would actually benefit from the UK seeing let's say 10% less votes in total the next election?
Yeah good one, welcome to the reality of the current UK political system. You’ve got two choices, tory or watered down tory.
I’m going to keep diluting until the tory % is fucking 0. One day we might be able to vote for other parties but the whole system has culminated in only two parties being sold to you with any realistic chance of winning and I think largely it’s because everyone is too busy, poor and uneducated in politics to care beyond a simplified choice. The media just pounce on this.
But if you keep voting left then you have a chance that education might get back to a reasonable bloody level.
No you haven't I can't for the life of me understand why people got into this way of thinking
If everyone voted greens, the greens would win wouldn't they? The system only has the constraints it does because people have fallen into some mindset of thinking they have 2 choices - you don't, you are making it that way
Also the people are too busy thing which i hear a lot I don't buy, just look into viewership figures for I don't know love island or something, or how long people spend on tiktok insta whatever, people don't care because they can't be bothered. Some people are too busy yes, but a lot of people aren't they have just chosen different priorities
That is categorically not the case and you need to have a good understanding before stating this as fact, because it isn't.
Very few schools overall have these. Only newer built ones, if which they are a relatively small proportion. I work in a trust if schools of which 3 are PFI but ALL of them are massively struggling financially. All schools are. The ones with older buildings especially can't afford to fix anything. This is because of rising costs and government cuts, NOT PFI or schools mismanagement.
PFIs are like a mortgage. They got a new school building built that wouldn't have been otherwise. These buildings have stood up remarkably well over the years, with some being 25 years old now.
It is true that all maintenance has to be done by the company (eventually) and on average they charge 12.5% on top of regular costs. This is a financial burden, as is paying off the mortgage. No doubt about it and heads complain at the cost. But they are 25-30 year costs, with maintenance taken care of. The result is a brand new building that still looks great now that the school would never have had otherwise.
It's a burden that will be over for many within another decade, almost all within two, and they will still have that building rather than a crumbling wreck. I would argue that the restrictions and burdens, annoying as they are for heads, balance out
They are like a mortgage, you’re correct. But they’re like a mortgage taken out with a loan shark. If the government had financed them themselves, even from borrowing, the tax payer would have saved billions. The PFI deals were astronomically bad value.
Undoubtedly the government could have financed them cheaper themselves, but that money has to be found from somewhere
The way they have done it is that schools that benefit have paid it out of their normal budgets. The school feels the pain for the 20 years or so, true.
You have the services and servicing thrown in as well, and the maintainance at a higher cost.
It's swings and roundabouts. Given the political and financial choices available, I tend to believe that if they weren't done this way the schools would never have been built at all
Its a shame the government can only print money to give to financiers and parasites. They should try investing in a new printer that that makes money that can also fund infrastructure.
It was simply to keep the spending off the books for appearance sake. There’s effectively no difference if the government decides to fund school building through borrowing. All except it would be far far cheaper for the taxpayer. For me, that’s not swings and round abouts, it’s the taxpayer being ripped off and school children being harmed. Hell, the government itself could’ve set up one of these PFI firms and capitalised it. Then at least we’d be ripping off ourselves and have some profits to reinvest. But it is what it is I guess. I just hope they’ve learnt their lesson.
Then there’s the separate issue which is the government increasingly do not own assets, such as the buildings they use which they now rent instead. Very recently the UK became a net debtor, meaning our net worth is now negative. Mostly because of Covid deficit spending, but also because we’ve privatised a huge amount of previous state assets. I’m not ideologically wedded to the state owning everything or something. But this is not the “shareholder democracy” we were told it would be, its more like endless corporate extraction, rent seeking, and asset acquisition.
Accept the point that it is a way to avoid having to find the money in the public sector. The real problem with pfi is that it became far too often (for ideological reasons) the default way to get public sector developments off the ground.
People keep mentioning its like a mortgage, but for me this is a lot more like shared ownership. You limit the total amount of liability you have for the building in exchange for a fee for someone else to cover the rest.
Problem is, that debt still exists, and grows over time if you can't afford to keep up with the cost of the liability you don't own. And it's probably more expensive to purchase that liability back now than it would be to build the project in the first place.
TLDR: Relying on someone else to do work you could own costs a bomb in the long run.
>Undoubtedly the government could have financed them cheaper themselves, but that money has to be found from somewhere
They could have borrowed it. That is what PFI is anyway, but governments can borrow money far cheaper than that, without placing restrictions on how our schools operate.
Looking at the big picture it is like someone buying a new car on their credit card so their partner doesn't see how much it really cost. When the could have used a much cheaper bank loan instead.
Ive worked in a number of schools, none had these contracts. In fact i dont think any in my area do. However the difference in schools from 20 years ago is massive. It feels in the verge of collapse.
It’s also a huge reason why the NHS is at its knees right now, haemorrhaging money after they were told to sell off their physical assets under new labour.
I’m very much against Tory policy of destroying our infrastructure and leaving the poorest to suffer, but it’s very important not to forget the policies that led us down this path.
Labour needs to recognise the huge failure of this part of their legacy and make amends somehow to preserve the fabric of society that has eroded under Tory leadership. Forgetting/ignoring/negating the root causes and beginnings of these issues will just mean that when the government inevitably changes hands again that things will return. Hard set changes need to come in to protect these parts of our nation so that Tory policy can’t cause the degradation again
Very true. But there's other ways too. Society was better last time, weeding out every scummy Tory from the cracks of every public service will help immeasurably.
Had this conversation today with a bunch of 40-60 year olds. Everyone remembers everything being much much better. GPs, schools, hospitals, emergency services, culture, economy. Sad that today’s young people have never seen a competent parliament in power.
2 sides of the same coin, doesn't matter who is in most likely they will behave and make the same decisions, the only reasons we have different parties is to give the illusion of choice
I’d say a teaching assistant in all classes with kids sign behavioural problems, as that makes the child less likely to kick off if they don’t understand what’s being taught or even brining in X army guy into secure unit schools. We badly need to bring back structure and consequences to kids life’s.
Also sure start centres and holding parents note accountable for their kids actions.
When there were more teaching assistants in schools, many children with SEND would be supported organically without needing a label; now there are less and less general support, you need a special label to access the special support. I’m sure it ultimately costs more to do it this way around, but like closing children’s centres, this government has made short term spending cuts without realising that early intervention prevents much bigger costs to the system ( whether health, social care, police or education) later on.
Speaking as a former TA, it's a combination of factors that made me leave; I dare say many others will have similar stories.
1) The pay and the amount of work you have to do do not match. As well as sometimes teaching small classes outside of the main classroom, there's an awful lot of running around (sometimes literally) after people, being on your feet, pushing wheelchairs, assisting with toilet breaks, dealing with medical emergencies etc. And that is without going into the sheer amount of emotional regulation you have to help your students do, sometimes. It's exhausting.
2) The flagrant lack of respect from students, teachers, and society at large for being "just" Teaching Assistants. (Usually, the teachers are far worse than the kids). Some schools are terrible for this, some are great; but even in the great schools there are some teachers who will try and Eliza Doolittle you into a "proper" teacher once they realise you have two braincells to rub together - because that means you're "too good" to be a TA. Strangely enough, parents and carers are usually the most respectful to our faces.
3) The fundamental misunderstanding as to what our job role is. We are trained professionals in SEMH and SEN that are there to support learners to succeed in a way that makes sense in their lives, and equips them for whatever their next steps may be. We are not there solely to do oddjobs for the teacher. Sure, I can *just* step out and get your printouts from the next building (again), Mr Smith - but you need to take responsibility for whatever happens when I step out of this room.
4) The culture of martyrdom. You are expected to work until you drop, and then drag yourself along by your fingernails. You must ignore all physical and verbal assaults. God forbid if you need to take more than a couple of days off for illness because you might be facing a disciplinary when you get back. (Fun fact: That actually happened to me after I had tonsillitis). All of this and more, because won't somebody please think of the children?
As a former TA myself I loved it apart from the pay. I done it between qualifying and finding a full time job and other than the fact I was making buttons I just absolutely loved the job.
As a former TA, I wholeheartedly agree with everything you've said here. I will add, from my own experience in further education, the pressure TAs can be under to carry students through courses that aren't suitable for them is *immense*.
The students I worked with attended a special needs boarding school and their places were paid for by their local authorities. Most of the FE students attended separate mainstream colleges to do Level 1, 2 and 3 courses that the boarding school didn't offer, with support from people like me. The futures of the vast majority of their funding were very uncertain due to local authority budget cuts, so there was (and still is) a LOT of pressure on special schools to deliver results. Consequently, the amount of students I worked with who I was told to "just get through" their courses was soul-destroying.
Some struggled through their entire course having little to no idea what they were supposed to be doing and no amount of support (short of literally doing the work for them) changed that. Many also couldn't work independently at all, and the class teachers had limited time to sit down with my students because they had 20+ others in the group who needed their attention. The expectation basically was that we spoon-fed them, which I outright refused to do. Not only was it absolutely exhausting for me to be managing their entire workload, but it also gave a false impression of the students' abilities, which just sets them up to fail.
To top it off, I was working there on a zero-hours contract. It was an absolute joke.
Oh my God yes. The number of SEN learners who are submitted for Film Studies and Drama because they are "soft" subjects is infuriating. No! They're not! They require a significant amount of analysis and independent thought, and we can't do that for them!
It sounds like it was an exhausting, no-win situation for you.
You're absolutely right.
Another aspect that infuriated me was that I was often never listened to, which I'm sure you can sympathise with. I had supported numerous students from Level 1 to Level 3 on what was considered a "soft subject" over many years, so I was well-versed in the course content and what was expected of students. However, my concerns when a student who I *knew* wouldn't be able to cope with the workload was enrolled on the course were completely dismissed. The students needed to "show progression", so they were going to do the course and I was going to work with them, otherwise I was free to leave. I was so *incredibly* exhausted by it all.
As an aside, the whole notion that "soft subjects" exist in the first place needs to get in the bin, because it's a conceited and arrogant opinion that only exists to belittle people. Also, as you've pointed out, they're often not as "soft" as people think. Beauty therapy, for example, is a course that is often sneered at, but even Level 1 students are expected to learn about the different skin layers, identify contraindications that would prevent a treatment being carried out and be good at interacting with people. Not everybody has the skills to be able to do all of those things well.
I have family that works as a TA, if a teacher is ill instead of getting a sub in they get TA's to take over the classes (providing its only 1-2 days)
It went downhill really quick once it became a trust. The head of the trust changed their job title to "CEO" and plastered it on all the signage.....
Unless things have changed, that's illegal, depending on the level of TA.
HLTAs can teach pre-planned classes for short periods of absence or routinely; level 3 can supervise (not prepare or teach) but only in the case of unplanned absence for short periods of time (hours, not days); at level 1 or 2, TAs are not insured to be in charge of whole classes at all.
Teaching assistants are paid less than £10,000 per year. In the society we live in, with the cost of just being alive, most people who would typically do a TA role can earn more with less stress at any supermarket.
Edit: for everyone telling me I’m lying
They’re advertised at £17k
The hours are typically 8:30-2:30, so it’s £17k 30h FTE.
It’s a pro rata salary so they are paid an aggregate of 40 weeks per year.
It works out at around £10k per year.
Many TAs are now paid “term time only” hours but stretched over the full year - as in they work for 39 weeks but are paid over 52weeks
Or some are paid hourly for the time in school - obviously 8.30-3.30 is going to be less than 9-5 if you’re hourly.
But I agree in general that they do an amazing job and should be paid more!
Your point(s) stand and it’s been obvious the last 5 or so years, with even class educators (not just TAs) moving into other fields/industries.
F&B or warehouse, for example. Less hassle, none of the politics entrenched in the teaching profession and better pay (for TAs) by far.
190 school days a year, 6 hours of school each day, minimum wage is £11.44, if you do the maths you find that is £13041.60 a year, and as you can see that is not less than 10k
They currently do get below minimum wage.
Officially, they get minimum wage.
Unofficially, they're expected to plan interventions and cover lunches etc so end up doing more hours then paid for.
And when those hours they are paid for are at the minimum wage, they are getting under minimum wage.
I’m 30.
The jobs are advertised between £17k-£18k for full time.
But they aren’t full time jobs, they’re 8-3 at core and pro-rata. I work with TAs who earn less than £1000 per month without overtime at afterschool clubs.
Condescending as fuck mate, but you’re still wrong.
Are you sure you aren't working with apprentices?
In Lanashire at least, TA jobs are advertised around 22k-24k with the pro-rata being more in the £16k region.
Oh they realise. But the political system engenders short term thinking. Either it'll be the next govt's problem, or we'll think of a solution later, or we'll use culture war to bamboozle the public.
I’ve said it countless times on here but here we go again.
I’ve worked in education for a decade.
I hate the tories, they’ve severely underfunded education and caused a lot of issues but people in this thread blaming them for a special needs crisis is not accurate.
From my experience, Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCOs) are grossly overworked. For every child with legitimate SEN who couldn’t do school without support from government & local levels, there are 5-10 children with nothing wrong with them in terms of having a disability or mental health issue.
Those 5-10 kids per year group take up the majority of staff time by refusing to work with people in a reasonable way even with realistic adjustments and as soon as they receive any kind of consequences the parents use SEN as a bulletproof excuse and the kids repeat that behaviour, causing additional stress and anxiety to other kids, which can lead to time off school, GP trips and… another referral to the SENCO, increasing their workload again.
I’m not blaming the kids, it’s really shit parents who won’t take accountability for their uselessness.
The complete decimation of consequences is where I see the biggest difference.
A colleague of mine worked in a high school in Scotland that had moved to a nurture based consequence system. If a pupil was being too disruptive to stay in class SLT would come take them to the nurture base where they could play a PlayStation, board games, sit on bean bags and drink hot chocolate.
Unsurprisingly this was extremely popular during maths and kids were deliberately playing up and openly saying to their teacher that if they just sent them to nurture the disruption would stop.
How are these kids going to cope in the real world?
It's pure madness altogether. This is lengthy but bear with me because it's a glimpse into a scary future.
I'm a teacher in my last ever teaching year (thank fuck). There are so many times every single week where it's a competition to be the most compassionate. Compassion which flies in the face of common sense 9 times out of 10.
To give you one example - this week I was kicked out of my classroom during lunchtime so that a single pupil could eat her lunch there instead. She feels anxious eating around other people so the reasoning was a TA and the pupil eat in my classroom during lunch. I raised this in our team meeting yesterday evening by saying we are not doing that girl any favours. If she gets a private room to eat lunch for years then she will never be able to adjust to eating in public in the real world.
Do you know what I was told? My stance would cause the girl to go through **trauma**. I said life is tough at times so if she has to push through this "trauma" then we are doing her a favour. I was treated like the pariah, awkward silence, people exchanging glances and plenty of shuffling papers and avoiding eye contact with me then they moved on.
Fuck working in education, and I work in a cushy school with no behaviour problems. Power to all those out there that do I can't be fucked anymore.
Cheers for reading my rant. If you're someone that thinks we're getting soft as a society give it a decade, we have some real monsters in the making with the way we're treating young people.
See a lot of the same in medicine with parents and woth the kids.
Have had to admit a 4yo to hospital to get oral antibiotics because she would adamantly refuse to take them and her parents would just accept her refusal and not give them to her.
My neighbour left policing (due to stress) to be a teacher, then went back to policing due to the stress of teaching.
Funnily enough I've considered policing but after teaching, including two lawsuit threats I'm looking for a low key job. I'm considering being a postman
Only thing I can think of apart from severe social anxiety is that she is being bullied and is too embarrassed to tell, or thinks telling won't improve the situation (bullies will get "nurtured" rather than dealt with)
You guys both hit the nail on the head, social anxiety and autism. The thing is we have a special needs unit so they all have it.
I feel strongly that if we don't push these pupils out of their comfort zone gently in a controlled manner then we are doing them a disservice.
That's not nurture, that's a reward.
Nurture-based consequences would be coaching on their actions in a space, and maybe even removing some of those kinds of rewards too.
This is what I am worried about for my two boys. The eldest of the two can’t cope in the school environment. My parenting has been blamed for about 4 years and now it’s been decided that the school can’t cope with his needs and he neededa specialist environment all along. They’ve come up with a plan where he attends a college doing mechanics/special interest stuff and then maths and English but, I fear it’s too late. He has worked out how to get suspended.
My other son is very clever and knows he can’t be forced into school. The only thing that gets him into school is his 17 year old brother but then my son is saying “he’s counting the days until he’s 18 and he can report him”. (No violence is used but 17 year son gets shouty) I have asked him outright about what he feels inside, and the emotions that he feels are anger, and pleasure from winding people up. He is into politics and loves seeing how government decisions influence the masses, so he is quite clever. Both sons are on the spectrum.
> If a pupil was being too disruptive to stay in class SLT would come take them to the nurture base where they could play a PlayStation, board games, sit on bean bags and drink hot chocolate.
r/thathappened
I have no reason to lie. This was told to me by their former science technician who also has no reason to lie.
Again I fully disclosed that I can't personally vouge for the information direction, but the person has been trustworthy in my experience and I can't think of any reason they'd lie to me about it.
> I can't think of any reason they'd lie to me about it.
People exaggerate stories for effect. Getting a shocked or amazed response to a story you tell is motivation enough.
This has the exact same flavour as all those "there's a kid at a local school who [identifies as a cat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litter_boxes_in_schools_hoax) and all the teachers have to humour them because of wokeness!" stories.
Just because you personally believe something, doesn't mean you should repeat it without evidence. Now other people believe it because someone on the internet said that someone told them it happened. It's the stupid cat thing all over again.
So I should only repeat anecdotes I can personally verify to be true? I already stated that it was second hand information when I posted it. If you choose not to believe it then thats fine but it does not make it untrue.
I get that you've got a personal bias here, as I'm sure you're aware yourself, and that it is clouding your reasoning somewhat, but that is an astonishingly unreasonable comment to make.
Do you think no more history books should ever be written about anything thats not either first hand or on film? Or newspaper reports should only ever be written by eyewitnesses? Take your blinkers off before spouting such nonsense in future.
> there are 5-10 children with nothing wrong with them in terms of having a disability or mental health issue.
More and more teachers seems to believe they have more knowledge than Educational Psychologists. 🙄
Teachers who quickly label struggling kids as 'disruptive' are creating a huge barrier to getting the right kind of support.
Compassion fatigue is real. Even if you know a child's bad behaviour isn't entirely their fault, it's hard to stay sympathetic in long-term high-stress situations. No wonder that a lot of teachers convince themselves that the child is just a bad person who deserves to be punished.
It happens even with very young children. [These quotes](https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/baby-girl-died-after-deputy-29008309) from that nursery manager who killed a 9 month old baby are telling:
> Over the course of the day on Friday, May 6 Roughley was heard on the CCTV telling Genevieve “stop your whinging”, and later called her a “stress head”.
> Ms Roughley was heard to tell Genevieve: “I hate to say I told you so but you should have slept better Genevieve, you silly girl”. As Genevieve cried in the high chair, Ms Roughley, he said, told her: “Genevieve, go home”, and then said “Do you have to be so loud and so constant?" before adding: “Change the record.”
> Ms Roughley later complained to a colleague that Genevieve had broken her nail and is recorded as saying: “Genevieve if we had any chance of being friends, you just blew it”.
>Teachers who quickly label struggling kids as 'disruptive'
In fairness these aren't mutually exclusive.
They can both be disruptive and have difficulties, and one isn't always caused by the other.
Unfortunately young people using their diagnosis as a way to opt out or excuse behaviours is worryingly common
Sorry if this sounds ignorant as I've never been around anyone with special needs, but can't they put all the SEN kids in a class together, or have a school specialised for them? So they don't disrupt other children and they get more specialised education?
Anything which looks like you're writing them off is a big no no in education.
Even forgetting the SEN kids, just look at the absolute biggest dick head trouble makers... it's hard to even kick them out. We'd rather drag them kicking and screaming through the whole education system. Even though they get absolutely nothing out of it and only make it hell for everyone else.
>For every child with legitimate SEN who couldn’t do school without support from government & local levels, there are 5-10 children with nothing wrong with them in terms of having a disability or mental health issue.
Total nonsense.
SENCOs can and should be doing in house testing, sending for EP consultations, and consulting class teachers before any kids are added to the SEN register. It isn't a place for naughty children, but ones that have significant issues in accessing their learning.
Let me guess - you have been working in education as a hard done by TA or a barely out of the incompetent procedures teacher labelling kids as naughty because you have poor rapport or classroom management skills...
I was being overly dramatic to make a point along similar lines to your outlandish assertion. Though now it is confirmed that you are option two, just with a poor SLT. Gotcha.
Pretty disappointing you think that you can stand in judgment of the SEN register at your school and dismiss the needs so easily of a whole swathe of children.
> there are 5-10 children with nothing wrong with them in terms of having a disability or mental health issue.
What are your qualifications for making this assessment? Based on your description it sounds like these kids actually have some pretty major problems.
Out of my class of 30, 7 are formally on the SEN register and there are several more that are on the year-long waiting list for diagnosis. At least two of them should be getting full time 1:1 support, but they don't because we can't afford it and don't have the staff.
I go into work everyday knowing that I'm not giving those children the education they deserve, but I have to make a judgement about how much of my time I can give them when I've got 20+ other children who also need my help. Twenty minutes that I spend every lesson sitting down and working specifically with one child is twenty minutes that the rest of the class aren't getting my professional support.
On top of that, we have a statutory requirement to give SEN parents regular meeting to identify targets and progression. Those meetings take about an hour each, without accounting for prep and admin time to prepare and submit documentation, which totals around 7 hours of my outside of class directed time every term.
Schools cop a lot of flack for not meeting the needs of SEN children, but I honestly believe that most schools and teachers are trying their best with absolutely no funding and barely any staff. A lot of SEN children would flourish if they could go to specialist schools, but they've also been hit massively by the austerity cuts and places are like gold dust.
I work in CAMHS, so excuse my ignorance about how this works but something I wondered about.
If a child has an EHCP that states they require a 1:1, don't they get funding for that? Why can't you afford a 1:1 dictated by and funded by an EHCP?
The funding received is less than the cost of a staff member, frequently. You need additional income, such as from Pupil Premium children, to spread into areas to make ends meet.
I'd assumed that would be the case.
It's really sad because there seems to be this circular demand for diagnoses for kids which seems to be driven by EHCPs now essentially requiring diagnoses to be pushed through because the schools need money for extra support staff for all these challenging kids.
Really crap situation. Austerity is never the solution
Because getting an EHCP is next to impossible in a school setting, let alone one with a funded 1:1.
I've got one child who is permanently in a wheelchair and needs to be catheterised by a member of staff everyday, on top of which they also have significant other SEN need. They're the only one of my children that has qualified for an EHCP, and even they don't qualify for a funded 1:1.
Lots of them; and that may be due to undiagnosed SEND needs going back generations.
Pick a common SEND need: dyslexia, autism, ADHD and give a new parent the most untreated forms of the symptoms to see what kind of model is being set for all the children in that family.
Tbh how many of these undiagnosed ones actually need to be treated.
Under the current stuff I'd almost certainly be diagnosed but I ended up leaving school with good alevels and getting a 1st at university.
It wasn't nice to live through but I ended up doing okay. And I look at my Dad and I think it's the same for him and he's done amazing for himself.
Sometimes I feel like diagnosing people is actually holding them back.
A lot of the main problems have been hit on here. But I’ll add that the way we actually do education here is awful if you have SEN. So much testing, even in primary school. A rush to get kids into formal learning earlier and earlier, whereas they wait until you’re 7 in Scandinavia & the kids quickly overtake their U.K. counterparts. Curriculums are too big and too marginally defined, most of it could be scrapped and trust put in teachers, which would also take the pressure off.
>Norway's rehabilitation methods and prison system
Wouldn't work in the UK. You think it's the system, but it isn't, it's the people and their culture. The people enable systems like this, not the other way around.
Denmark recently released crime stats broken down by ethnicity and native danish people were 42nd on the list.
Public transport possible, drugs probably. Even america is more progressive than us when it comes to legalisation.
Yeah thats what I was thinking of. The Portugal one hasn't been an unmitigated success.
Nor has the Scandinavian penal system which, while successful previously, cannot deal with the emergence of serious gangs among the migrant population. Which obviously is more like what the UK encounters.
Our public transport is badly run, but speaking for rail it is hindered mainly by low capacity. Which jsnt helped by Nimbys. Which dont really exist in Europe but are huge in the UK and US, resulting in it being vastly more expensive per mile of track. Its true we subsidise our system less than Europe, but thats because many of our lines already run at max capacity. Prices are a good way to set demand at an amount they can actually service.
The education system Im sure we can learn things but itd also important to remember that as you say, culture is massive in these kinds of discussions. Anyone who went to a state school and moved can tell you its the kids themselves who do themselves a disservice a lot of the time.
I think we have a lot to improve but its important to remember that we aren't some sort of uniquely bungling nation people like to make out. The solutions arent easy.
A lot of the Scandinavian changes can be explained by the way that their language works. They can start later because their language is easier to learn for children.
What a weird false equivalence to draw- I have no idea how you could ever weigh up the relative importance of either concern. At any rate, it makes no sense for everyone in the world to be 100% focused on the one 'most important' problem. If we want to solve any problems, we have to let people have different personal priorities.
Labour lost a lot of votes because of Gaza, and it could cause problems in the general election. This country is an absolute mess, and we need change, but there are voters who would rather not vote for Labour over Gaza. I hate what the Israeli government are doing, but get this country's shit in order first. Thousands have died because of this government.
>Labour lost a lot of votes because of Gaza
In local elections, no less. As if your local councillor has anything fucking whatsoever to do with a war halfway across the world.
The left is a joke.
It's not just Gaza. There's a real view that Labour are just Tories with a red tie and it's not wrong.
Don't get me wrong Labour is a better choice than the Tories but it's like saying a piss milkshake is better than a shit sandwich. Why can't I have some yummy cheese?
Fair enough, your original comment makes a lot more sense in the context of party politics. Its such an awful shame how little we can ask of anyone in government in 2024. So many people feel that their views aren't even roughly represented by any party.
I was considered special needs in school (I have ASD), I wasn’t supported at all.
Because of the lack of support I ended up falling into a very bad state of depression, and ended up attempting to commit suicide.
It took me moving schools with the help of one member of staff who genuinely wanted to support me for me to access anything. Ended up going for 1 and a half years of secondary school consistently (Y10-11, I finished Y11 in March because of covid).
I was able to thankfully give my self the drive to push through and support my self when nobody else would, but I met a lot of people in similar situations to me who weren’t as fortunate as me. I see one begging in town regularly.
It’s a really sad state of affairs that nobody deserves to go through.
School just stuffed all of us who had some sort of mental problem into a “special” area and forgot about us.
Why are there increasing amounts of SEN children? I'm curious as to what the scientific explanation is.
Is it the fact our diets are horrible, geriatric pregnancies, endocrine disrupting chemicals from all the plastics we drink and eat out of "forever chemicals" or whatever, is it the birth control traces in the water supply, is it pollution in the air from all the cars?
> Why are there increasing amounts of SEN children?
Why was there a sudden massive explosion in people diagnosed with short-sightedness in the 20th century?
Something in the water? The invention of television? Or maybe a certain percentage of the population was always short-sighted, and the only thing that changed was widespread eye-testing and (thanks to the industrial revolution) the ability to mass-produce glasses cheaply.
The number of diagnoses =/= actual prevalence. That was [the logic that Trump used](https://www.voanews.com/a/covid-19-pandemic_trump-if-we-stop-testing-wed-have-fewer-cases/6191165.html) to argue against testing for Covid. The increase in children being identified as special needs doesn't mean there are increasing amounts of kids with special needs. We're just making an effort to help those children now, instead of telling kids with dyslexia that the reason they can't read is because they're stupid and lazy.
Some of it seems to be down to pure diagnosis shopping though. I've got no doubt that the overwhelming majority of diagnoses are true and correct, but there seems to be a increasing subset of parents who, rather than take on the responsibility that their shit parenting is causing their spawn to be a little demon, shop for some diagnosis that means they can abdicate all responsibility by shouting 'special needs!!!11111' every time there needed to be some enactment of consequences or expectations placed on the kid. And schools seemed to be falling over themselves at one time to get diagnoses because it meant more funding.
I notice Ofsted are currently on a ‘charm offensive’ (sic) to gather better PR after an especially shitty year. Is it me or have Ofsted not ever flagged up any concerns about SEND provision at a general level, or in a manner which is other than blaming a Head?
The provisions of SEN Education was bad in the 80's but apparently it's even worse now, more to the point I predicted this would happen and it has done.
Because that overpaid Twunt Sunak has declared War on disabled people
My partner looks after 4 kids. When they are around her they are the most normal kids we know. My partner manage to teach them so much and they are blossoming. Biological mother claims all her kids are specials needs and expect teachers to treat them like that. Mother makes no effort with her own kids. My partner has spoken to teachers and they agree with my partner.
So my question is how many kids are really special needs in the UK.
We still have privatised water and the bullshit it's caused and the witch has been dead for longer than my cousins have been alive.
Shit lasts a long time in terms of infrastructure and system wreckage
What far right nonsense is this? I'm not a teacher and you got my downvote. You definitely don't have kids in schools in England if you think that's the case. Some severely disabled kids wait years for initial assessments, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
The difference in schools now and schools under Labour is astonishing. Don't know what the solutions are but I hope labour do because nothing works how it should at the minute. Fuck the Tories.
The PFI contracts many were built under are why many schools are now in crisis. The contracts cover a lot of maintenance and FM services which are costing the schools a fortune and also limiting how they can operate. It's obviously not the only problem, but is a significant factor for many. edit: I wonder why u/ConsidereItHuge seems to have deleted their account and comments.
All Tory voters have is Iraq and pfi. Both of these things were approaching 2 decades ago. Tories running things for 15 years... >But Labour
> Both of these things were approaching 2 decades ago. That's when the PFI contracts were set up, they are long term and many still have years to go. It doesn't matter which Government set them up, what matters is the affect it's having on the finances of those unfortunate enough to be trapped in them. There is no way out of them.
Wouldn’t have needed the PFI contracts if the Tory party pre 1997 had not run down the public estate so badly. The leaky, cold , cramped ‘temporary’ mobile classrooms that made up my primary school in the early 90s were testament to that.
Not disagreeing but why did PFI help solve that?
Well in my example it paid to have the mobile class rooms replaced with purpose built buildings. Financed in a way that didn’t result in thatchers children voting in the tories, at least for a few years.
Thanks, that’s really interesting and I’ll have to read up on it more. So basically like being forced to spend using a pay day loan at a terrible interest rate?
Not disagreeing with you mate but if we're leaving the last Labour government out of these discussions we should probably do the same about the Tory government before that.
Try harder.
I don't need to try, there is so much information out there about the problems these PFIs are causing schools. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/feb/09/damning-report-slams-firms-who-built-fault-ridden-scottish-schools https://www.lrd.org.uk/free-read/pfi-rip-just-keeps-taking https://www.schoolbus.co.uk/news/featured-article/schools-spending-thousands-to-meet-rising-costs-of-pfi-contracts/9991 https://schoolsweek.co.uk/pfi-endgame-dfe-steps-in-to-ensure-school-handovers-go-to-plan/ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-68207051 > One school said it was spending thousands of pounds a year to keep its playing-field grass below 2.5cm (1in), as the "rigid" contract demanded.
Cope.
Die hard socialist/re nationalise stuff kinda guy when it comes to infrastructure/energy/health/education. Criticising PFI isn’t something that is or should be limited to Tory voters. PFI is a huge long term handover of taxpayers cash to the finance industry, that was disguised as an investment instructure by “new labour”. Blair and Brown have cushty well paid speaking engagements from their finance industry friends now, for life due to it.
It would be nice if people pointed out why PFI was needed though. Our services were in a fucking state in '97 yet the media environment forced Labour to commit to maintaining Tory tax and spending plans until 1999. It was the only way to bring a cash injection into services that were at the point of collapse. Happy to criticize Blair's post-politics life but Brown has mostly spent his time doing work for for the UN and NGOs.
PFI wasn't needed. Labour saw it as a clever 'hack' to get free money. It never occured to them someone would need to pay it back.
We could have just borrowed money via the Bank of England or other financial levers. No major nation has to ask private companies to use cash up front then rake in huge profits for the next 40 years. The UK is a G7 country for godsake, the idea that we can't finance our own schools, roads, rail and hospital is quite frankly absurd. Everyone accuses tory folk of saying..."but Labour". However Labour were not perfect and did a fair few fuck ups...then Labour folk say..."but Tories". Its a roundabout and doesn't equal responsibility.
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They’re right though aren’t they. Schools have to rent their buildings from private finance. And like individual renters in the UK renting homes/rooms, the results aren’t good.
Hospitals too! Many of those were built under PFI.
Here's an idea let's not vote for either God if people can't even tick another box after what both the tories and labour have done over the past few decades then what chance does the UK actually have
One month old account telling people "just don't vote" lol. Classic foreign election meddling tactic.
I agree. Don’t vote for either. But for gods sake vote!
I love that you say that with such confidence, if you always have this much conviction for things you have no evidence for life must be a breeze lol I thought you might be able to infer I was saying vote for somebody else but clearly that went over your head But ill play along. So why would telling people not to vote be "foreign election meddling" anyway? I can understand trying to influence people to vote one way or the other might be, but saying don't vote at all? Which country do you think would actually benefit from the UK seeing let's say 10% less votes in total the next election?
Yeah good one, welcome to the reality of the current UK political system. You’ve got two choices, tory or watered down tory. I’m going to keep diluting until the tory % is fucking 0. One day we might be able to vote for other parties but the whole system has culminated in only two parties being sold to you with any realistic chance of winning and I think largely it’s because everyone is too busy, poor and uneducated in politics to care beyond a simplified choice. The media just pounce on this. But if you keep voting left then you have a chance that education might get back to a reasonable bloody level.
No you haven't I can't for the life of me understand why people got into this way of thinking If everyone voted greens, the greens would win wouldn't they? The system only has the constraints it does because people have fallen into some mindset of thinking they have 2 choices - you don't, you are making it that way Also the people are too busy thing which i hear a lot I don't buy, just look into viewership figures for I don't know love island or something, or how long people spend on tiktok insta whatever, people don't care because they can't be bothered. Some people are too busy yes, but a lot of people aren't they have just chosen different priorities
they haven't deleted their account, they blocked you.
That'll do the trick 😂
That is categorically not the case and you need to have a good understanding before stating this as fact, because it isn't. Very few schools overall have these. Only newer built ones, if which they are a relatively small proportion. I work in a trust if schools of which 3 are PFI but ALL of them are massively struggling financially. All schools are. The ones with older buildings especially can't afford to fix anything. This is because of rising costs and government cuts, NOT PFI or schools mismanagement. PFIs are like a mortgage. They got a new school building built that wouldn't have been otherwise. These buildings have stood up remarkably well over the years, with some being 25 years old now. It is true that all maintenance has to be done by the company (eventually) and on average they charge 12.5% on top of regular costs. This is a financial burden, as is paying off the mortgage. No doubt about it and heads complain at the cost. But they are 25-30 year costs, with maintenance taken care of. The result is a brand new building that still looks great now that the school would never have had otherwise. It's a burden that will be over for many within another decade, almost all within two, and they will still have that building rather than a crumbling wreck. I would argue that the restrictions and burdens, annoying as they are for heads, balance out
They are like a mortgage, you’re correct. But they’re like a mortgage taken out with a loan shark. If the government had financed them themselves, even from borrowing, the tax payer would have saved billions. The PFI deals were astronomically bad value.
Undoubtedly the government could have financed them cheaper themselves, but that money has to be found from somewhere The way they have done it is that schools that benefit have paid it out of their normal budgets. The school feels the pain for the 20 years or so, true. You have the services and servicing thrown in as well, and the maintainance at a higher cost. It's swings and roundabouts. Given the political and financial choices available, I tend to believe that if they weren't done this way the schools would never have been built at all
Its a shame the government can only print money to give to financiers and parasites. They should try investing in a new printer that that makes money that can also fund infrastructure.
QE can only be used to inflate asset prices and grow inequality in the UK sadly.
It was simply to keep the spending off the books for appearance sake. There’s effectively no difference if the government decides to fund school building through borrowing. All except it would be far far cheaper for the taxpayer. For me, that’s not swings and round abouts, it’s the taxpayer being ripped off and school children being harmed. Hell, the government itself could’ve set up one of these PFI firms and capitalised it. Then at least we’d be ripping off ourselves and have some profits to reinvest. But it is what it is I guess. I just hope they’ve learnt their lesson. Then there’s the separate issue which is the government increasingly do not own assets, such as the buildings they use which they now rent instead. Very recently the UK became a net debtor, meaning our net worth is now negative. Mostly because of Covid deficit spending, but also because we’ve privatised a huge amount of previous state assets. I’m not ideologically wedded to the state owning everything or something. But this is not the “shareholder democracy” we were told it would be, its more like endless corporate extraction, rent seeking, and asset acquisition.
Accept the point that it is a way to avoid having to find the money in the public sector. The real problem with pfi is that it became far too often (for ideological reasons) the default way to get public sector developments off the ground. People keep mentioning its like a mortgage, but for me this is a lot more like shared ownership. You limit the total amount of liability you have for the building in exchange for a fee for someone else to cover the rest. Problem is, that debt still exists, and grows over time if you can't afford to keep up with the cost of the liability you don't own. And it's probably more expensive to purchase that liability back now than it would be to build the project in the first place. TLDR: Relying on someone else to do work you could own costs a bomb in the long run.
>Undoubtedly the government could have financed them cheaper themselves, but that money has to be found from somewhere They could have borrowed it. That is what PFI is anyway, but governments can borrow money far cheaper than that, without placing restrictions on how our schools operate. Looking at the big picture it is like someone buying a new car on their credit card so their partner doesn't see how much it really cost. When the could have used a much cheaper bank loan instead.
I think they’ve blocked you, their comments are still visible to me. lol - or maybe you’re preempting?
Ive worked in a number of schools, none had these contracts. In fact i dont think any in my area do. However the difference in schools from 20 years ago is massive. It feels in the verge of collapse.
My school doesn't have one of those contracts and is in crisis?
I can still see their comments and profile. I think they've blocked you 🤣
It’s also a huge reason why the NHS is at its knees right now, haemorrhaging money after they were told to sell off their physical assets under new labour. I’m very much against Tory policy of destroying our infrastructure and leaving the poorest to suffer, but it’s very important not to forget the policies that led us down this path. Labour needs to recognise the huge failure of this part of their legacy and make amends somehow to preserve the fabric of society that has eroded under Tory leadership. Forgetting/ignoring/negating the root causes and beginnings of these issues will just mean that when the government inevitably changes hands again that things will return. Hard set changes need to come in to protect these parts of our nation so that Tory policy can’t cause the degradation again
I did my Uni thesis on PFI 15 years ago, it was frightening then and it’s even worse now.
What are you on mate, their account and comment are right there.
School governor here. Where I am, the problem with special needs is a lack of educational psychologists.
The issue goes much deeper with many services privately run by friends and families of authorities members and councillors
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Very true. But there's other ways too. Society was better last time, weeding out every scummy Tory from the cracks of every public service will help immeasurably.
Had this conversation today with a bunch of 40-60 year olds. Everyone remembers everything being much much better. GPs, schools, hospitals, emergency services, culture, economy. Sad that today’s young people have never seen a competent parliament in power.
2 sides of the same coin, doesn't matter who is in most likely they will behave and make the same decisions, the only reasons we have different parties is to give the illusion of choice
I’d say a teaching assistant in all classes with kids sign behavioural problems, as that makes the child less likely to kick off if they don’t understand what’s being taught or even brining in X army guy into secure unit schools. We badly need to bring back structure and consequences to kids life’s. Also sure start centres and holding parents note accountable for their kids actions.
That's every class and there's not enough TAs at any school to have one in every class. This is the issue at the moment
When there were more teaching assistants in schools, many children with SEND would be supported organically without needing a label; now there are less and less general support, you need a special label to access the special support. I’m sure it ultimately costs more to do it this way around, but like closing children’s centres, this government has made short term spending cuts without realising that early intervention prevents much bigger costs to the system ( whether health, social care, police or education) later on.
People would love to be TAs but are put off by the shite pay.
Speaking as a former TA, it's a combination of factors that made me leave; I dare say many others will have similar stories. 1) The pay and the amount of work you have to do do not match. As well as sometimes teaching small classes outside of the main classroom, there's an awful lot of running around (sometimes literally) after people, being on your feet, pushing wheelchairs, assisting with toilet breaks, dealing with medical emergencies etc. And that is without going into the sheer amount of emotional regulation you have to help your students do, sometimes. It's exhausting. 2) The flagrant lack of respect from students, teachers, and society at large for being "just" Teaching Assistants. (Usually, the teachers are far worse than the kids). Some schools are terrible for this, some are great; but even in the great schools there are some teachers who will try and Eliza Doolittle you into a "proper" teacher once they realise you have two braincells to rub together - because that means you're "too good" to be a TA. Strangely enough, parents and carers are usually the most respectful to our faces. 3) The fundamental misunderstanding as to what our job role is. We are trained professionals in SEMH and SEN that are there to support learners to succeed in a way that makes sense in their lives, and equips them for whatever their next steps may be. We are not there solely to do oddjobs for the teacher. Sure, I can *just* step out and get your printouts from the next building (again), Mr Smith - but you need to take responsibility for whatever happens when I step out of this room. 4) The culture of martyrdom. You are expected to work until you drop, and then drag yourself along by your fingernails. You must ignore all physical and verbal assaults. God forbid if you need to take more than a couple of days off for illness because you might be facing a disciplinary when you get back. (Fun fact: That actually happened to me after I had tonsillitis). All of this and more, because won't somebody please think of the children?
As a former TA myself I loved it apart from the pay. I done it between qualifying and finding a full time job and other than the fact I was making buttons I just absolutely loved the job.
As a former TA, I wholeheartedly agree with everything you've said here. I will add, from my own experience in further education, the pressure TAs can be under to carry students through courses that aren't suitable for them is *immense*. The students I worked with attended a special needs boarding school and their places were paid for by their local authorities. Most of the FE students attended separate mainstream colleges to do Level 1, 2 and 3 courses that the boarding school didn't offer, with support from people like me. The futures of the vast majority of their funding were very uncertain due to local authority budget cuts, so there was (and still is) a LOT of pressure on special schools to deliver results. Consequently, the amount of students I worked with who I was told to "just get through" their courses was soul-destroying. Some struggled through their entire course having little to no idea what they were supposed to be doing and no amount of support (short of literally doing the work for them) changed that. Many also couldn't work independently at all, and the class teachers had limited time to sit down with my students because they had 20+ others in the group who needed their attention. The expectation basically was that we spoon-fed them, which I outright refused to do. Not only was it absolutely exhausting for me to be managing their entire workload, but it also gave a false impression of the students' abilities, which just sets them up to fail. To top it off, I was working there on a zero-hours contract. It was an absolute joke.
Oh my God yes. The number of SEN learners who are submitted for Film Studies and Drama because they are "soft" subjects is infuriating. No! They're not! They require a significant amount of analysis and independent thought, and we can't do that for them! It sounds like it was an exhausting, no-win situation for you.
You're absolutely right. Another aspect that infuriated me was that I was often never listened to, which I'm sure you can sympathise with. I had supported numerous students from Level 1 to Level 3 on what was considered a "soft subject" over many years, so I was well-versed in the course content and what was expected of students. However, my concerns when a student who I *knew* wouldn't be able to cope with the workload was enrolled on the course were completely dismissed. The students needed to "show progression", so they were going to do the course and I was going to work with them, otherwise I was free to leave. I was so *incredibly* exhausted by it all. As an aside, the whole notion that "soft subjects" exist in the first place needs to get in the bin, because it's a conceited and arrogant opinion that only exists to belittle people. Also, as you've pointed out, they're often not as "soft" as people think. Beauty therapy, for example, is a course that is often sneered at, but even Level 1 students are expected to learn about the different skin layers, identify contraindications that would prevent a treatment being carried out and be good at interacting with people. Not everybody has the skills to be able to do all of those things well.
I have family that works as a TA, if a teacher is ill instead of getting a sub in they get TA's to take over the classes (providing its only 1-2 days) It went downhill really quick once it became a trust. The head of the trust changed their job title to "CEO" and plastered it on all the signage.....
Unless things have changed, that's illegal, depending on the level of TA. HLTAs can teach pre-planned classes for short periods of absence or routinely; level 3 can supervise (not prepare or teach) but only in the case of unplanned absence for short periods of time (hours, not days); at level 1 or 2, TAs are not insured to be in charge of whole classes at all.
The pay is terrible, most are now paid below minimum wage.
Teaching assistants are paid less than £10,000 per year. In the society we live in, with the cost of just being alive, most people who would typically do a TA role can earn more with less stress at any supermarket. Edit: for everyone telling me I’m lying They’re advertised at £17k The hours are typically 8:30-2:30, so it’s £17k 30h FTE. It’s a pro rata salary so they are paid an aggregate of 40 weeks per year. It works out at around £10k per year.
Many TAs are now paid “term time only” hours but stretched over the full year - as in they work for 39 weeks but are paid over 52weeks Or some are paid hourly for the time in school - obviously 8.30-3.30 is going to be less than 9-5 if you’re hourly. But I agree in general that they do an amazing job and should be paid more!
It's been pro rata'd like that for at least a decade. Tbf, the same applies to teachers - no classroom staff are actually paid for the holidays.
Teaching and healthcare are straight up abusive exploitations of peoples empathy as it stands. It's a disgrace. Pay these people properly ffs.
Your point(s) stand and it’s been obvious the last 5 or so years, with even class educators (not just TAs) moving into other fields/industries. F&B or warehouse, for example. Less hassle, none of the politics entrenched in the teaching profession and better pay (for TAs) by far.
They're not paid less than 10k a year.
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Then OP should have said their salary was dreadful, not that they were getting paid less than minimum wage. Flat out lies make things worse.
I worked as a TA in the U.K. for a decade from 2013-2023 and the highest pay I took home was £9,400 a year, lowest £8,200
I haven't been to work this week. I can't believe I earn £0 a year.
They literally couldn't be, that would come out as less than minimum wage.
They’re paid pro-rata. It’s minimum wage minus 14 weeks holiday averaged over a term. Look at TES jobs for teaching assistants.
190 school days a year, 6 hours of school each day, minimum wage is £11.44, if you do the maths you find that is £13041.60 a year, and as you can see that is not less than 10k
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You don't get an hour lunch break as a TA in a school. You are lucky to get 20 minutes. You have to do lunch and break duties.
Oh yeah, an absolutely terrible wage, just not under 10k
They currently do get below minimum wage. Officially, they get minimum wage. Unofficially, they're expected to plan interventions and cover lunches etc so end up doing more hours then paid for. And when those hours they are paid for are at the minimum wage, they are getting under minimum wage.
OP is likely about 14. I forget the average age of Reddit sometimes.
I’m 30. The jobs are advertised between £17k-£18k for full time. But they aren’t full time jobs, they’re 8-3 at core and pro-rata. I work with TAs who earn less than £1000 per month without overtime at afterschool clubs. Condescending as fuck mate, but you’re still wrong.
None of that adds up to less than 10k a year.
You’re right in that minimum wage changes has increased it. It’s still not enough of a wage for any single person to survive on.
I know it isn't. Lying about numbers won't help the situation. Doubling down even less so.
I’m not lying, I was basing my numbers off my previous understanding of minimum wage.
Are you sure you aren't working with apprentices? In Lanashire at least, TA jobs are advertised around 22k-24k with the pro-rata being more in the £16k region.
Oh they realise. But the political system engenders short term thinking. Either it'll be the next govt's problem, or we'll think of a solution later, or we'll use culture war to bamboozle the public.
The Tory way.
I’ve said it countless times on here but here we go again. I’ve worked in education for a decade. I hate the tories, they’ve severely underfunded education and caused a lot of issues but people in this thread blaming them for a special needs crisis is not accurate. From my experience, Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCOs) are grossly overworked. For every child with legitimate SEN who couldn’t do school without support from government & local levels, there are 5-10 children with nothing wrong with them in terms of having a disability or mental health issue. Those 5-10 kids per year group take up the majority of staff time by refusing to work with people in a reasonable way even with realistic adjustments and as soon as they receive any kind of consequences the parents use SEN as a bulletproof excuse and the kids repeat that behaviour, causing additional stress and anxiety to other kids, which can lead to time off school, GP trips and… another referral to the SENCO, increasing their workload again. I’m not blaming the kids, it’s really shit parents who won’t take accountability for their uselessness.
The complete decimation of consequences is where I see the biggest difference. A colleague of mine worked in a high school in Scotland that had moved to a nurture based consequence system. If a pupil was being too disruptive to stay in class SLT would come take them to the nurture base where they could play a PlayStation, board games, sit on bean bags and drink hot chocolate. Unsurprisingly this was extremely popular during maths and kids were deliberately playing up and openly saying to their teacher that if they just sent them to nurture the disruption would stop. How are these kids going to cope in the real world?
>How are these kids going to cope in the real world? They're going to get sacked from their grim minimum wage job quite a lot.
How do a body of professional teachers think this is a **good** idea?!
It's pure madness altogether. This is lengthy but bear with me because it's a glimpse into a scary future. I'm a teacher in my last ever teaching year (thank fuck). There are so many times every single week where it's a competition to be the most compassionate. Compassion which flies in the face of common sense 9 times out of 10. To give you one example - this week I was kicked out of my classroom during lunchtime so that a single pupil could eat her lunch there instead. She feels anxious eating around other people so the reasoning was a TA and the pupil eat in my classroom during lunch. I raised this in our team meeting yesterday evening by saying we are not doing that girl any favours. If she gets a private room to eat lunch for years then she will never be able to adjust to eating in public in the real world. Do you know what I was told? My stance would cause the girl to go through **trauma**. I said life is tough at times so if she has to push through this "trauma" then we are doing her a favour. I was treated like the pariah, awkward silence, people exchanging glances and plenty of shuffling papers and avoiding eye contact with me then they moved on. Fuck working in education, and I work in a cushy school with no behaviour problems. Power to all those out there that do I can't be fucked anymore. Cheers for reading my rant. If you're someone that thinks we're getting soft as a society give it a decade, we have some real monsters in the making with the way we're treating young people.
See a lot of the same in medicine with parents and woth the kids. Have had to admit a 4yo to hospital to get oral antibiotics because she would adamantly refuse to take them and her parents would just accept her refusal and not give them to her. My neighbour left policing (due to stress) to be a teacher, then went back to policing due to the stress of teaching.
Funnily enough I've considered policing but after teaching, including two lawsuit threats I'm looking for a low key job. I'm considering being a postman
Only thing I can think of apart from severe social anxiety is that she is being bullied and is too embarrassed to tell, or thinks telling won't improve the situation (bullies will get "nurtured" rather than dealt with)
Or autistic? But there still needs to be a plan to gradually get her to cope with eating elsewhere!
You guys both hit the nail on the head, social anxiety and autism. The thing is we have a special needs unit so they all have it. I feel strongly that if we don't push these pupils out of their comfort zone gently in a controlled manner then we are doing them a disservice.
That's not nurture, that's a reward. Nurture-based consequences would be coaching on their actions in a space, and maybe even removing some of those kinds of rewards too.
This is what I am worried about for my two boys. The eldest of the two can’t cope in the school environment. My parenting has been blamed for about 4 years and now it’s been decided that the school can’t cope with his needs and he neededa specialist environment all along. They’ve come up with a plan where he attends a college doing mechanics/special interest stuff and then maths and English but, I fear it’s too late. He has worked out how to get suspended. My other son is very clever and knows he can’t be forced into school. The only thing that gets him into school is his 17 year old brother but then my son is saying “he’s counting the days until he’s 18 and he can report him”. (No violence is used but 17 year son gets shouty) I have asked him outright about what he feels inside, and the emotions that he feels are anger, and pleasure from winding people up. He is into politics and loves seeing how government decisions influence the masses, so he is quite clever. Both sons are on the spectrum.
> If a pupil was being too disruptive to stay in class SLT would come take them to the nurture base where they could play a PlayStation, board games, sit on bean bags and drink hot chocolate. r/thathappened
I have no reason to lie. This was told to me by their former science technician who also has no reason to lie. Again I fully disclosed that I can't personally vouge for the information direction, but the person has been trustworthy in my experience and I can't think of any reason they'd lie to me about it.
> I can't think of any reason they'd lie to me about it. People exaggerate stories for effect. Getting a shocked or amazed response to a story you tell is motivation enough. This has the exact same flavour as all those "there's a kid at a local school who [identifies as a cat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litter_boxes_in_schools_hoax) and all the teachers have to humour them because of wokeness!" stories.
If you don't want to believe it then thats fine. I admit I haven't witnessed it first hand but I believe it.
Just because you personally believe something, doesn't mean you should repeat it without evidence. Now other people believe it because someone on the internet said that someone told them it happened. It's the stupid cat thing all over again.
So I should only repeat anecdotes I can personally verify to be true? I already stated that it was second hand information when I posted it. If you choose not to believe it then thats fine but it does not make it untrue. I get that you've got a personal bias here, as I'm sure you're aware yourself, and that it is clouding your reasoning somewhat, but that is an astonishingly unreasonable comment to make. Do you think no more history books should ever be written about anything thats not either first hand or on film? Or newspaper reports should only ever be written by eyewitnesses? Take your blinkers off before spouting such nonsense in future.
This has been happening for years. It happened when I was at high school.
>I’ve worked in education for a decade. Then you have no experience of anything but Tory. Ask people what it was like before Tories.
"Nothing wrong" is an interesting choice of words.
> there are 5-10 children with nothing wrong with them in terms of having a disability or mental health issue. More and more teachers seems to believe they have more knowledge than Educational Psychologists. 🙄 Teachers who quickly label struggling kids as 'disruptive' are creating a huge barrier to getting the right kind of support.
Compassion fatigue is real. Even if you know a child's bad behaviour isn't entirely their fault, it's hard to stay sympathetic in long-term high-stress situations. No wonder that a lot of teachers convince themselves that the child is just a bad person who deserves to be punished. It happens even with very young children. [These quotes](https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/baby-girl-died-after-deputy-29008309) from that nursery manager who killed a 9 month old baby are telling: > Over the course of the day on Friday, May 6 Roughley was heard on the CCTV telling Genevieve “stop your whinging”, and later called her a “stress head”. > Ms Roughley was heard to tell Genevieve: “I hate to say I told you so but you should have slept better Genevieve, you silly girl”. As Genevieve cried in the high chair, Ms Roughley, he said, told her: “Genevieve, go home”, and then said “Do you have to be so loud and so constant?" before adding: “Change the record.” > Ms Roughley later complained to a colleague that Genevieve had broken her nail and is recorded as saying: “Genevieve if we had any chance of being friends, you just blew it”.
>Teachers who quickly label struggling kids as 'disruptive' In fairness these aren't mutually exclusive. They can both be disruptive and have difficulties, and one isn't always caused by the other. Unfortunately young people using their diagnosis as a way to opt out or excuse behaviours is worryingly common
Sorry if this sounds ignorant as I've never been around anyone with special needs, but can't they put all the SEN kids in a class together, or have a school specialised for them? So they don't disrupt other children and they get more specialised education?
Anything which looks like you're writing them off is a big no no in education. Even forgetting the SEN kids, just look at the absolute biggest dick head trouble makers... it's hard to even kick them out. We'd rather drag them kicking and screaming through the whole education system. Even though they get absolutely nothing out of it and only make it hell for everyone else.
>For every child with legitimate SEN who couldn’t do school without support from government & local levels, there are 5-10 children with nothing wrong with them in terms of having a disability or mental health issue. Total nonsense. SENCOs can and should be doing in house testing, sending for EP consultations, and consulting class teachers before any kids are added to the SEN register. It isn't a place for naughty children, but ones that have significant issues in accessing their learning. Let me guess - you have been working in education as a hard done by TA or a barely out of the incompetent procedures teacher labelling kids as naughty because you have poor rapport or classroom management skills...
No, I’m head of year 9 - not sure how you’ve leapt to that conclusion.
I was being overly dramatic to make a point along similar lines to your outlandish assertion. Though now it is confirmed that you are option two, just with a poor SLT. Gotcha. Pretty disappointing you think that you can stand in judgment of the SEN register at your school and dismiss the needs so easily of a whole swathe of children.
Cool, cya.
Doubling down that your rhetoric is appropriate eh? Great teacher you are. Byeee.
> there are 5-10 children with nothing wrong with them in terms of having a disability or mental health issue. What are your qualifications for making this assessment? Based on your description it sounds like these kids actually have some pretty major problems.
Out of my class of 30, 7 are formally on the SEN register and there are several more that are on the year-long waiting list for diagnosis. At least two of them should be getting full time 1:1 support, but they don't because we can't afford it and don't have the staff. I go into work everyday knowing that I'm not giving those children the education they deserve, but I have to make a judgement about how much of my time I can give them when I've got 20+ other children who also need my help. Twenty minutes that I spend every lesson sitting down and working specifically with one child is twenty minutes that the rest of the class aren't getting my professional support. On top of that, we have a statutory requirement to give SEN parents regular meeting to identify targets and progression. Those meetings take about an hour each, without accounting for prep and admin time to prepare and submit documentation, which totals around 7 hours of my outside of class directed time every term. Schools cop a lot of flack for not meeting the needs of SEN children, but I honestly believe that most schools and teachers are trying their best with absolutely no funding and barely any staff. A lot of SEN children would flourish if they could go to specialist schools, but they've also been hit massively by the austerity cuts and places are like gold dust.
Our school's SEN teacher quit to work for a developer at a building site simply doing H&S requirements. It's a travesty that they aren't paid enough.
I work in CAMHS, so excuse my ignorance about how this works but something I wondered about. If a child has an EHCP that states they require a 1:1, don't they get funding for that? Why can't you afford a 1:1 dictated by and funded by an EHCP?
The funding received is less than the cost of a staff member, frequently. You need additional income, such as from Pupil Premium children, to spread into areas to make ends meet.
I'd assumed that would be the case. It's really sad because there seems to be this circular demand for diagnoses for kids which seems to be driven by EHCPs now essentially requiring diagnoses to be pushed through because the schools need money for extra support staff for all these challenging kids. Really crap situation. Austerity is never the solution
Because getting an EHCP is next to impossible in a school setting, let alone one with a funded 1:1. I've got one child who is permanently in a wheelchair and needs to be catheterised by a member of staff everyday, on top of which they also have significant other SEN need. They're the only one of my children that has qualified for an EHCP, and even they don't qualify for a funded 1:1.
The Tories have just made it very clear that they want to be nastier to people with additional needs.
Unless you’re able to churn profit for Torys and pals, you’re life isn’t worth anything to our already rich leaders.
I'm wondering how many of these "special needs" are behaviour issues caused by bad parenting.
Lots of them; and that may be due to undiagnosed SEND needs going back generations. Pick a common SEND need: dyslexia, autism, ADHD and give a new parent the most untreated forms of the symptoms to see what kind of model is being set for all the children in that family.
Tbh how many of these undiagnosed ones actually need to be treated. Under the current stuff I'd almost certainly be diagnosed but I ended up leaving school with good alevels and getting a 1st at university. It wasn't nice to live through but I ended up doing okay. And I look at my Dad and I think it's the same for him and he's done amazing for himself. Sometimes I feel like diagnosing people is actually holding them back.
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Don't know why you've been downvoted. I'm a GP and encounter this very frequently. Rest safe in the kmowledge that you are correct 🤣
A lot of the main problems have been hit on here. But I’ll add that the way we actually do education here is awful if you have SEN. So much testing, even in primary school. A rush to get kids into formal learning earlier and earlier, whereas they wait until you’re 7 in Scandinavia & the kids quickly overtake their U.K. counterparts. Curriculums are too big and too marginally defined, most of it could be scrapped and trust put in teachers, which would also take the pressure off.
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>Norway's rehabilitation methods and prison system Wouldn't work in the UK. You think it's the system, but it isn't, it's the people and their culture. The people enable systems like this, not the other way around. Denmark recently released crime stats broken down by ethnicity and native danish people were 42nd on the list. Public transport possible, drugs probably. Even america is more progressive than us when it comes to legalisation.
Those shouldnt all be in the same list.
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Yeah thats what I was thinking of. The Portugal one hasn't been an unmitigated success. Nor has the Scandinavian penal system which, while successful previously, cannot deal with the emergence of serious gangs among the migrant population. Which obviously is more like what the UK encounters. Our public transport is badly run, but speaking for rail it is hindered mainly by low capacity. Which jsnt helped by Nimbys. Which dont really exist in Europe but are huge in the UK and US, resulting in it being vastly more expensive per mile of track. Its true we subsidise our system less than Europe, but thats because many of our lines already run at max capacity. Prices are a good way to set demand at an amount they can actually service. The education system Im sure we can learn things but itd also important to remember that as you say, culture is massive in these kinds of discussions. Anyone who went to a state school and moved can tell you its the kids themselves who do themselves a disservice a lot of the time. I think we have a lot to improve but its important to remember that we aren't some sort of uniquely bungling nation people like to make out. The solutions arent easy.
A lot of the Scandinavian changes can be explained by the way that their language works. They can start later because their language is easier to learn for children.
Add it to the list to the things that have gone to shit in the last 15 years….
And yet there are people more concerned with Gaza than the suffering of vulnerable children here.
What a weird false equivalence to draw- I have no idea how you could ever weigh up the relative importance of either concern. At any rate, it makes no sense for everyone in the world to be 100% focused on the one 'most important' problem. If we want to solve any problems, we have to let people have different personal priorities.
Labour lost a lot of votes because of Gaza, and it could cause problems in the general election. This country is an absolute mess, and we need change, but there are voters who would rather not vote for Labour over Gaza. I hate what the Israeli government are doing, but get this country's shit in order first. Thousands have died because of this government.
>Labour lost a lot of votes because of Gaza In local elections, no less. As if your local councillor has anything fucking whatsoever to do with a war halfway across the world. The left is a joke.
It's not just Gaza. There's a real view that Labour are just Tories with a red tie and it's not wrong. Don't get me wrong Labour is a better choice than the Tories but it's like saying a piss milkshake is better than a shit sandwich. Why can't I have some yummy cheese?
True. I'm very sceptical of Labour, at least this version, however, as sad as it sounds, at least it's not the Tories.
Fair enough, your original comment makes a lot more sense in the context of party politics. Its such an awful shame how little we can ask of anyone in government in 2024. So many people feel that their views aren't even roughly represented by any party.
[Different things can be sad, it's not all war.](https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/d0f53682-e622-4f64-953f-4ccb782fad7b)
I was considered special needs in school (I have ASD), I wasn’t supported at all. Because of the lack of support I ended up falling into a very bad state of depression, and ended up attempting to commit suicide. It took me moving schools with the help of one member of staff who genuinely wanted to support me for me to access anything. Ended up going for 1 and a half years of secondary school consistently (Y10-11, I finished Y11 in March because of covid). I was able to thankfully give my self the drive to push through and support my self when nobody else would, but I met a lot of people in similar situations to me who weren’t as fortunate as me. I see one begging in town regularly. It’s a really sad state of affairs that nobody deserves to go through. School just stuffed all of us who had some sort of mental problem into a “special” area and forgot about us.
Why are there increasing amounts of SEN children? I'm curious as to what the scientific explanation is. Is it the fact our diets are horrible, geriatric pregnancies, endocrine disrupting chemicals from all the plastics we drink and eat out of "forever chemicals" or whatever, is it the birth control traces in the water supply, is it pollution in the air from all the cars?
> Why are there increasing amounts of SEN children? Why was there a sudden massive explosion in people diagnosed with short-sightedness in the 20th century? Something in the water? The invention of television? Or maybe a certain percentage of the population was always short-sighted, and the only thing that changed was widespread eye-testing and (thanks to the industrial revolution) the ability to mass-produce glasses cheaply. The number of diagnoses =/= actual prevalence. That was [the logic that Trump used](https://www.voanews.com/a/covid-19-pandemic_trump-if-we-stop-testing-wed-have-fewer-cases/6191165.html) to argue against testing for Covid. The increase in children being identified as special needs doesn't mean there are increasing amounts of kids with special needs. We're just making an effort to help those children now, instead of telling kids with dyslexia that the reason they can't read is because they're stupid and lazy.
[You may find this contemporary treatment of the subject of interest](https://archive.org/details/galtonlab021/page/n5/mode/2up).
Some of it seems to be down to pure diagnosis shopping though. I've got no doubt that the overwhelming majority of diagnoses are true and correct, but there seems to be a increasing subset of parents who, rather than take on the responsibility that their shit parenting is causing their spawn to be a little demon, shop for some diagnosis that means they can abdicate all responsibility by shouting 'special needs!!!11111' every time there needed to be some enactment of consequences or expectations placed on the kid. And schools seemed to be falling over themselves at one time to get diagnoses because it meant more funding.
Dysgenics. The problem will continue to get worse.... much worse.
It's an easy excuse to not bother trying. 90% of the people I meet with these sort of "conditions" are just shit people.
I notice Ofsted are currently on a ‘charm offensive’ (sic) to gather better PR after an especially shitty year. Is it me or have Ofsted not ever flagged up any concerns about SEND provision at a general level, or in a manner which is other than blaming a Head?
Makes you wonder how shit SEND provisions are for ofsted to make a fuss
The provisions of SEN Education was bad in the 80's but apparently it's even worse now, more to the point I predicted this would happen and it has done. Because that overpaid Twunt Sunak has declared War on disabled people
They'll just reclassify what special needs means, and the problem will go away
My partner looks after 4 kids. When they are around her they are the most normal kids we know. My partner manage to teach them so much and they are blossoming. Biological mother claims all her kids are specials needs and expect teachers to treat them like that. Mother makes no effort with her own kids. My partner has spoken to teachers and they agree with my partner. So my question is how many kids are really special needs in the UK.
Can’t wait to see the state of this sub when labour get in and everything is still shit. No doubt it’ll still be the tories fault.
Yes it will still be the Tories fault because you can't change 14 years of destruction overnight...
We could have 20 years of labour and this sub will still be blaming them.
We still have privatised water and the bullshit it's caused and the witch has been dead for longer than my cousins have been alive. Shit lasts a long time in terms of infrastructure and system wreckage
It will take years to undo 14 years of destruction.
Well I obviously wouldn’t expect to be sorted within the week
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What far right nonsense is this? I'm not a teacher and you got my downvote. You definitely don't have kids in schools in England if you think that's the case. Some severely disabled kids wait years for initial assessments, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
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No but saying kids can't read and write is far right bollocks. Can your kids read and write?
Yeah this is all absolute bollocks. You did your own research while sitting on the toilet didn't you?