I can’t help thinking that without any national benchmarks or progress 8 equivalent - nothing will materially change, other than the location where SEN children are given a substandard education.
We are now in a specialist school, and for all the talk of ‘bespoke education’ and ‘being ambitious’ the reality is they are very much focused on pushing children towards employment options like retail, warehouse work, construction, hairdressing.
This isn’t a criticism of vocational education - which is something mainstream schools are also often poor at - more that pushing pupils down that path is reminiscent of attitudes to working class pupils or girls in the 70s.
Improving pupil wellbeing, happiness and inclusivity are all laudable - but happy pupils without qualifications that reflect their ability will become unhappy and poorer adults.
I do approve of your data driven view for interventions - my experience is there is a lot of wasted money and effort at the moment in delivering interventions without any connection to whether they are successful, or even appropriate.
(We had interventions not in the EHCP while ignoring the ones recommended by the EP. It felt very much like ‘this is what we are running this term’)
I feel for you. I think that any school would not find it unreasonable for you to ask them how they are going to measure the impact of the interventions they are running with your child. This might actually focus them on delivering something valuable.
I can’t help thinking that without any national benchmarks or progress 8 equivalent - nothing will materially change, other than the location where SEN children are given a substandard education.
We are now in a specialist school, and for all the talk of ‘bespoke education’ and ‘being ambitious’ the reality is they are very much focused on pushing children towards employment options like retail, warehouse work, construction, hairdressing.
This isn’t a criticism of vocational education - which is something mainstream schools are also often poor at - more that pushing pupils down that path is reminiscent of attitudes to working class pupils or girls in the 70s.
Improving pupil wellbeing, happiness and inclusivity are all laudable - but happy pupils without qualifications that reflect their ability will become unhappy and poorer adults.
I do approve of your data driven view for interventions - my experience is there is a lot of wasted money and effort at the moment in delivering interventions without any connection to whether they are successful, or even appropriate.
(We had interventions not in the EHCP while ignoring the ones recommended by the EP. It felt very much like ‘this is what we are running this term’)
I feel for you. I think that any school would not find it unreasonable for you to ask them how they are going to measure the impact of the interventions they are running with your child. This might actually focus them on delivering something valuable.