The End of The Beginning …………………….

The End of the Beginning …….

The end of the beginning……… The moment where you have finally achieved something and you are currently furthest away from where the nightmare began…… But know that the next chapter is about to start ……….. 

Like the newest episode of a Si-Fi drama you know the path could go in any direction, uncertainty and anxiety now define you, and ‘TRUST’ in the system apparently designed to protect your child is now a distant memory. 

I have been living a dystopian nightmare….. the most dehumanising and unpleasant experience thrust onto a parent who’s only objective was to support their child through education. Trying to ensure that a child’s real potential can be met in the classroom.. The feeling of accusation that you read about in many posts from parents battling to get support… For this is the journey of a parent walking the SEND education apocalypse…… 

I can hear all those working within Senior Leadership Teams shouting at their computers now in rage…. “We are helping”… “Its not my schools fault”…… “it’s the government”……. “It’s the funding”…….”It’s the outside agencies”……… All blaming each other… All unable to discuss and form unified strategy in order to truly support the CHILD…….The Governments SEND reforms full of empty promise and a catalogue of years of ill thought-out dictate that pretends to have the needs of the child truly embedded at the heart of its policies, and a lack of funds that would go some way to supporting access…… 

Let’s be clear, I have, through this process been transformed form a teacher and educationalist that was truly passionate about education, to one that now hates even the prospect of walking across the playground at the end of the school day. 

Day 76 of lockdown we are being told by the media and the schools about the vulnerability of children currently not accessing education… but what about when it was the school that was making the child vulnerable? I have enjoyed the silence and the almost total removal of the school communication that lockdown has created….. For another post, but let’s discuss the banded around label ‘vulnerable’ in all its forms, and the sectors ability to pass over the reality of the other side of what is making our children VULNERABLE within the system… I haven’t seen that perspective being questioned through our education system. 

As a statement of responsibility, of course, in terms of safeguarding there are many children within the educational system in need of extensive support and are at risk and vulnerable due to their home and external environments. This post is NOT undermining the needs of these children or the actions and support required in these settings.

So I am here, with my child’s school file, ready to embark on the journey of highlighting the issues from the perspective of the parent… to challenge the stages of the path that I have walked for too many years…. And to highlight where perhaps effective change can start, in hope of prompting a ripple of change in the stagnant river of SEND education in schools.  

There is, for children with SEND, potential and undiagnosed SEND, and the broader community of children needing support an enormous vat of limited and back ended communication that distances the community as opposed to invites them in….. I am privileged in many ways to be able to negotiate these systems and have learnt to fight like an arse, but those structures don’t appear to be set up to support all communities and favour the parents that have learnt or have the knowledge to fight getting what they need out of the system and its relation to privilege, bias, need, background and ability to get through the system to ensure support….. but how can schools look through different lenses to ensure parents are really supported and address the disconnect in terms of communication to parents that happening????

So here we are ……… the end of the beginning …

#SEND #ASD #ADHD #Everychildmatters #SENDReform