Category: Getting to Know You
I'm a teacher of English, History and Classical Studies at a boarding school in Cheshire. Would like to discuss disability issues in the field of private education.
Ken
hey and welcome.
hope you like the site.
hello.
What exactly is it you would like to discuss?
"disability issues" covers a fairly large spectrum, especially in the current climate where children are sent to mainstream as opposed to specialist schools.
Here most individuals have visual impairments and will have been educated in a variety of settings in different parts of the world.
I personally attended a a specialist school for the blind in Exeter and then a similar school but in South Africa. Things were a lot different back then and now it is of course more the norm for children to be educated in mainstream.
Until recently I was chair of governors (and responsible for SEN) at a state primary school, so I do have some understanding of inclusion (albeit at primary level and state not private).
Your best bet would be to post specific topics on the boards or to seek out conversation on the main chat site (just use the quicknotes) although be aware that not everyone will be open to discussion.
hth.
hello, and welcome to the zone.
Thank you all for your welcomes. Sugarbaby, I've done as you suggested and started a topic on the board. What I'm primarily interested in exploring is how the private sector is lagging behind the state sector in terms of provision for disabled students, and if anyone has any personal experience of this. It's not true in all private schools, and the larger ones, with greater resources, have done much more, but many of the smaller ones simply haven't.
I think ultimately the answer often lies in the word "private," many (although as you say, not all) private schools fail to make provision for children with disabilities for the simple reason that they can.
Ultimately the state sector has rules and processes in place to hopefully ensure that children with disabilities gain the best possible outcomes within the education sector, be that through statementing to ensure funding for one-to-one support, individual education programmes (IEP's) which cater to the needs of the specific child, close co-operation between all bodies i.e. the senco, the parents, and external support such as speech and language therapists, education psychologists etc.
Obviously this is not a fail-safe process, and not all state schools deliver the same level of support, but then each school is different in its own right.
The difference with the private sector is that they are not bound by any regulation that states this support has to be offered, and to put it bluntly pastoral care is often signifficantly lacking in many of them in the first place, as their goals are aimed more towards academic atainment rather than the seeming development of the whole child.
And at the end of the day, their students are paying customers. And if the customers want their children to learn and be bright and inteligent and, let's be honest, not in a class with children who are disruptive due to any number of diagnosed conditions, then the school will often cater more to the needs of the masses rather than the specific few. After all if you're paying £4000 a term for little Tarquen to attend private school, then you're going to want to see your money is well appropriated, towards *your* child's education, not towards the specific needs of a child who many would question shouldn't be there in the first place.
In my experience the private sector, far from ignoring the development of the whole child in favour of academic attainment, on the contrary puts a very strong emphasis on this, and regards this as one of its main adavantages over the state sector. Nor are all the students in the private sector "little Tarquins", either literally or metaphorically: they come from a very diverse range of backgrounds, and many different funding arrangements exist. In the school that I teach at, for example, no student pays any fees at all, and all expenses are met from endowment funds. This is, admittedly, not the norm, but almost all private schools have a system of scholarships, partial or full bursaries, sliding fee scales, and various other facilities to promote the admittance of students from less affluent backgrounds. The wealthy families are, therefore, already subsidising the less well-off ones, in addition to having to fund the state sector through taxation.
Don't misunderstand me though, I believe a fully funded state sector is essential. The problem is, we haven't got one. Not only is it starved of resources, but is subject to so many educational whims and fads as to render it virtually unworkable in places. The abolition of grammar schools, to cite the most common complaint against it by parents, was a disaster for the working classes, and it's no accident that social mobility has more or less ground to a halt in the decades since that particular piece of social engineering was forced through. This is one of the many reasons why so many people are turning to the private sector, having to scrimp and save in order to do so. This isn't right, and it isn't fair, because there are only so many places available, and a very large number of kids from low income backgrounds will be denied a decent education, despite the private sector bending over backwards to try and accomodate them.
The private sector is still far from perfect, which leads me back to my original point. If it's to take up the slack from the failing state sector, a role that it never sought, but which it has nevertheless acquired, it needs to set its own house in order. Very few private schools these days could be described as "cramming" schools in the late Victorian sense, but some could certainly benefit from widening their outlook.
I'll not weigh in on this discussion, though it's interesting. I wouldn't have anything meaningful to add.
However, I do want to welcome you to the zone. I think you will really enjoy the boards, some of them at least.
Anyway, welcome. If you have any trouble or questions send out a quick note or a private message.
Bob
thought I said hi but hi and welcome to the zone.