Don't Send Him in Tomorrow E-Book

Jarlath O'Brien

• Herausgeber: Independent Thinking Press
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

In Don't Send Him in Tomorrow, Jarlath O'Brien shines a light on the marginalised, disenfranchised and forgotten children of today's schools. The percentage of children achieving the government's expected standard in benchmark tests is national news every year. The progress that children with learning difficulties and SEN make is never discussed, because it is not understood. That is a problem. The bone-crushing infrastructure which professionals have to negotiate is a problem. The fact that so many parents have to fight tooth and nail so that the needs of their children are met, something the rest of us would consider a basic entitlement, is a problem. This book describes how the system and can be improved if and when these marginalised children are given higher priority by the powers that be. There is a widespread lack of understanding about special schools, the work they do, and the children they educate - the sector is largely invisible. Jarlath O'Brien has become increasingly frustrated by this, and the varying quality of provision for children with learning difficulties and SEN in mainstream schools. The successes of special schools and pupil referral units in Ofsted inspections are just not celebrated or analysed in the same way that mainstream schools' are. While, mainstream schools have their hands tied by fears over progress measures. There is a human cost to the accountability culture that reduces schooling to data and judgements: this is felt most profoundly by children with SEN and their families. Jarlath shares some of the problems he's witnessed with inclusion and exclusion: mainstream schools actively encouraging children with SEN to look elsewhere, parents reporting their children have been formally or informally excluded from school and socially excluded by the parents of other children, children asked to leave their mainstream schools because of their behaviour - usually behaviour that is caused by their needs not being adequately addressed, children who are in school but isolated from their peers. If a child can't participate in activities or trips with the rest of the class, or spends much of the day working one-to-one with a teaching assistant, is this really inclusion? The Pupil Premium has been established to ensure that children in receipt of free school meals are not disadvantaged - why does something similar not exist for children with SEN? Every health and wealth indicator that you could use to measure people with learning difficulties and special educational needs (SEN) reveals something alarming. They die younger. They work less. They are more likely to live in poverty or end up in prison or face mental health difficulties. They are much more likely to be excluded from school. They are more likely to be bullied at school. This has to end. We all have to choose to commit to recognising that society, as it is today, is a difficult place for young people to thrive. When you have autism, or Down syndrome, or any physical or learning difference, it's even harder - and the system as it stands isn't helping. We need to acknowledge that this is not right; that such a state of affairs must change; and that we all have a part to play in making that change happen. Jarlath offers suggestions for politicians, Ofsted, local authorities, head teachers, SENCos, teachers and teaching assistants about what they can do to make a difference. For all politicians, head teachers, SENCOs, teachers and parents.

Leseprobe

Praise for Don’t Send Him in Tomorrow

Jarlath O’Brien has lifted the cloak on the invisible children in our system. With a humbling combination of academic rigour and deep passion and care for children, he shines a light on the thousands of children who should have a better deal than they do. But what is so uplifting about this book is that it is filled with stories of how pupils, supported by their teachers and other professionals, have achieved extraordinary things. At times, it challenged me to think about my own leadership and what I could have done differently. This is a must-read for all those leading schools today.

Andy Buck, Managing Director of Leadership Matters, author and speaker

In intricate detail, drawn from profound personal and professional experiences, O’Brien paints a picture of a special needs system rapidly running out of options. With urgency and acuity he sets out imperatives for government, school leaders, teachers and agencies to build a future for those young people whose entitlement should be, but isn’t yet, the most accepted truth.

Barney Angliss, Special Needs Jungle

This forthright book is a must for every staffroom. It shines a light on the shortcomings of the education system for children with SEN. It highlights inequalities, whilst going a long way to bringing these valuable yet vulnerable members of our communities out of the shadows.

Jarlath is honest about his own professional failings in the past, as he seeks to educate other teachers by example and create a culture where SEN is everybody’s business.

Until a holistic approach to understanding the uniqueness of each pupil, and how their strengths can be developed and celebrated, is implemented we will never move beyond mere labels.

This is truly a book that will galvanise change.

Hayley Goleniowska, parent, speaker, former SEN assistant and author

This is a hard-hitting and timely read at a moment of intense educational change that affects all children – including those with special educational needs and disabilities. Jarlath pulls no punches when he sets out the current situation and future prospects for the most vulnerable young people in our society and demands change from policy makers, school leaders and local authorities.

This book is well-researched, and full of real examples that give meat to the bones of a disturbing story that challenges us in the way that we as a society treat our weakest members and their families.

Everyone who has an interest in education, particularly school leaders and policy makers, should read this book – because a good education, one that prepares young people for adult life, belongs to all our children.

Nancy Gedge, SEN teacher and TES columnist

I have long enjoyed Jarlath O’Brien’s wit and style, and this book is no exception. The author has a winning formula of anecdote and gossip, rooted in deep experience, reflection and research.

Roy Blatchford CBE, Founding Director, National Education Trust

Extremely considered, reflective and honest, Don’t Send Him in Tomorrow is a thought-provoking and informative read for anyone who has experience of the education of people with learning disabilities. Perhaps more importantly, it is an essential read for anyone who doesn’t.

Simon Knight, Deputy Head Teacher, Frank Wise School

Jarlath O’Brien

Don’t Send Him in Tomorrow

Shining a light on the marginalised, disenfranchised and forgotten children of today’s schools

For Uncle Thomas (1948–1984) who, I have only recently realised, taught me all those years ago that perfect love casts out fear.

Contents

Title PageDedicationAcknowledgementsForeword by Timothy NovisIntroductionChapter 1:The Apprenticeship of ObservationChapter 2:Hiding in Plain SightChapter 3:Don’t Send Him in TomorrowChapter 4:World BeatersChapter 5:Roadkill Littering the Highway to OutstandingChapter 6:Herd ImmunityChapter 7:Driving Without BrakesChapter 8:A Relief Map of the HimalayasChapter 9:Fear Wants Nothing to ChangePostscriptGlossaryBibliographyIndexCopyright

Acknowledgements

Thanks go to:

Emma, Aidan and Hannah, for showing me what really matters.

Alex Ewen, for being the first follower.

Debra Bratt, Brad Goodwin, Tim Novis, Eddie Owen, Antony Power and Kim Walker, for being the epitome of modest, professional volunteers and for their gentle, yet persistent, hands in the small of my back.

The parents who agreed to talk to me about their experiences in preparation for writing this book. I am grateful to them for their candour, and they should know that I take significant professional sustenance from their tenacity and dignity. The accounts involving parents and children have been anonymised but their stories have been faithfully told here, either as they were recounted to me or as I have witnessed first-hand.

Ian Gilbert, for encouraging me to put pen to paper and for caring about and seeing this group of young people.

The inspiring band of people all over the world who dedicate their lives to working with children and adults with learning difficulties, and who are a joy to work with.

The staff, students, parents and governors of Carwarden House Community School, Haybrook College and Holyport Manor School (now Manor Green School), for teaching me far more than I ever taught them.

Foreword by Timothy Novis

‘Monday’s child is fair of face Tuesday’s child is full of grace, Wednesday’s child is full of woe, Thursday’s child has farto go…’

My daughter Vivian was born on a Thursday, and I can remember that night with chilling clarity. As the doctor held her towards my mother-in-law, I could see a mutual look of concern tinged with an antiseptic certainty, and then their eyes turned to me, and turned downwards.

Then it was home for the agonising wait for the results of the blood tests and the empirical evidence, as scientific as it was undeniable, that she has an extra pod on her twenty-first chromosome – Trisomy 21 – Down syndrome.

My first telephone call, in an attempt to assuage my own anxieties, was to my spiritual director – a much wiser and somewhat older fellow priest with whom I regularly met. ‘In a year from now, you’ll tell me what a blessing she is.’ It didn’t take a year. Very quickly, Vivian established herself in a very special place in my heart and in the hearts of so many others. She was to be a violet in a field of daisies. She was the ticket we bought to vacation in one particular place, only to discover we were to be taken by forces beyond our control somewhere very different indeed, but yet no less amazing. We had just received membership in a club we really hadn’t ever thought about joining.

If I were to describe my outlook on life as a kind of Venn diagram, my three conjoined circles would be titled ‘Dad’, ‘Chaplain’ and ‘Chair’. Vivian’s proud Dad. The Chaplain at Wellington College. And Chair of the Board of Governors of Vivian’s amazing school – Carwarden House. And of course, at the centre of my Venn diagram, is Vivian herself – informing, enriching and enlivening all my other roles.

But until I happened upon being in such a close relationship with a child with special needs, I was like the thousands of others who never really saw such children or knew anything about them. I took the attitude that ‘children are an investment in the future’, and failed to see that such an approach looked at the younger generations in terms of a kind of economic transaction – what we put in will be paid back with interest. I didn’t realise that I tended to see people as a means to an end, rather than as ends unto themselves. And that really, all of us are human beings, and were never meant to be merely human doings.

I suspect that departments of education throughout the world really struggle with those attitudes towards our children. When making policy, that is the lens through which they make sense of their decisions.

Children with special needs force us to change reading glasses. Even just to move around the room and sit in a different chair to gain a new perspective. And that is their very gift.

If we do, as Jarlath so wisely recommends, shine a light on them, we will come to realise that it is really they who exude their own light, who call us, ‘average people’, out of the shadows and into a deeper understanding of – you name it.

Vivian, my violet, is a bright light in her own special way. I wouldn’t have said that on that baffling Thursday, 16 years ago.

Father Timothy Novis is chaplain at Wellington College

Introduction

‘The moral test of government is how it treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.’

Hubert Humphrey, former Vice-President of the United States of America (remarks at the dedication of the Hubert H. Humphrey Building, 1 November 1977)

One of the occupational hazards of the life of a teacher is the inadvertent encounter with a student outside school: the crossing of paths in the bread aisle at the supermarket or, more surprisingly when it happened to me, in Macy’s department store in New York one bitter February half-term. It can be uncomfortable for both student and teacher; the teacher’s internal computer instantly reverts to work mode and, usually depending on the age of the child, they are either delighted or horrified to run into someone who doesn’t exist in their mind beyond the boundary of the school gates.

How was it possible, then, for me to live within 50 metres of Sean, one of my students, for two years before I became aware of it? Our finely tuned radar will normally spot a child from school long before they have seen us. If a student lived at the bottom of the street, you’d know about it, surely?

I discovered that Sean and I are neighbours when I was signing off the paperwork for the annual review of his statement of special educational needs (SEN). The address caught my eye as I was sure it contained a typing error – he couldn’t possibly live there; I’d know about it. How could a student in my school live within shouting distance of my front door and yet be invisible to both me and the local community? A moment’s thought told me why.

Sean has profound and multiple learning difficulties. He relies entirely on adult support to survive. He is tube-fed. He is incontinent. Sean has very limited fine motor skills. He can communicate in two ways: he can point with his eyes to indicate a preference for one of two simple choices, such as a choice of food, and he will cry when he is unhappy.