Yesterday, my younger child was discharged from regular check-ups with their nurse practitioner at the specialist clinic; a cause for celebration. She has been a wonderful support to us along the way to getting the best support we can, but now they’ve started at an appropriate school for their needs, medication is no longer needed to help focus. There are only nine children in the class, and they’re taught in the way they learn best (imagine!).
The nurse said there’s nothing she can now offer that isn’t being provided at school and she’s right; it’s all about the school. A paediatrician at the centre said the same thing: one size doesn’t fit all and the right school can make the difference between a life of underachievement and a fighting chance of success.
A difficult conundrum
What chance does an ASD child, even with TA support, have in a class of thirty (several of whom probably have behavioural difficulties or other issues) when that child has sensory integration problems and needs a quiet environment to be able to put pen to paper at all? What chance for success does a bright child have who reads several years ahead of his age but can barely write, when he’s left to fester in a remedial English group where he refuses to work because he feels his intelligence is being insulted?
This is the conundrum faced by mainstream schools when trying to educate children with complex needs. It’s often just not possible to put such a child in a group with their intellectual peers, because they think so differently, or perhaps can’t keep up with processing or writing speed. But putting them in a group with children who write at the same speed can mean the child is frustrated and not challenged.
Inclusive or inclusion?
The same is true for many bright dyslexic children; where do you put them if they’re clever enough to be in the ‘top’ stream, but whose reading or writing difficulties mean they can’t present their work as well or whose thought processes don’t follow ‘the norm’?
Can mainstream provide sufficient expertise and support for these children? Politicians pushing the all-in ‘inclusive’ agenda say it is perfectly possible, though have yet to show how. Perhaps in a very few schools that have sufficient specialist staff and resources, this may be the case. But for the majority, it just isn’t.
Many ways to inclusion
I was told when my youngest was in mainstream, that there were five accepted methods for doing maths at that level. My child had their own, sixth, very complicated method. Even though they would get the right answer, they were told to conform to one of the methods laid out in the national curriculum. Good luck with that, I thought, because you’ll have a job on your hands.
I have spoken to many highly experienced teachers, special needs teaching assistants, outreach staff and clinicians in the past few years. NOT A SINGLE ONE believes inclusion for children with complex learning styles or difficulties is the answer. Not one.
Why are their views being ignored in the relentless push for everyone to be taught in one setting? Please, if you know, make a comment and enlighten me. It’s possible that I, and they, are all misguided souls. But somehow, I don’t think so.
Updated 11/1/26
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She is a rare disease & chronic pain patient advocate with Ehlers Danlos syndrome.
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