Chapter 7: At the risk of sounding controversial...

"Nobody can change a person but someone can be the reason for a person to change"

Well, the emotional fuck-wittery that has punched me in the face this week has resolved in a huge state of 'blah!' when I finally got to Saturday morning. It has been the most tempestuous rollercoaster of a brain-bleurgh since that week where we were moving to the sticks, then got a job in France so were moving to France, then were informed they no longer had the funding for the position, then were moving to sticks again, Man child went to Wembley, then we sold the house after 4 days, then bought a house - that was fun! Ironically, that was eight years ago this week  - clearly the penultimate week in May is cosmically my shitstorm week! Consequently, I didn't eave the house 'til 4:30pm today, and that was only due to lack of anything to feed the spawn! 

I've actually been in to school this week - twice! I've been doing bits of work at home, but going in was that extra step that I didn't fully feel ready to do. I wanted to go in though; this week being the week that our Y11s left school forever. I started at my school five whole years ago. For all you none-teacher people, five years is the time children in secondary school before they leave for their post-16 opportunities. The day I started, so did a wonderful group of students. I couldn't let them leave without saying goodbye - they were my babies. I am so proud of each and everyone of them and it was so lovely to sit with them for an hour and reminisce about the fun we had and how much they've all grown into wonderful young adults. I then cleared out my desk. So many hugs and 'warm-fuzzies', and that familiar pang of belonging, comfort, safety and indecisiveness came flooding back. I am going to miss it!

The day after, I then paid a little visit to my new workplace (I'm sure one day I'll get bored of saying "I've been summoned to prison!", but right now I'm enjoying the novelty!). As part of the vetting process and following my OH medical assessment, I had to fill in a stress risk assessment. Not going to lie, I left there with the biggest smile on my face. The whole purpose of the assessment being 'what's stressed you out now?' We'll make sure we do what we can to make sure that's not a thing! I sat in an office with two of the gents who interviewed me and felt so surprisingly supported and welcomed already. What stuck me was how incredibly relaxed and chilled out they both were. My new manager comes from an education background and was pressing what a different world it is and how he'd never go back now. I'm excited. It's a role I get to form and make my own. He said there are stresses, but generally everyone pulls together (We got on to the topic of Ofsted - apparently they get a whole weeks notice in prison! Not like the day before a school will get). And as much as he tried to reassure that my main stressor would not be 'a thing', apparently it hasn't been unknown for someone's mum to ring prison and complain about the treatment of their son! But I won't need to be the one who sorts it out.

There's also been a lot of triggering news stories this week - national changes and local diatribe aimed solely at my people. When one actually has time to read the news, it's difficult to actually ignore it sometimes.

I've referenced the social media attacks specifically aimed at my school  before, but this week it has taken a whole new spin. There is a FB group - formed by parents of an ex-pupil who seem solely hell-bent on bringing down the school. Their way of making this happen, is to rally and collect 'evidence' from equally pissed-off parents. There have been surveys, posts of recorded phone calls and meetings and screen shots of emails. This has now culminated in them writing a forty five page report (of which they have personally handed to the police) as well as the local newspaper. They were going to post this story with a headline emanating 'systematic abuse at secondary school'. Fortunately for us, the LEA did intervene and said local newspaper actually came into school to discuss the other side of the coin. I am so proud on my line manager on her response and they published a much more balanced view-point (FB group were fuming!). It is this! The constant attacks and dehumanisation aimed at you that hurt and do the damage! All those feeling once again started bubbling. I sent the report to my ex-colleague who left at the end of the last academic year who responded that she hadn't realised how ingrained the impact that particular issue had had on her and she found herself recoiling with stomach churns since seeing their name in print yet again.

The national news this week in the SEND world is that of proposed EHCP reforms. There seems to be uproar in terms from parents all around - and rightly so. The fight that goes into securing the support for your child is a minefield and many are permanently wounded from the battle. But to be honest, I can't help but feel that this is necessary and welcome it with open arms. Unfortunately, it is all just too late. The damage has been done.

The whole process and function of an EHCP has become obsolete. Desperate parents struggling to watch their children suffering will fight in whatever way they can. They are told funding is the issue, and the only way to secure more funding is a legally binding document where schools are legally obliged to 'make it so'. But what do parents feel they will achieve from getting an EHCP? 1:1 support? Easy entry into a specialist school? Because if we're completely honest, it will generally not equate to either of these things. The whole point of an EHCP is to secure funding over the notional (£6000) when QFT is not enough and needs cannot be met within the classroom. This is where the problem lies - at the root, not the petals.

Do you all remember in 2011 when teachers went on strike against Michael Gove? Gove himself predicted that the strikes would damage the reputation of teachers; in fact I think he probably orchestrated it so it did, ensuring the general population foresaw that we were all money-hungry, greedy, pay-rise hunters. I remember documenting that strike and being so passionate about how his education reforms were going to damage a whole generation. I even took my 4 month old daughter whilst on maternity leave to the picket line wearing her 'CON-DEMNED, Nick Clegg stole my future' T-shirt. Myself, and all the professionals that joined me that day could see what was going to happen.We knew that turning back the time to a world where academia and learning by rote was not going to be the best fit for all students. Some children were going to get left behind. Snd they have! With disatrous consequences leading to the situation that we are in now. And this will continue to happen until schools are not judged on SATS, progress 8 scores and teachers are not persistently critiqued and rewarded on individual progress towards this. 

It's all very well saying that high expectations should be held for individual students, but what respectively, are we expecting them to achieve highly in? Not every child is the same and therefore, there should be a flexibility in what those high expectations should be. From years of working in a specialist setting, it becomes obvious that progress should not just be measured on academic success. Take for example, the opportunity to study functional skills instead of a GCSE. For those who are neurodiverse and find the concept of ambiguity difficult, the art of mastering inference and literary features in English Literature, we are minimising their opportunity to achieve highly. But unfortunately, schools cannot count functional skills data within their progress 8 scores.

In short, every school will not work for every child. Schools cannot begin to support all students in mainstream until there is a radical transition into the accessibility and variation in curriculum - accessibility being the key word! It seems to make so much sense that if a child can access their learning, they will achieve. If schools could offer a greater variation of accessible learning, greater levels of need can b met within the mainstream environment and EHCPS would still have their place, instead of becoming the pointless burden upon schools for which they have become. 

Parental responsibility needs to be taken into account. Some (not all) now seem completely against allowing their children to feel. Again, I get it. It's hard to see your child upset, or anxious, or worried, but these are natural human emotions. We preach positive mental health in schools and reiterate that 'it's ok to not be ok', but then we also don't allow our children to experience raw human emotion and thus develop their proficiency to manage and regulate said emotions. Far too often, if a child is knocked by something at school, it is the school's fault for being too strict and having unrealistic expectations and it is not uncommon for phone calls and emails asking to spare feeling. The hypocrisy that follows seems to roll persistently, and the opinion and satisfaction in the school follows.

I have referenced the 'Gove and Cove' impact on our children before, the Gove being above. But the 'Cove-effect' has also left us with a cohort of overprotective and entitled parents who schools bent over backwards to support. We did what we could then, they now require the same treatment. Some parents honestly believe that schools should change for their child's needs. Obviously reasonable adjustments can and should be made i.e. uniform, but I vehemently stand by the fact that SEND is a difficulty, not an excuse. I have always done what I can in terms of accessibility for individual need, but a school shouldn't have to change rules for individual students. One parents recently requested their child did not follow the school behaviour system and actually, they get distressed when other children receive a consequence so can his whole class be let off too?

I don't understand why, if you disagree with the way a school operates or offers, would you send your child there? There are other options. I know this can often be a battle too, but wouldn't you send them somewhere where you agree with what is on offer? My daughter does not go to her local catchment school because I, as her parent, knew it would not be the most suitable for her. We tell teachers when look at new schools to look round first and see if the school fits for them. If I am going to buy a pair of jeans, I know which shops work the best for my short, curvy physique and which don't. I would not go somewhere where I knew the outcome wouldn't be what I was looking for. Choosing a school for your child should be the same; it should be a buy in. If your child is not going to manage being in a school with 2000 students, send them to a different one! If your child will find it difficult in a small setting where everyone is in each others pockets, send them to a bigger one.

To finish off 'Chronicles of Charlotte's Career', I went to the retirement do for one of my old colleagues at my original school where I spent the first fourteen and a half years of my career. I know I will be ok leaving my current, beloved school and work family, because I've done it before. Leaving that school was the biggest decision I'd ever made at that point. The people there watched me grow, succeed, fail, develop, become a teacher, a wife and a parent and ultimately, become myself. Despite this, I had to leave. I'd have probably stayed until they kicked me out if I hadn't, but that building and those people will always exist in a very special notch engrained on my heart. Seeing them at the end of that week; those beautiful, loving, genuine faces of care, I felt like I've come full circle! I am not the person I was back then. I am stronger and more confident, but there's no way I'd be doing what I'm about to do if they hadn't been part of my journey.

So, as I go into my last ever school holiday, it all feels quite poignant. This is how it ends! But it does brings it all back to why I became a teacher - the kids and the work environment. I am so grateful for the people along the way - all twenty years of them and in each of the three schools I've worked in. To be honest, I'm even grateful for the shit-heads! Because of them I have seen parts of myself which I didn't think were there. I've realised just how tolerant, resilient, respectful and competent I actually am. And as Frida said "Pain, pleasure and death are no more than a process for existence. The revolutionary process is a doorway open to intelligence". What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right? How on earth do we ever expect the next generation to succeed if they can't experience this and know how to fix it for themselves?