Where were all the special needs students when we were at school?

If you're Average you're fine, but if you fall off - or out of that conceived ideal ...

One of our foster kids was said to be ‘autistic’ but he was fine after a while. He had been traumatised and abused by his parents. Certainly not autistic, just scared. You can deny this til the cows come home but it does happen, sadly.

Antonia

*Smacking is very much violence and not discipline. Totally unacceptable*
Yes, as I said, in today's society. Go back forty years and it was very much accepted. Values change. Children have been physically disciplined for as long as children have existed. So what's so special about today's society that makes people think ' we know better.' The behaviour of many of today's children certainly doesn't bear that out.

I started teaching over 50years ago and I have never ever smacked a child. Even when I started it was regarded as a bit old fashioned and unnecessary. I have encountered children who were very difficult but I don't think smacking would have done any of them any good, particularly as some of them had homes where the level of violence far exceeded anything I could possibly administer. It always amuses me that ppeople who have never dealt with children (apart from their own) think they could sort them all out by simply whacking them.

Yes it's a little bit like me popping on to a thread about plumbing and offering my advice.

trisher

Antonia

Smacking is very much violence and not discipline. Totally unacceptable
Yes, as I said, in today's society. Go back forty years and it was very much accepted. Values change. Children have been physically disciplined for as long as children have existed. So what's so special about today's society that makes people think ' we know better.' The behaviour of many of today's children certainly doesn't bear that out.

I started teaching over 50years ago and I have never ever smacked a child. Even when I started it was regarded as a bit old fashioned and unnecessary. I have encountered children who were very difficult but I don't think smacking would have done any of them any good, particularly as some of them had homes where the level of violence far exceeded anything I could possibly administer. It always amuses me that ppeople who have never dealt with children (apart from their own) think they could sort them all out by simply whacking them.

I'm not even 50 years old and I remember teachers smacking kids with rulers, straps, belts, throwing chalk at kids, a duster once or twice, making them stand with their nose in a circle they had drawn on the board.

I started teaching over 50years ago and I have never ever smacked a child. Even when I started it was regarded as a bit old fashioned and unnecessary
You might be surprised to know that I am a retired teacher. It's not as if I have no experience with children.

Antonia
I hope teaching standards have been updated - children deserve better than being ruled with fear

Did being physically punished have any effect? I don't know because it's not something I've really experienced. I remember one pupil being caned for being extremely rude to me, but it made no difference to his behaviour and he was expelled. Goodness knows what happened to him. I suspect he was immune to physical punishment and it meant nothing. It must be devastating to a child with special needs - in fact, all children, who still regard their parents as role models.

When I'm out and about, it amazes me how many parents shout at and drag their children and threaten them. More often than not, the children don't respond and the parents just get more frustrated and angry. I suspect it's the same with frequent smacking. It's far more effective to try to remain calm and make very harsh words count.

I think many of us were brought up with smacking . I thought it was wicked and never did it to any of my children however naughty they were. I was beaten as a child and I would never, ever wish that on any child. It is a very fine line between a slap and a beating and abuse. I thought it was normal to have bruises all over your legs when I was young.

I had chalk thrown at me when I was gaping through the classroom window. I had an urge to throw it back
Boys were over the desk and belted with a galosher !

So sorry to hear that, nanna8.

Slaps = physical abuse.
Just because they don't leave marks, it doesn't mean it is not violence

When I'm out and about, it amazes me how many parents shout at and drag their children and threaten them. More often than not, the children don't respond and the parents just get more frustrated and angry. I suspect it's the same with frequent smacking.
I agree with this, and I think parents who behave in this way were probably badly brought up themselves and have very little idea of child upbringing. I don't advocate frequent smacking at all, just very clear boundaries, with smacking used occasionally after a couple of warnings.

Corporal punishment was outlawed in UK state schools in 1986, but prior to that was only administered by senior teachers and had to be logged.

I doubt that any of the “discipline” that went on day in, day out in my small village school, doled out by the three female teachers, was logged. We were slapped, hauled about by our ears, hit on the hand with rulers, had board rubbers thrown at us. I wasn’t one of the prime targets, but was still punished like this for “not paying attention”, whispering in class, not eating all my school dinner, for goodness sake!

I had good parents who never smacked, nor did most of my friends’ parents, and it amazes me now that when we went home with tales of the little boy who was so scared he wet himself, etc, the attitude was “well, he must have done something wrong”. Well yes, he couldn’t recite his four times table, and never would be able to as long as those horrors were in charge.

When I went to a grammar school where the worst punishment was 100 lines or detention, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.

When I started teaching in 1963, the strap (tawse) was still in general use in Scottish schools. The deputy head was reputed to have a strong arm. I would never have used the strap though certain trouble makers did their best to provoke me. That first Christmas, they gave me a well wrapped package, containing...a tawse! I think it had belonged to one of the parents. I still refused to use the thing. Discipline should never be dependent on the fear of corporal punishment.
Apropos my previous post, the lads who sat at the bottom of my primary school class would eventually have gone on to National Service. I wonder what effect that would have had on these so-called 'backward' kids.

Loislovesstewie

I am 65; I was never, ever smacked by my parents. Was I naughty? Of course, I was, I was a child, but my parents told me what was acceptable behaviour. My dear dad would say 'Oh no Lois' and I knew it was wrong. I was so fond of him I didn't want to upset him. So, I learnt through example and explanation, not violence. I was shocked when a teacher smacked me at school, she was only doing it out of frustration; she should not have been a teacher.
Not all parents smacked children, even then.

I'm close in age to you Loislovesstewie and my parents never raised a hand to me, in fact I can barely recall my lovely dad even raising his voice to me...
I was smacked on one occasion by a teacher for bumping into her table ( a complete accident!) and she left a huge mark on my legs, when I got home I showed my dad and he immediately went to the school, which was pretty rare at that time.
She then appeared to delight in making my life a complete misery but never raised a hand to me again.

CafeAuLait I didn't say children were never smacked I said I never did it and it was regarded as a bit old fashioned. I know one of the nuns in a local Catholic school used a ruler on children well into the 1980s. But nuns are a law to themselves.

My father and brother were SEN. Both severely dyslexic. It runs in our family and quite a few family members are.

They were called thick, stupid, dunce etc.

Just as well we do recognise it now. Although with all the financial cuts to education, children still get no help. At least they aren't abused for their SEN anymore tho.

“Any “slow” children were helped , even by sitting them next to a “clever” child if it was possible .”

That I do remember at junior school, I didn’t think anything of it at the time, I was just asked to help Jenny with her writing, so I did, it seemed natural enough.
Corporal punishment, the headmaster was quite strict, there was quite a lot of rules, break too many and it was “the slipper”.
The boys who transgressed lined up on a Friday lunch time for their correction, their crimes, usually bullying or answering a teacher back. Those that moved up to secondary with me, were model pupils, I guess they learned not to get caught!.

Gagajo, you need to report to the school governing body, or LEA, any school you are personally aware of, or even by hearsay, where children with SEND get no help.
A blanket statement like, “Although with all the financial cuts to education, the children still get no help.” is simply not true in my current, and fairly wide experience.

Cat, meet pigeons...

I believe every child is individual, and all have ‘special needs’ when it comes to teaching them. Some have needs that are more complicated than others, for sure. Good teachers of every generation have made it their business to get to know each child individually. Labelling children who deviate from some arbitrary ‘normal’ and pigeon-holing them with others who share some characteristics is a convenient way of demonstrating that teaching is ‘differentiated’. I don’t think this is helpful.

The primary school I went to, 60 years ago, had what was known as the "hall class" this was a group of about 12 children of mixed ages and abilities that were "taught " in the school hall by the PE teacher. We were jealous of them as they were allowed to play all day.

Where were all the special needs students when we were at school?

They were being undiagnosed, misunderstood and probably not learning much whilst being labelled as "thick!" The3y were losing self esteem, feeling useless and creating a self fulfilling prophecy of "being thick!" They were living up to the low expectations being put upon them!!

I don’t remember anyone being given any help at my school so I suspect anyone with SEND would have had a wretched time trying to keep up.Adaunas, it is still sometimes hard to get help from schools, my grandson is extremely high functioning ASD and the school say that as he is so far ahead he doesn’t require extra help, despite us repeatedly asking for help re sensory and emotional issues. Any ideas what we should do to ‘ force their hand’?

Sorry , just noticed what you recommended to Gagajo- I’m obviously not high functioning!!?

I’m fairly sure that my dad is autistic. He is almost certainly dyslexic also. He was labelled as “thick” and as such he was pushed towards manual labour as a career path. He became a plumber and had a relatively successful life.
I think it’s important to realise that people had more job opportunities back then though, my dad left school at 14 and did his apprenticeship in a time where we still had a large industrial economy. Now as a more service based economy the need for literacy is far more apparent to obtain employment, which is why it’s being noticed more.
We noticed a lot of the “tics” my nephew has, my dad also has a mild version of - so the need to have schedule, obsessive counting, the inflexibility he has around change. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not debilitating, but it does affect dads life (and that of my poor mum at times).

I think the realisation that autism is a spectrum of behaviour also gives insight into why this wasn’t a thing years ago. The inability to recognise that each child is different and there isn’t a one size fits all solution - so many of these children (like my dad) who didn’t display bad behaviour, but weren’t neurotypical, were labelled as “thick”.