Special Needs Education- a disgusting state of affairs!

trisher, I think in my DDs case a more supportive school with perhaps access to a separate unit within it would have helped, but in the case of my DGS more suppoted home schooling would probably be best with perhaps the option of part time attendance at a specialist school. This is the problem, it isnt a case of one size fits all as no two children are the same. Maybe a independant fund so parents could access what would be best for their child?

Sorry about the typos, got carried away with thoughts and forgot to spell check!

You totally misunderstood my post btw.Money has been showered on education
In the last 20 years but certainly not on building schools for high acheiving autistic children.

I can't quite remember when it actually happened (1980s?) but, as I recall, there was a huge push, led by parents, to get children out of 'Special Schools' and into mainstream education. There were very good arguments in favour of this but it led to a policy of 'inclusion at all costs' and we are now seeing the downside of it.

Whatever money might have been 'showered on education' in the past it certainly hasn't been the case for the past 7 years; school budgets are cut to the bone and they cannot survive on memories of a 'money shower' in the past.

I think the problem with 'inclusion', which still remains the ideal for many, is that it was jumped on by LEAs as a way of saving money. Closing expensive to run special schools with high staff/pupil ratios and providing limited support in schools. There is now even less money in the system and so even the limited support once provided is being cut. It is a horrendous state of affairs.

I agree, trisher.
The limited support provided in mainstream was frequently an untrained and poorly paid teaching assistant. And many people appointed as SENCOs were not SEN specialists; it was a very steep learning curve for them.