As you may know, in a former life, I was a teacher. Not for long, mind you, but I still was. One of my childhood dreams when I was little was to be a teacher, often playing ‘teachers’ in my back garden alone to a ‘hall’ full of invisible children that just-so-happened to be my grass. I would deliver assemblies, lessons and fanciful tennis lessons to my imaginary school children- sometimes for hours at a time.
I then grew up, left school and got a couple of retail jobs before deciding that I wanted something ‘secure’, ‘a job for life’ etc. So I went to college to get the UCAS points I needed for university, and then went to do my degree. I completed that fairly successfully (if extremely burnt out thanks to undiagnosed Autism, ADHD and Fibromyalgia) and got the first teaching job I applied for.
I was so excited that first term of teaching. I had my own classroom. Something I had looked forward to almost as much as the job itself! I had my own creative space, my own ideas; I was chomping at the bit to get started. I had some wonderful colleagues, and I loved the school I was working in. I found that first year so unbelievably difficult because I was exhausted all the time. Working from 7:30am until 11pm almost daily does that to you…
By the end of my second year, I was so exhausted and burnt out that I began to loathe the job. I went on maternity leave thinking the break away would do me good, and I’d be able to go back and continue working on the career I was convinced I was going to have. I was wrong.
Firstly, becoming a mother changed every fibre of my being. Absolutely everything about me changed. There was no way I could trust anyone enough to leave my daughter with for that many hours a day. Secondly, the job was 100% not the job I signed up for. I felt cheated and betrayed by everyone that had helped me to get there. That might sound dramatic, but it was true. I wasn’t really there to help children learn, new ideas weren’t, at the time, particularly welcomed, and as long as the children were quiet and their worksheet folders were completed, everyone was happy.
I look back on my time as a teacher with such sadness. It could have been something so special. I might have actually made a difference to someone had I a) known I was neurodivergent, and b) known I had a debilitating condition. I perhaps wouldn’t have felt like such an epic failure almost 100% of the time.
I would have treated my students so differently too. I would have done so many things so very differently. But that’s the beauty of hindsight isn’t it.
Today, I’m very much on the other side of that fence. I’m simply a parent to three neurodivergent girls. I’m viewed as a problem because I question things and, because I know a little about what should be happening behind the scenes at schools, I don’t let it go until the issue is resolved.
That being said, it still took me 8 years from start to finish to get a diagnosis for my eldest daughter. I was blamed for mollycoddling her, spending too much time feeding her love of learning at home- being actively told at her first parents’ evening to “lay off the academic stuff and focus more on her social skills”. She was three at the time, and Autistic. I was told that she was the way she was because it was her response to me and her dad getting divorced. I was told that she was simply testing boundaries with me and that I needed to nip all her “tantrums” in the bud before I had a teenager on my hand that was out of control. Everything was my fault.
Fast-forward to earlier this year, when I was recommended to join a group on Facebook where parents of children who were struggling with the school system could vent, chat and share experiences. My eyes were suddenly wide open. The things happening within the education system are even more appalling than I had ever imagined- especially for children who are neurodivergent, or have other needs that aren’t being met.
Daily I read accounts from parents asking advice because their child has been assaulted by a staff member, their EHCP isn’t being followed; and what appears to be the most current trend is for something called FII (Fabricated or Induced Illness) where the parent is apparently making everything up so the child can get out of something. I could go on, but the tales just get more and more shocking.
Reading these people’s stories, and about the legal action that they so often face for refusing to actively put their child at risk by sending them to a setting that is harming them, is beyond astounding. There are so many parents desperate for help with their child and all they are faced with is hostility and shaming. It’s their fault their child doesn’t want to come to school. It’s their fault they can’t cope in a classroom. How is that possible?! Most parents simply want the best for their children. They want them happy, engaged in learning and being able to access every opportunity available to them. Of course, there are some parents out there that give the rest of us a bad name, but on the whole, most of us want happy, safe children.
This is not happening for thousands of children. There are over 40 thousand people in that Facebook group. That’s potentially 40 thousand parents at their wits’ end not knowing how to help their child. Parents that have had to give up their job to look after their child because there are no services available in their area for alternative provision. Parents that regularly speak of having harmful thoughts, and worse still, their child attempting suicide because they aren’t able to cope in the ‘system’.
My two older daughters are a testament to how badly the system is failing children. My eldest has crippling anxiety of school which has physical medical manifestations. The ‘stomach migraines’, headaches, lack of appetite, poor sleep patterns, and at her lowest point, self-harm. My middle daughter is beginning to show more and more of her ADHD traits as she’s getting older. I was constantly being told she doesn’t have any ADHD traits and that she’s ‘fine in school’ (those words should be made illegal!). This was until I requested that the SENDCo observe her for a while and then tell me she didn’t present any traits. I received a phone call at the end of a half term apologising to me and informing me they were making the referral that week.
Our school system is crumbling and is full of asbestos. Its old, outdated and dangerous architecture is no longer safe in the modern world. It’s harmful to people that enter it, and people are becoming ill by having to exist within it. It is time for complete reform. It’s time we put children first before anything. Before statistics, before targets and most importantly, before money. Our children really are our future, they’re not robots that need to be programmed for a system that will perpetually set them up to fail.
Laura x
