[senco-forum] What are we for? (very long

Dear Amanda,
               I have been a member for 10 years now and consider the forum to be my absolute best resource and the best inset possible. I have benefited enormously from the generosity of people like you who have been willing to share ideas, offer ideas, open up to others etc etc. It has made a HUGE difference to me.
     10 years ago I was just starting out as a senco and for 8 years worked completely on my own with sole responsibility for the SEN in my school - now I have a colleague who does 6-7 hrs of SEN teaching. I honestly do not know how I would have coped let alone grown and developed.
     I value all the advice and the resources that people give so freely e.g. revision diaries, course notes, helpful leaflets, departmental policies etc etc I even had a chocolate scented pen through the post once from Janice Wray when I asked her where she got them from - it has only just run out. There are particular people who I read instantly and always value their contributions. I do sometimes get overwhelmed by the sheer number of emails and am not good at keeping on top of them - I do have over 4000 of them at the moment - the other respondent who called them 'old friends' made me smile - I can't just delete them without scanning them first - hence they are still waiting.
     Like you I miss the funnies - some time ago I rather rashly set up a Friday Funnies area on the staff notice board and I think I'm the only one in the school who starts off Friday morning saying 'Oh no it's Friday...' before heading into the archives to search out one I haven't already posted - we could do with more funnies. I miss Ruth too - and all the others who make their mark and then fade away. I don't like it when it gets nasty and am wary to post anything that might sound daft in case I'm shot down.
    BUT I couldn't do without the forum and that warm knowledge that I am not alone and that there are kind people out there who will always respond and help out. I owe them - and you are very much one of them - so much.
  So thanks,
  janet

Amanda <amandavh at btinternet.com> wrote:
  Hello everyone

Time to declare myself, I think. 
What has happened to senco-forum? Where's the wit, the humour, the support factor? Why does it seem to be full of people who are shouting into both my ears? What has happened to the SENCOs who used to answer? Have we almost all turned into lurkers?

I try to live my professional life by this, my adaptation of an old saying:
Oh Lord, give me the will to change what must be changed
The strength to endure what must be endured
And the wisdom to know which is which.

I've been on this Forum for years. Since 2001, anyway. People come and people go - many find the sheer number of postings difficult to deal with. Some retire - get ill - get a different job. I've stuck with it because I really like talking with people from everywhere and I have got some great advice over the years.

But I have never felt so strongly that we seem to be dividing into two sections. 

There are those who want to change the system and see the Forum as a means to do this. 
There are those who are working to make an inadequate system work as well as possible for current students in the circumstances that exist now. 

Please - if you want to change the system go and talk to those who control it. This Forum doesn't have the power to change policy at a local or national level. Plus SENCOs only have the power to change practice within schools if there is the will to do this at Senior Management level. Telling the Forum how to change the system is not helpful to us who are SENCOs. We need instant, practical, specific advice which comes from practice not theory. And we are already 'the converted'. Preaching to us is a waste of your energy.

I am proud to say that I am a 'generalist'. I think I work like a GP, seeing every kind of problem and, usually, knowing how to solve it. When I don't, I refer upwards to those who do. If there is a waiting list, I do what I can in the meantime. The difference between me and a GP is that 'what I can do' involves affecting the behaviour of other teachers, parents and pupils and not just a patient.

Just an idea of what I have on my books at the moment - dyslexia, dyspraxia, Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, APD (yes, I do deal with this), ASD, ADHD, attachment disorder, MLD, SLD, access arrangements, transfers in and out of the school - oh and I teach classes for 19 out of 30 lessons a week. I run a team of 14 TAs, not all of whom are full time, liaise on a daily basis with two teachers of the hearing imparied plus the HI TA and manage all the liason with outside agencies dealing with pupils with SEN. I'm an AST (though I don't do a day a week out of school at the moment). I'm on the school's policy committee (middle management level) and I am spending a year on the SMT (one HoD a year joins SMT). I'm one of two teacher governors. I don't say this to make people feel sorry about my work load - I love the job and the extra work - but to show that the role of a SENCO is a complex business, much more so than some of the posts from non-SENCOs seem to suggest or, indeed,
understand.

I am going to have to start auto-deleting the posts of those who want to affect national and local policy because it is driving me mad. I feel that I am being shouted at about problems I can do nothing about and it is getting in the way of me doing my job as best I can. At the worst, it will drive me off the Forum. It has already meant that the Forum has lost some excellent contributors not to mention a sense of humour. What happened to the Friday funnies? And I'm a SENCO - the very people this Forum was set up to support. If you are a SENCO and you have read this far - thanks. And have a good run up to Christmas.

Tirade over. I'll go back to lurking. All answers to the whole Forum would be appreciated.

Amanda
Secondary SENCO
Cornwall

Amanda
Secondary SENCO
Cornwall