[senco-forum] 'AEN' -- meaningless lables and confusing job titles

Scotland has a completely different SEN framework to England. They have  
established a different terminology. In England and Wales, SEN still stands  for 
all of the notional 20% as defined by the CoP. Currently about 2/3% of these  
children have statements the other 18% or so are defined as being at School  
Action or School Action plus. All are defined within the CoP as SEN  children.

The CoP is very useful in that it provides national guidance on well  
established terms and titles with clear legal definitions. It confuses  everyone -- 
particularly parents -- if the definitions described within the CoP  are 
drifted away from for no good reason -- particularly if acronyms such AEN  are used 
without explanation.

My view is, that LAs and school management who always try to invent  new 
terms and job titles for SEN and SENCo's, are likely to be purposefully  using new 
and vaguely defined terms / labels and job titles to confuse and dodge  their 
legal duties as defined within the legal framework and CoP.

And, at the same time, to continually include more categories of  difficult 
to teach and manage children, and to load more unconnected  beaurocratic duties 
onto overworked and undervalued SENCo's. And to further  undermine the legal 
framework by pretending the new terms and titles are no  longer governed by 
the SEN legal framework.

My view is that if a term, label or title ain't broke don't fix  it.

It's the arrangements surrounding clear and honest determination  and 
specification of needs, level/regularity and type of provision, and  clear 
professional management roles focussing on SEN children as defined within  the CoP, that 
are the real issues not semantic labelling issues.

And there's no escaping the continued under-resourcing by government and  LAs 
of children with SEN, and the constant undermining of professional  roles 
within schools, that continues to frustrate parents and  dedicated professionals.

It is not for professionals, in my view, to aid this dumbing down of  the SEN 
framework, as set out within the SEN COP, by carelessly taking up and  using 
without explanation, new and meaningless labels as though everyone should  be 
instantly familiar with them. Stick to the CoP, is my advice, until  there is 
a 3rd edition that has been fully consulted upon.

As someone has already indicated, it's not merely a postcode lottery at the  
present but a school by school lottery -- an intolerable situation for SEN  
children and their parents -- exacerbated by all and sundry inventing  their own 
pet descriptions and meaningless acronyms!!
Regards Brendan King 