Falling through the cracks
It’s been a while since I listened to K. D. Lang. As I write this I’m listening to her beautiful music and I’m reminded of this quote.
“I think I fall into a lot of cracks in terms of I'm too something. I'm too this, I'm too that. And my music has never really had a home. I've been this floating alternative. I'm too mainstream for alternative. I'm too alternative for mainstream. And I'm just kind of wandering.”
K. D. Lang
K. D. Lang won the Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance in 1989 for her album Absolute Torch and Twang. Just 4 years later in 1993, she won the Grammy Award for Female Pop Vocal Performance as a result of her single Constant Craving. In the world of music, being “too alternative for mainstream, and too mainstream for alternative” is kind of cool – it keeps you fresh and quirky and individual.
If you have a child with the same attributes, it might not feel so cool. Quirky children often fall through the cracks of our cookie-cutter education system. This is never more evident than when you have a child with SEND who is also capable of achieving well academically. At its most extreme, a child that is 2E (twice exceptional) or DME (dual or multiple exceptionalities) is more likely to have to look outside the local maintained school to have their needs met.
Parents in a FaceBook group with gifted/high learning potential children were asked, where they had a DME child, how easy had it been to find the right school solution? A school that could accommodate both their child’s SEND and their academic ability. 55 parents responded.
None of the respondents had found it very easy and their child attended their local school.
Only 7% of responses indicated it had been relatively straightforward to find a suitable school within the local area.
50% indicated an unsatisfactory or impossible response; either they are in a school where neither need is being met, or they are no longer in the school system has opted to Home Educate or implement Education Other Than At School known as EOTAS
A further 24% of parents described their experience as 'complicated'. Whilst the school was doing its best, it had never experienced this phenomenon before.
And it’s not just DME children, those that are in the top 5-10% of the ability range. There are many children who are perfectly able academically, and who, particularly at secondary transition, would simply fail in a regular mainstream setting.
So why do they fall through the gaps?
If a regular mainstream setting isn’t going to work, the next alternative that will be considered is specialist provision. However, most special provision is targeted at children who have SEND and struggle academically.
When we were looking at secondary options, the LA’s named school was a specialist ASD unit. It offered no languages and most children started with the Read Write Inc Fresh Start or Literacy and Language programmes – these are aimed at KS1 and KS2 children. Whilst our son has Dyslexia he had still achieved expected levels of literacy at age 7 and had a reading age consistent with an older child. Whilst it might have provided the right support for his SEND it would not have provided the level of academic challenge he needed or deserved.
So, if you have a child that falls through the gaps, how can you advocate for the education they deserve?
Be creative. If we can learn one thing from K.D. Lang, it is that re-invention and creativity can help those who fall through the gaps. If there isn’t a school that meets the needs in the state system, look at other options. I think we must have visited over 15 different schools before we found the solution. And then it required a personal budget to make it work.
Remember, even the seeds that fall through the cracks can one day grow into beautiful flowers.
2e or twice-exceptional refers to gifted children who have some form of disability
DME or dual or multiple exceptionalities are used in the UK to describe children who have both high learning potential and would be classed as having a special educational need because of a learning difficulty or a disability
