A Different Type of School

I'm sat in a room with much clever, wiser and knowledgable grown ups than me. The person stood in front of us draws a cautious breath and asks. 'shall we do this then?'

Its a big ask, the 'this' is to start a school for children who are unable or struggle to navigate the school system as it is. 

School and the trials and tribulations of children who have experienced trauma or are struggling to navigate the 'standard' education systems and routes remains one of the most discussed and debated issues for many adoptive families. This is repeated for many other parents and carers, children who are fostered, those with neurodevelopmental conditions, mental ill health or children with a SEND (Special Educational Need and Disability). 

The question before this is if you could start with a blank canvas what school environment would you build? Not an easy question to answer, I'm not an educationalist and my experience is limited but the people in the room have a broad range of experience and know their stuff. 

They aspire to create a safe environment where a child's safety, perception of safety and wellbeing is prioritised over academic bureaucracy. Where achievement is a nurtured, expected and realistic. Where vulnerable children can thrive. Where parents and carers build collaborative,  effective and supportive relationships as a fundamental tool in supporting children. A school that is available to all children and is free. A school that doesn't just take the most vulnerable but those who wobble and waver.  Where this ethos is not limited to or attributed to one person or a group of professionals in a school but is hard wired to the DNA of the school. Where the ethos is inextricable from the function and form of all that the school is an does. 

So, that's where I spent the evening. Slightly daunted and very excited. 

Now we need help, we need to evidence the need within the local area that we hope to develop this school. So, if you live in Tyne and Wear/North East area and see the need for your children please follow this link to the New Blueprint Group's webpage for further informant and the link to the information gathering survey is here.

As you can imagine there are a lot of work to do but a lot has already been done by those involved. 

Your help is appreciated. 

Epic Fail - Fawlty Dad Strikes Back

I've a flair for self righteous indignation. With that in mind I took a grip of myself and thought through the facts. In reality adoptees are a tiny minority of the school population and it's ridiculous to expect teachers to have a nuanced and detailed understanding of the adoption process let alone the issues that they often grapple with in relation to identity. I was using these kind of thoughts to dampen the crusade that I'd put myself on. After all, I am blogger of the year, I am an adoption 'champion'*, I am a member of the of the DfE Expert Advisory Group on Adoption Support. On and on my thoughts rambled.

It had all started this week when Peanut had brandished a piece of homework from the bottom of her bag. With a wry smile I looked at the 'all about me' booklet with questions about birth weight, first word and first steps. Classic error I thought, this is 'Blogging gold'! 

To be honest I'm not even slightly cross and Peanut could care less. She lives in a family where five of six children have such gaps, so actually knowing this stuff seems totally irrelevant to her. Never the less I feel duty bound, in line with my standing, to show the teacher the error of her ways for future adoptees. Like I said self righteous indignation.

I dig deep and seek out my social work intervention skill, I'll be sensitive and not embarrass the poor teacher, as I said why should she know this stuff. I approach the teacher in the morning as I drop Peanut off. 

'Oh hi, just a quick word' I say using my best social worker voice as Peanut runs into class. 

'She's been asked to do this homework, and well you do know that she's adopted and we don't have any of the information that.......................' I trail off, derailed by the expression on the teachers face. 

It's a look of pity, not for Peanut, but for me a man who has dug a trap for someone then fallen into it as he admired it.

'Oh Mr Coates, we gave her that to do in September, it was all sorted out, last September'

I realise what this means. This means that I've not found this for three terms. THREE TERMS! It's sat in her bag for threeeeeeeee terms for heavens sake!
The normal physics of time and space do not apply to the bottom of children's school bags and I'm sure I've looked a hundred times but I've just shown myself to be an incompetent arse.  

Time stands still.

I consider the options to get out of this: 

Fake faint, push through and keep lecturing her or mutter something intelligible and run away. 

Fawlty Dad strikes back and I opt for the latter. I get to the car and gently place my head on the steering wheel. 

I told MrsC, she's still laughing.





*I'm no Champion it's what @GayAdoptionDad calls me to wind me up

Feeding her to the Wolves

The issue is never the issue. Pretty obvious I guess.

I'm struggling to think what else to say, after  days of attrition, name calling, refusal, attitude, sibling insults and unkindness we finally get to the crux of it. I guess we always had a rough idea what was going on, but these things take time. Like detectives we piece together clues from here and there.

We deal with the anger about this or that, sperficial frothy rage pointed at some inconsequential nonsense, 'I don't want to clean my room!'. We crack that one knowing that this issue is not the issue.

Each layer gets closer to the crux of this particular cycle of rage and darkness. We pass though the superficial issues toward our ultimate goal.

And when we get there we are always confronted with the same thing, a little girl frightened, anxious, worried and confused. The same predictable stuff, this time it's school. The nuances of peer relationships and interactions are a foreign language. Social resilience is non existent.

After it had all blown over I drove up to the school drop off point and she got out. It's like feeding her to wolves, my heart sank knowing this is the first term of her first year with 14 more terms to go. School have been fantastic and the 20 mile round trip is justified but I'm worried for her and I'm worried for us.

Waiting

Waiting, wondering, hoping and guessing.

We sent Flossy off to her new school for a transition day. Preparation and planning has been exhaustive never the less there has, understandably, been a frisson of nerves, tension and argy bargy. We got her there with few issues this morning

It's like one of those much run WWII films with the planes being sent out on a mission, all the busyness, purpose and tension leading up to the moment of take off. Then the images of the ground crew waiting, filling in time and the helpless nervousness of waiting for the hopeful return. 

Today the clock ticked slowly, all the action happening elsewhere, knowing that all we could do was wait and hope. MrsC manned the phones, it didn't ring. As the time for her return drew close my nerves grew and time slowed.

In the WWII films the final scene sees the returning plane either skip over the tree line to do a glorious victory roll over the airfield or sees the stricken plane limp through the skies, three engines on fire, landing gear destroyed and peppered with holes. The plane half crashes to a halt with emergency services dashing to collect the wounded.

I do like my metaphors.

Still we waited for Flossy's return, the clock ticked and we waited, our tension rising to fever pitch. The outcome of today guarantee the path for the next five years but will impact on her summer and all of our summer.

Finally, she spills out of her school and....................does a victory roll.
Grinning like a Cheshire Cat she tells of this and that, goals scored, science and maths and new friends and more goals scored.

"And",  she pauses, "they sell real coke at the canteen" she grins as she tells us.

I know, I know, this is just a start, the first step of 10, 000 but I assure you its as good a start as we could hope for. 

Behaviour Management Review

The Department for Education are currently undertaking review of behaviour management within schools. Quite a scary thought with images of schools embracing draconian regimes of punishment or dissolving into unfettered liberal wishy washy group hugs.

It's made me think, actually it's made me think a lot, about what I want from a school, what I expect from a school and what I don't want from a school.

It comes in a week when I've taken Flossy to visit the school that she is due to move up to in Year 7.  An exciting experience for any child but for a child who lives daily with the long term impact of her negative early life a one that is fraught with unimaginable and, at times, overwhelming anxieties and stresses. Why wouldn't this impact on her behaviour?

Later this week I then stood in front of 60 teachers, assistant teachers and lunchtime staff helping them develop their knowledge of the impacts of loss separation and trauma on children. Together we considered the implications for these children in a classroom and school environment. As I described the behaviours and causes I watched teachers nod to each other and mouth the names of children that they teach, support and deal with every day. The feedback was that practice could be changed not to pander to poor behaviour but to divert potential disruptions and help children feel safe, cared for and able to learn.

I'm an adoptive parent and that's my starting position. However, I understand that adoptees do not have the monopoly on trauma, loss and separation. In fact, at the risk of offending, I would suggest that many adopted children have something that many other children do not. They have motivated and articulate parents to advocate for them and support them throughout their school lives. I can't help but think of the children who potentially do not. The children in the Foster Care system and those on the edge of the care system, children living with loss through bereavement and separation or divorce of parents, children with parents in prison, children who experience sexual abuse and those that witness domestic violence or live in homes where it is present. The numbers of these children is staggering and they are represented in every classroom in the land. They significantly outnumber adoptees but they share common challenges. For all of them their lived experience has a profound impact on their behaviour in a school environment and how they respond to discipline and boundaries.

I believe that the behaviour review is an opportunity that we should grasp.

It is an opportunity to highlight the good practice and for it to be broadcast to new audiences. We can highlight the excellent work that is often being done to support our children in their behaviour in school.  How to appropriately challenge inappropriate behaviour. The difference between excuses and reasons for children struggling and disrupting classrooms and how to tell the difference. The teachers that go the extra mile, why they do it and what they do. The development and training of staff from the highest to the lowest and the values and ethos that underpin all of this..

How do we influence this?

Well, Tom Bennett @tombennet71 is the Chair of the Department for Education's Behaviour Group and is heading the review. I'd encourage you all to follow him on twitter and share the good, be that articles, stories, excellent schools or practical advice. If you're not on Twitter then write a letter, send a pigeon or draw him a picture. Lets get a hashtag #behaviourreview16 and use it.
Lets be positive and share the positive, let's be kind. We could set the internet on fire with some of the crap that our children have endured in the name of discipline, order and education but that's for another day.

School life is a huge part of all children's lives and good and bad experiences often wash up at parent's doors. Families of vulnerable children live with the impact of good and bad models and methods of discipline on a day by day basis and at times it's overwhelming.  I've seen it in my own children's lives.

We have a voice that many don't and if we can influence this review for good then we can benefit not only our own children but also the children that don't share the advocates and champions our children do.


Note: The review is due to be published in October.

New School

In a moment of spare thought I realised that if Peanut stays in education until she's 18 I will have been taking my children to school for 31 consecutive years. I suddenly felt very very tired. In all honesty I find education an alien world where I'm constantly feeling disempowered, that might be my insecurity, that might be an interesting essay on power dynamics, systems and knowledge.

Anyway, that's not what I'm blogging about.

We went a looking for a comprehensive school this week, Year 6 is halfway through and we're dithering about looking for blasted schools to move Flossy to for year 7. I put my best pants on and brought my Social Work manbag with me for comfort. I know the drill, you pick the staff not the school and had my radar set to scan.

Fortunately the staff we met were excellent and gave a good account of the schools pastoral/ support team and systems, they even have a qualified Social Worker on site. All good. However, I came away pretty unravelled.

The reality is that fundamentally Flossy's perception of school is that it is unsafe. It's not the schools fault it is a building and educational system that is built on a different paradigm to to the one we inhabit. All the teacher training, support staff, safe places and parent teacher liaisons in the world cannot change how it is fundamentally perceived by Fossy.

If you put a fire guard around a fire it's still a fire. If you're frightened by fire the guard may not remove the fear it may make it manageable.

I walked around the school with Mrs C and imagined I was Flossy and it was a visceral experience. Other children may see it as an adventure, growing up and opportunity and of course that's in the mix for Flossy but it was just daunting and bewildering. 15 and 16 year olds going about their business, children in corridors being disciplined by teachers. School bells and windows and corridors and teachers and crowds and big kids. The knot in my stomach sat with me for a few days, this feeling of me placing Flossy in a place that she will perceive as frightening and bewildering lingers. I feel like a spectator to an event rather than a player.

Time will tell how we fare over the next 5 years.  

Decisions Decisions.

I'm under no illusion that the decisions we make for our children will be open to a revisionist scrutiny  on the couches of some therapist or other. They will illuminated by the clear light of hindsight and a full knowledge of all the facts. In many ways I'm still not over my mothers decision to cut my hair between the years 1974 to 1993. My therapist says some things can never be undone and I will never get over it. I'm sure that my children will no doubt bear similar burdens, though I hope not.

We've recently vexed over the choices that face us in relation to schools without end.
Do we jump out of the learning stream that we're in its inevitable march towards our local learning factory, a school that several respected professionals turned pale when we mentioned was the destination. Perhaps designed and acceptable for cookie cutter children, I'm confident there's no such a thing, but it's not a place for my little girl. It's not a place she'll feel safe and I'm not sure it's a place she is safe.
So where do we jump to, into a different stream, a three tier system with a middle school as a half way house that would stave off the leap to big school and the challenges that brings. But to do that  I have to pull all of the little ones out of the current stream and set them in the three tier system to tie up the logistical challenges. Lotty's and  Flossy's lifelong friends will be left behind, not an easy sell.

One a transition to safety without the protective factors of friends vs a transition into danger with the protective factor of friends. Oh, and to add to that there are no places at the moment, we know we have priority access as 'previously looked after children' *. So do we cross our fingers and  hope that a couple of appropriate spaces open up between now and September.

The Twitter machine told me that "you choose the staff not the school" and as we chatted to the SENCO in the middle school by the end of the first sentence I knew that she 'got it'. More than that she got it and knew what we were going to ask  before we asked it. A trauma aware school.

So last week we made our choice and filled in the form and now we wait. My children don't need a learning factory they need a safe place. When, and only when, they feel safe then they can begin to think about learning. The middle school it is.

It's our best guess with the information that we have. We might be wrong and the implications may be long term. Of course the decision will be open to scrutiny in the years to come but that's the nature of parenting, adoptive or otherwise.


*not a nice phrase

White noise

I was a cookie cutter kid and I just drifted through school the top end of average at all but English where I was strangely significantly below average. Or as I reflect now plain lazy and a slow writer. I had the wherewithal to manage the usual issues at comprehensive and was socially able enough to not be bullied or ostracised. The world of education has changed since the early 80’s. My parents were more than pleased that I didn’t follow in my brother’s footsteps. He had a flamboyant and quite remarkable distain for the requirements of the schooling system and infamously skipped one of his final exams to go and see the Rolling Stones. By comparison I was probably just white noise to most of my teachers, neither ‘nowt nor summat’.

This is not going to be the case for Flossy. She is many things but she is not white noise in a school environment especially a comprehensive school she definitely a Rolling Stones kind of pupil.

In relation to Flossy’s education my attitude stinks. She can get her GCSE’s anytime between now and the end of her life. But she only gets one pass at adolescence. She’s going into year 6 in September and that gives us a year to find a ‘safe’ comprehensive. Mrs C and I decided in May that Mrs C that we were going to give no consideration to the looming issue of school til we’d moved house. As we know you should never open a European land war on two fronts.

So, we’ve moved house and now is the time to start to think about the future schooling shenanigans. We want a safe place, Flossy needs a safe place. On a most fundamental level what can she learn in a scary place? Her feeder comprehensive, or Stalag Luft VII as I affectionately renamed it, is exclusively for ‘cookie cutter kids’* or so Ofsted concludes. Our preferred choice, a Catholic school Sarah and Gracie went to, is unfortunately in a ‘no go’ area for a range of reasons geographic/family reasons. So, we are plotting and scheming, consulting a range of professionals and casting our net further afield to locate more nurturing and sympathetic environment. We get ones pass at this and the increasingly punitive education system, or so it seems, needs to be negotiated with the least trauma possible for Flossy. We’ll travel if we have to and we’ll go where we have to and do what ever we have to do.

What do I aspire to for six years from now? To be the father of a child that feels included and welcome in society rather than excluded and alienated. Doesn’t seem like much but I’m taking nothing for granted.

*Clearly there’s no such thing.

Farewell BAAF

The Adoption Social’s request of for thoughts on BAAF’s demise made me think on my own experience and reflections of the of the organisation. Having read the excellent blog by Amanda Boorman I felt compelled to put fingers to keyboard. It’s my views and perspectives on one part of the story and one role of BAAF. If you object then comment, tell me I’m wrong. I reserve the right to change my opinion in light of a better one, the facts or a whim.

Without fail everyone I spoke to in relation to BAAF’s demise exclaimed surprise with open mouth. ‘BAAF have closed!?, how, why, what?’

Thinking back to my journey into adoption it took me a while to realise that the British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF) wasn’t the official body for the oversight of adoption and fostering. Actually, it took me a few years before this penny dropped.

That’s how they seemed to be positioned. As an adopter and foster carer I was trained with BAAF resources, assessed several times using BAAF standard forms through local authority adoption and fostering services built on the foundations of BAAF guidance. All the professionals involved referred to the BAAF guidance and advice on every aspect of the process. BAAF training is considered to be the gold standard in relation to knowledge and practice for adoption.* The bookshelves in local authority departments are universally stocked with best BAAF practice guides and publications on a myriad of issues and topics relating to adoption.

Moving into my Social Work career in fostering I see the same applies. BAAF assessments models are the standard to work to and their guidance and training is taken as definitive and treat like law. Got a question? Then go to the BAAF book.

If BAAF says its ok, then it is ok.

Why would I not think that they were not they ‘official’ body for adoption and fostering but they’re not.

I've had little personal contact, as an adopter,  with BAAF other than a rather snooty rebuttal when I offered to help my local office with any publicity for National Adoption Week. I was on the telly every week for 6 weeks navigating the adoption process. As it was watched by up to 4 million viewers each week I thought that Mrs C and I could help the local campaign. I was made quite clear we could not. 

My professional contact, Social Worker to Social Worker, was much more amenable, perhaps that reveals something, perhaps not?

The ins and out of why they have come to an end is way above me and I have no inside information as to its demise other than what has been published. My heart goes out to the redundant staff as they face challenging days ahead compounded by the apparent suddenness of the news.

So, what does all of this mean for professionals, adopters and adoptees?

Adoption is in a time of change. The historical model of the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s is behind us, though sometimes it seems that it lives on in some heart and minds. Challenges to adopters and adoption that were once unusual are now standard. Adopters are an increasingly militant group not just accepting what we’re given, pushing back a bit asking why. Also, government are not sitting back and letting adoption tick along and increasingly they are making significant policy decision that impact on adopters and adoptees, perhaps not needing to refer to BAAF for approval. 

Was BAAF a product of its time unable to keep up in a changing landscape? A behemoth of adoption that no longer reflected the dynamic needs of the professional and amateur adoption community? I don't know.

Who will fill this position, the definitive voice of adoption & fostering? More to the point do we want it filled? 

*Though I have to say prohibitively expensive training.