Page 51 - SEN115 - November/December 2021

About the authors
Jannine Perryman is a former SEND specialist teacher, and is now a Neurodiversity Coach to children, adolescents, adults, families, schools, students, employers and clinicians. She is the CEO and Founder of ADHD Wise UK, and Neurodiversity Networks CIC.
Louise Parker Engels is a former primary school teacher. She co- founded Define Fine: Parent Peer Support for School Attendance Difficulties with her team to combine their professional
and lived experiences of children’s difficulties with school attendance.
Bullying
“Some may self harm and have suicidal thoughts”
This is acknowledged in the Government Guidance ‘Preventing and tackling bullying’: “Some pupils are more likely to be the target of bullying because of the attitudes and behaviours some young people have towards those who are different from themselves. For example those with special educational needs or disabilities, those who are adopted, those who are suffering from a health problem or those with caring responsibilities may be more likely to experience bullying because of a difference.” This is certainly consistent with our professional and lived experiences which include:
• Children who may look or behave differently – with physical characteristics, as well as stimming, shouting out, needing to move
• the reasonable adjustments highlighting differences – such as assistive technology, mobility aids, sensory toys
• children who struggle to process – with speech and language difficulties, auditory processing or other executive functioning difficulties
• sensory processing differences – those who are more sensitive to sound or touch
• children who are unable to attend regularly, then struggling to explain their attendance and feeling isolated from their peers, and missing learning and other school experiences
• children who miss social cues, or communicate differently
• children who mask, are demand avoidant, or oppositional.
Bullying affecting social, emotional and mental health problems can become a SEND issue
Bullying affects mental and physical health, sometimes leading to heightened levels of anxiety and depression. Some may self-harm and have suicidal thoughts, difficulty sleeping, low self-esteem and other PTSD or trauma responses. ‘Preventing and tackling bullying’ provides guidance when bullying has a severe impact:
“In some circumstances the consequences of bullying may lead to a child or young person experiencing pronounced social, emotional or mental health difficulties. Schools should ensure they make appropriate provision for a child’s short-term needs, including setting out what actions they are taking when bullying has had a serious impact on a child’s ability to learn. If the bullying leads to persistent, long-lasting difficulties that cause the child or young person to have significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of those of the same age, then schools should
■ Bully pulling hair and taunting young girl.
consider whether the child will benefit from being assessed for SEN.”
Supporting the most vulnerable children to be able to attend school
As with all attendance barriers, bullying needs to be acknowledged through school policies by developing a more inclusive culture.
There will also be a range of other local or individual factors that result in some children being more vulnerable to bullying
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