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AS the phone started to ring, dread flooded through me. I knew who would be calling. “There’s been an incident and we are suspending Josh again,” said a familiar voice. “How soon can you collect him?” I had only dropped my seven-year-old son at school an hour before, but taking him home early had become a regular occurrence. Over the previous year, he had been suspended ten times, missing more than 40 days of learning as a result. As his mum, I am well aware of how ­challenging Josh can be. His misdemeanours are serious and usually involve lashing out at ­others. On one occasion he hit a staff member with a piece of wood, and he stabbed another one with a fork at lunchtime. He also set off the fire alarm. READ MORE ON ADHD AND AUTISM But his actions were also a child crying out for support and help. Football-loving Josh has ADHD , autism , pathological demand avoidance and sensory processing disorder. It means he struggles emotionally with the rigid rules in a busy school and can be overwhelmed by all the noise and people. We aren’t the only family dealing with this. Most read in Fabulous Last week it was revealed that suspensions in England’s state primary schools have more than doubled in the past decade. There were 37,700 in autumn term 2023-24, according to the Department for Education — almost as many as in the whole of the 2012-13 academic year. Permanent exclusion rates have also gone up by almost 70 per cent in the same period. I suspected Josh had additional needs from the time he was a toddler, but it took until November last year to get official recognition and an Education, Health and Care Plan to set out the support he needs. Devastating consequences His mainstream primary school was unable to provide this or manage his behaviour, even after introducing a one-to-one teaching assistant and reducing his timetable to a couple of hours a day. Josh’s young age and his neurodiversity meant he didn’t understand what he’d done wrong and why he wasn’t welcome at school The suspensions left me at breaking point. As a solo mum, I was struggling to deal with the fallout of Josh missing so much school. He has regular meltdowns at home and can get aggressive. He also struggles with his sleep . I fretted he would never get an education if he was rarely in lessons and struggling to engage when he did attend. He was only in Year 2 and it felt like society was giving up on him already. As a former prison officer, I strongly believe my son is going to end up behind bars if he doesn’t get the right support now Josh’s young age and his neurodiversity meant he didn’t understand what he’d done wrong and why he wasn’t welcome at school. Like Josh, 97 per cent of those suspended or excluded from primary school over the past five years also had special educational needs, according to analysis carried out by ­children’s charity Chance UK. The consequences of these decisions by schools are devastating. I believe they send a terrible message to children who already have great difficulties in their young lives. It tells them: You don’t belong. You are not welcome. Then there’s the academic impact and the long-term consequences for individuals and society. That should be a worry to everyone, not just their parents. Chance UK says 90 per cent of children excluded at primary school fail to pass GCSE English and maths. As a former prison officer, I strongly believe my son is going to end up behind bars if he doesn’t get the right support now. I’m not being overly dramatic — I’ve seen first-hand the impact of school absenteeism. I worked for four years at a Category-A, all-male jail. Many of the prisoners I worked with were neurodivergent and fell into crime after missing school and being failed by an education system that didn’t provide for them. I was a key worker for five inmates and part of my job was taking them to weekly meetings, like appointments at an ADHD clinic, but also reading to them. Many didn’t have a basic reading level because they had missed so much of their education. I got to know their back stories well and whenever I asked how they ended up in prison, it was almost always the same starting point — they had been expelled from school. Their stories resonated with me because one of my relatives dropped out of school aged 11 and ended up in jail, barely able to read and write. I was also expelled at 15, for being disruptive, smoking and truancy. Luckily, I was allowed by the local authority to take my GCSEs as I was bright. It was only when I got a diagnosis for Josh that I realised I also had ADHD and understood why I had struggled with the school regime. I wasn’t “naughty” — I needed extra support. Instead of building more prisons, why aren’t we building more specialist schools? It’s only now I’m in my forties that I have managed to follow my dream of going to university to study for a degree in forensics and criminology. But it’s extremely difficult to make this work with caring for Josh, especially when he is constantly being sent home. There are tens of thousands of parents in a similar position. The We Can Learn campaign, led by charities SEND Reform England , The Disabled Children’s Partnership and Let Us Learn Too, says 80 per cent believe their children are not getting enough support to go to school, while almost four in ten have had to leave employment as a result. I don’t blame the schools. Teachers are under tremendous pressure to get good marks and ensure other pupils can learn without disruption. But I do blame successive governments who are failing SEN children with a lack of investment and an obsession with league tables. Given that almost all primary school exclusions are SEN students, surely helping them access education in an appropriate and safe way would benefit everybody? That means quicker diagnosis, more ­support within mainstream schools, more specialist classes and more SEN schools for the neediest cases. I believe we would see a massive reduction in crime further down the line — and fewer people in jail. Instead of building more prisons, why aren’t we building more specialist schools? Heartache along the way It makes financial sense. It costs £65,000 to imprison someone once police , court costs and all the other steps are taken into account. Then it’s £40,000 a year for the duration of their sentence. An SEN school place costs £10,000 a year. The system is broken and soaring suspension figures are a symptom of that. Families are being completely let down and the treatment of these kids is inhumane, pushing them into the margins at a young age. Josh finally moved to a SEN school in September. But it took me three years of fighting to get him this specialist provision — and a lot of heartache along the way. Missing so much school time means Josh has struggled to maintain friendships and not been invited to parties. He feels rejected and thinks everyone is talking about him, which has damaged his self-esteem. I’ve had many times when I’ve felt judged, too, mostly by other parents or strangers when we are out. I am trying my best, but it does make you feel like a bad mum. I don’t have any help and when I asked for a carer’s assessment, I was told I don’t meet the criteria. Even now, after moving Josh to the SEN school, problems persist. READ MORE SUN STORIES He is only accessing school about half of the time because of all the trauma he has gone through. My son — and all of our children — deserve so much better. UNMET needs and pressure to get top academic results are driving suspension rates up, according to Beth Prescott from think tank the Centre for Social Justice. Beth, the CSJ’s programme lead on exclusion and absence, says: “Exclusion should be a last resort, but one that is available for schools in order to ensure safety and a fair education for all. “But the most common reason for suspension and exclusion is persistent, disruptive behaviour – and often that is a result of unmet needs, with the impact of the pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis, mental ill health and an increase in the level of SEN contributing to this.” The CSJ is calling for a national parental participation strategy to improve the relationship between school and home. It also wants a national inclusion framework to support vulnerable pupils and additional extra curricular activities such as sport to help children re-gage. “It’s important that action is taken now,” says Beth. “A child who has been previously excluded is less likely to end up in education, employment and training, and has a higher risk of ending up in the criminal justice system.”

Jammu, Dec 28: J&K BJP chief spokesperson, Sunil Sethi Saturday stated that the National Conference (NC) government, instead of addressing people’s core issues, was focussed only on rhetorical political statements. His other party colleague and J&K BJP spokesperson Arun Gupta also accused the NC leaders of “focussing on terrorising government officials of one region rather than giving good governance, which was missing in the last two months.” Sethi and Gupta, joined by Y V Sharma, another J&K BJP spokesperson, were addressing a press conference at party headquarters, Trikuta Nagar, Jammu. Sethi, while addressing the media, said that in the recent assembly elections, NC chiefly got a mandate from Kashmir, which enabled it to form the government in Jammu & Kashmir. “The NC promised the moon to the people of Jammu and Kashmir in its assembly election manifesto. After the formation of the government in J&K, the actual governance is being missed even after two months. NC has failed at every front in these two months. Neither it has taken care of people’s aspirations nor has it bothered to address people’s core issues. It has only focused on the political statements,” Sethi said. Arun Gupta, in his address, said, “The Modi government brought J&K out of devastation and gloom and steered it to the path of growth and development. We won’t let NC spoil the progress made in the past few years. For over two-months, NC’s focus has been on terrorizing government officials of one region rather than prioritizing good, efficient and result-oriented governance.” He asked the NC government to first give the target and then monitor it efficiently. “It is still working in the pre-2014 era of governance which reflects zero accountability in the governing system. The Chief Minister should understand that all the time politicising does not work. NC must understand that we all need statehood but that does not stop us from performing,” Gupta said. “Except ‘Law and order’, the Chief Minister has got more than 35 departments like Agriculture, Animal husbandry, Co-operative, Consumer affairs, Disaster Management, Education, Estates, Higher Education, Floriculture, Fisheries, Forest, Finance, Food and Civil Supplies, GAD, horticulture, Industry, Labour, Medical and Health, Mining, Power, Public Works, Public Health, Planning, Revenue, Rural Development, Social Welfare, Science and Technology, Tourism, Transport and Tribal in the UT with 20 districts, 2 divisions and 247 tehsils,” Gupta pointed out. “From 2014 with the change in the governance model, the Government of India worked very hard to achieve a place in the top 5 economies from fragile 5 economies and now we are entering in top 3 economies very soon. In J&K, the NC government has started slipping in performance giving way to the growth of separatism again,” Gupta alleged. “There is always a difference in political governance and administrative governance. Administration governance has to focus on the requirements of people, implementing that and then monitoring it,” BJP leader said. “The Union Government gave a huge package for employment generation for Industries, Services and Hospitality and the focus of the J&K government should be to work hard to generate employment,” he said.Advisors Asset Management Inc. Has $145,000 Stock Holdings in Credo Technology Group Holding Ltd (NASDAQ:CRDO)

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