The woman's son, who had been diagnosed with ADHD, had been "extremely damaged" by his experiences in the school system. Photo / Getty Images
A mother says she has been left trying to pick up the pieces after her son was "extremely damaged" by an education system that she claims fails to provide adequate care for children with developmental issues.
The Taupō woman, who asked not to be named for her child's privacy, says her seven-year-old son was wetting himself seven times a day and suffering severe mental breakdowns as a result of the system not being able to cater for his needs.
Her son, who had been diagnosed with ADHD, had been "extremely damaged" by his experiences in the school system, she believed.
She said there was "no support for him" at school and she was told there was "nothing they could offer".
"The school pushed for homeschooling. My son was just chucked into the too-hard basket."
She decided to homeschool her son after he came home from school one day and broke down, saying he was a "slow kid with a stupid brain and that he hated his life - he was only six at the time".
The school system was "designed for neurotypical children" and she felt she was left to "undo the damage the education system has already done".
She said she had quit several jobs only weeks in as her son was too damaged to go to school from bullying and feeling like he did not have support.
Since homeschooling began, her son was not wetting himself seven times a day and was in a far better place mentally, she said.
"I am trying to repair my child from a school system that is supposed to cater for everyone."
Meanwhile, an advocate estimates that of about 1,500 Bay of Plenty families with children with developmental issues, about 80 per cent had issues with the education system.
The Ministry of Education acknowledges wait times for early intervention of children who need learning support had been "unacceptably high" - the time had reduced by almost a third in the Bay of Plenty since 2019.
Rotorua mother Fran Fitzell has three children and one grandchild who all have developmental issues, primarily autism. She said she felt "forced" to homeschool as, in her opinion, the education system was not providing adequate care.
In her view, teachers were "not trained and don't have the time" to identify issues and create individualised plans that were crucial for educating children with developmental issues.
She said her teenage children had all suffered severe bullying due to a lack of understanding by students and teachers at school.
She believed getting support for these children as soon as they were diagnosed was vital.
"If children need help, they need it straight away and need to continue getting it until they don't need it anymore."
She said the system was "not good enough", in her opinion, with too many children with developmental issues "falling by the wayside"
Ministry of Education deputy secretary for sector enablement and support Katrina Casey said the wait time for early intervention for children who may need learning support had reduced in the Bay of Plenty.
As of January 31, a Bay of Plenty and Waiariki child has to wait 83 days on average for early intervention service.
In 2019, children with communications difficulties, development delays, or disabilities were waiting longer for specialist support to help them learn and participate at home or in early childhood education.
That year, the Bay of Plenty ranked as the third-worst in the country for early intervention for children with developmental issues or disabilities with the average wait time sitting at 123 days.
And although the number has dropped dramatically, the region still sits just above the national average of 82 days.
"We know the wait times have been unacceptably high for early intervention for children who may need support, and it has been a priority of ours to significantly reduce them.
"While we cannot comment on individual cases, we provide a range of services and support for akonga with the highest level of need."
Casey said increased collaboration and process improvements had been major factors in reducing the waiting times for learning support services in the region.
The ministry had facilitated a "tiered support model", with three sites in Tauranga, Whakatāne and Taupō selected as pilots for it.
She said they also worked with clusters of schools and early childhood centres, Resource Teachers Learning and Behaviour, local iwi, DHBs, Oranga Tamariki and non-governmental organisations.
However, Altogether Autism regional co-ordinator for parent-to-parent Breanna Turner said she dealt with about 1,500 families with children with developmental issues in the Bay of Plenty. About 80 per cent of them had issues within the education system.
She said by the time a family was requesting educational help, the child was already "not coping" and being put on waitlist after waitlist could send them into crisis mode.
Crisis situations could see these children shut down, act out or even self-harm.
Parents were finding themselves in continuous battles with schools over adequate care until eventually it was recommended homeschool as the school could "not provide" for the child, she said.
"Our education system is not quite catering for them."
Teacher training college allowed workshops on neurodiverse children to be optional, she said, and only recently she had got a call from a new local teacher with five pupils with developmental issues with no idea how to handle it.
"We aren't really setting our trainee teachers up for success."
Chief executive of the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand Lesley Hoskin said teaching was a "challenging career", with "high expectations of teachers to meet the needs of all learners, including those with neurodiverse needs".
She said the Initial Teacher Education programmes were overhauled in 2019 and were being redesigned to reflect new requirements, including identifying and responding appropriately to learners with diverse and additional learning needs.
"Graduates from some of the new programmes will be in schools from the start of this year and by 2025 onwards all graduates will be from programmes approved under the new requirements."
This week it was announced that close to 1,500 Rotorua students would be screened for learning, visual and processing disorders and offered support in a new Rotorua Schools Collaborative Screening Project that received $60,000 from Rotorua Trust.
Part of the grant will enable 34 learning support co-ordinators, teacher aides and special education needs co-ordinators to be trained in screening that identifies individual students' barriers to learning, provide a pathway for support and to monitor progress and achievement.
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