Back to normal, perhaps

I am feeling a bit better today. I didn't awaken too early: it was probably 7h30 before I got out of bed. I dropped the children off in Dundee this morning and mst3kmoxie is kindly staying there this afternoon and bringing them home. I indulged in a long bath after I worked out. I don't plan to push myself: I think today I'll just catch up on my filing, trim my fingernails, run some laundry, whatever. If the weather outdoors doesn't seem lovely tomorrow then I may then be a bit more ambitious and do some wiping and cleaning around the house but also take time to relax.

Many students need extra help

I heard on the radio last week that 14% of students in schools need some kind of extra assistance. That figure seemed high to me so I searched for corroboration. I found the Department for Education's Special educational needs: an analysis and summary of data sources from September 2016 and, at least in England, indeed 14.4% of children last year had special educational needs and 11.6% of children were receiving support for such, something beyond the school's usual provision for students, like specialist help. Boys rather outnumber girls among those children. Of course, the special needs children tend not to do as well academically as the other children.

Nearly a quarter of the special needs children have moderate learning difficulty. It is the social, emotional and mental health ones who tend to get permanently excluded from school.

14.4% is around one child in seven but I suppose that dyslexia alone accounts for a good few percent of people. I also wonder if issues might be more likely in more economically depressed areas – poorer nutrition, greater domestic stresses, whatever – more remote from the schools with which I am more familiar. I may well be wrong: for all I know it is the more affluent families who are able to get around to arranging proper diagnosis and help – official special needs status – in the first place.