A child with additional support needs (ASN) was left covered in faeces at school as teachers would not help her, a mother has told the Scottish education secretary.
The woman, who gave her name as Marie, was taking part in a BBC Radio Scotland phone-in when she told John Swinney she is now home schooling her daughter after a series of incidents.
She said her daughter, who is unable to go to the toilet herself, was told by her class teacher to have her twin help her when the learning assistant was not there.
She said: “She had a learning assistant in place because she was diagnosed aged two, so before she even started nursery she had one-to-one support because she can’t get dressed herself, she can’t go to the toilet unaided.
“When there was no learning assistant about her class teacher asked her twin to take her to the toilet and clean her bum.
“So obviously at 10 years old she was left with poo up her back and down her leg and both of them very upset.
“She was left in the changing room, the teacher never got her changed, her twin had to do that, then got in trouble for taking too long.
“If she approached a supply teacher to ask for help they would say ‘A child your age should be able to get dressed herself’.
“The list is endless of things that happened to her and then she became a school refuser and would attack us daily at the thought of having to go in there.
“I just feel, I don’t what the hell is going on, but ASN children are really getting failed.”
Mr Swinney said her experiences were “totally unacceptable” and pledged to look into the situation.
“Individual local authorities have got to make the assessment of how to fulfil the needs of individual children but what you’ve recounted to me there is very clearly not acceptable,” he said.
“The needs of every child have got to be identified and met and I would want to make sure that’s the case for Marie’s child.”
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