My DS (4.5) is really struggling at his primary school. He's never been particularly enthusiastic about it but goes in fine, is clearly learning his numbers and letters so we thought it was normal settling in anxiety. From the beginning the teacher has told me how bad his concentration is (we've always known it's low), how fidgety he is, he zones out, etc. but that they will keep him at the front of the class with a TA next to him most of the time. We now know he has glue ear, which according to the Consultant we saw recently is severe and getting worse and quite likely to have been there for quite a long time. He has had a speech delay and received quite a lot of assistance from SALT so I do feel awful that it didn't occur to us to do a hearing test sooner.
I informed his teacher about the results of the test and that we are now waiting for our NHS apt (we took him private for the test) to confirm and find out our next steps, ie Grommets, or whatever they suggest and she promised again that he's always be at the front of the class but last night he told me (not for the first time) that he sits at the back because he likes it and he even pointed out where he particularly likes to sit (when I made a pretend school carpet), and completely umprompted said to me 'but I can't hear the teacher'. Since going back this term we've had tears every day.
I like his teacher, I like the school and it's walking distance to our house which I feel makes his day start and end a lot easier and we had always hoped to be able to walk to school. I know we need to wait until we can resolve his ear issues and see if that changes things for him but I'm getting very annoyed at the thought that they aren't helping him from their side and that he could well be sitting there confused and sad because he can't hear enough. There is a much better school a short driving distance away that we could probably get him into if we applied, a friends son goes there and I've been impressed at his improvement since he started in September, but I wonder if I'm just panicking and I need to wait until his ear issues are hopefully resolved or do we consider in time moving him so he can settle in for the rest of this year? I want to do the absolute best for him, but the tears every day are making it difficult not to be emotional about it.
Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.
Primary education
Should I move schools now or wait?
MiniCooperLover · 26/01/2016 09:37
Children that age wouldn't be doing heaps of sitting down listening anyway. He might have sat on the carpet for a very short time, it could have been a singing session where it doesn't matter where you sit, and the teacher might have decided rather than call him to the front every time that on this occasion it was better to leave him happily there and save the 'being made to come to the front' for a different time. It could have been a million different scenarios.
Get his ears sorted and then I think it'll all be better 
We know that our local hospital prefers Grommets (know of several families who have been there recently). Our consultant wants to see us in 2 months to check again but doesn't feel it can last much longer than that before the ear canal becomes too thin. Ideally we want him to be in the NHS system, specifically because if he needs more than one operation we can't afford that 
. I have been chasing them since December and will continue to do so. Now we have a report I'm going to ask our GP to chase also.
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.