We had parents night tonight for DS1 (age 14 and in 3rd year) and everything went really well :)
The English teacher raised his poor handwriting - this has been a constant feature at the end of most parents nights when we get a glowing report and chucked on the end is a comment about his handwriting - DS2s is worse if anything.
I don't think they every really put any emphasis on getting it neat in primary apart from P4 when e had an older teacher and that was what she focused on with him as everything else was great - he could write beautifully by the end of the year but it's all gone to pot again since :(
She has said that she will speak to learning support as she believes it would be far better for him to be using a laptop or netbook at school as it would allow him to focus on his work without the strain of trying to make it legible and also would be helpful for the teachers to actually be able to read what he writes. None of the other teachers raised it but English would be the subject where he writes the most I would presume.
My query is really that if he were able to do this would it actually make things worse if he went to Uni and had to go back to writing as I presume with no formal diagnosis of anything that would affect his ability to write, he would be unable to use a laptop in an exam environment?
I would add here that according to his other teachers, he is a talented artist with a particular skill for fine detailed drawing and his technical drawings are a joy to behold! Sooooo I'm guessing there is no fine motor skills issue and he isn't dyslexic either. He has previously been referred to Speech and language therapy age 6/7 and the result was that he no communication issues and was simply bored in class (finished work and staring out the window and difficult to re-engage). he was also referred to CAHMs at age 11 after bullying issues - they felt he may be borderline aspergers but we did not go further for formal testing as they felt it would be inconclusive - he is painfully shy and socially anxious still but getting better slowly.
Sorry this is so long....
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Secondary education
Anyone any experience of using a laptop/netbook in school? (Scotland)
myotherusernameisbetter · 22/01/2015 21:18
As a Scottish English teacher 
I would say use the netbook. You don't want the quality of his ideas or clarity of his answers lost in presentation. Yes, in English his class teacher will have had more experience of appraising his extended written tasks as opposed to a briefer written responses elsewhere in school. As an SQA marker for Nat 5 English (presumably the level is hoping to be entered at next year) marking is "emarked" and poor hand writing makes the marker's job very difficult as the quality of e capture is impaired by weak writing. If you were at the Parent's Night that I think you were at - he is in good hands.
No, not me (maybe next year 
). I do understand your concerns re the future but, and I say this as a parent of DCs who need special exam arrangements, each step of the process is important. Good Nat 5 passes will get your DS through to Higher and so on.
Ah okay
We'll see what comes of it as we've been promised help and support for him on other issues before and then heard nothing :( Despite this things do seem to be slowly slowly improving anyway (except the handwriting!) He has gone to participate in a debate tonight - completely outside his comfort zone - he had a way out of doing it too, but has gone anyway.
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