Namechanged in case some of the details get too identifying.
DS1 (4.5) started reception last September at an independent school (this is relevant). It became increasingly clear that he was having difficulty, and before the autumn half term, he was moved down into the school's nursery class. DS1 is an August baby and was 6 weeks early, so there's not a big age difference between DS1 and the oldest children in the nursery class.
We hoped that DS1's problems were down to his relative immaturity and being the youngest in the class. But he continued to have difficulties. His teacher informed us that DS1 was behind on the social, emotional and behavioural strand of his development, and behind than many of the children in nursery in this aspect of development (they consider him to be developing normally in all other areas).
Their concerns include an inability to observe boundaries, difficulty integrating with his peers, difficulty understanding consequences, unwillingness to listen (unless the topic is of interest to him), difficulty understanding the feelings of others. He swings between being very distractable and so focused on an activity of his choice that it's almost impossible to get his attention. DS1 often makes loud noises - wordless screeching, imitating train whistles or car horns and so on. Ironically he gets very frightened and distressed by other loud noises, especially if they're unexpected. He also tends to get overexcited very easily and tends to get increasingly energetic as he gets tired.
At home, I have also been concerned that DS1's behaviour is not quite normal when compared to other children of a similar age that we're familiar with, especially DS2. DS2 is 2.5yrs, is 2 yrs younger than DS1, but in general, compared to DS1, DS2 is calmer, less impulsive, quieter (in terms of the loud wordless noises. DS2 rarely does this unless copying DS1), better at staying near me / DH when we're out, and better at listening and following instructions.
Around Christmas, the school told us that they wanted to refer DS1 to the council so that he could get extra support. A meeting was set up and a CAF form filled in.
The school wrote to the GP requesting a referral to a paediatrician. We have since had an appointment with the paediatrician - she said that she will send an observation form to the school to get more details about his behaviour there before making a decision about whether further assessment is appropriate. She's also arranging a hearing test and a skull x-Ray and a brain MRI (due to issues around DS1's birth). We're waiting for dates for these.
We have also had visits from a family support worker from the council. She has given some advice about managing behaviour at home, but DS1's behaviour issues seem more apparent at school. She has asked what extra support DS1 is getting at school (it's not clear to us whether he is getting extra support at school), and why school haven't referred DS1 to an educational psychologist.
When I asked school, they initially said that education psychologists happens "further down the line", but last week they told me that because they're an independent school, they're not allowed to make referrals to educational psychologists. The family worker was a bit confused about this - she said that we might have to pay for the educational psychologist ourselves, but school should still be able to make a referral, because the educational psychologists need input from the school.
Also, school have a SENCO. We haven't met or spoken with the SENCO. All our meetings with school have just been with DS1's class teacher and the HT. I didn't realise that this might be unusual until the recent conversations with the family worker.
So... this has turned into a bit of an essay.... but I guess what I'm trying to figure out is, what do we need to do to support DS1? What kind of things do we need to be pushing for from school? Everyone has said to us that if DS1 does have some sort of SEN, then it's best to know early. What should we be doing (if anything) to help things along in terms of assessments done? What sort of things do we need to do to support DS1 in the meantime? I know nothing about all this and I don't really know where to start.
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DS1(4.5) struggling at school, moved down a year, school have made referral - how to help support DS1?
8 replies
DreamFever · 18/03/2016 12:59
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