Or have you ever felt like a teacher just didn’t like your DC?

I have found every year depends on how good the teacher is at managing sen. Ds is 9, so far we have had three excellent years where ds has thrived. One ok year where he maintained and three years where he has struggled. It's frustrating because we know he can thrive in a mainstream setting.

You think your kids teacher doesn't like her because she's pretty ?

Unfortunately as with any job there are great teachers, and not so great teachers….. I find it interesting on this thread that so many posters have ND children or children with SEND.

My DC went to a fantastic primary school. Most of the teachers were wonderful. Except for one Yr1 teacher who seemed to take an instant dislike to my DS. It felt like every bloody day I was doing the “walk of shame”. I kept asking for a SENCo review but I was told he was just naughty 😱. Unfortunately we had a lot of challenging situations in our family that year and I just didn’t have the capacity to analyse what was happening / fight harder which I feel terrible about, I knew there was something wrong though. She was SO obnoxious to me and him. I look back and think how on earth did I not march into that school and demand a SEN assessment and tell the SLT exactly some of the shocking things she’d said?

Anyway, fast forward to a severe end ADHD diagnosis, EHCP and DLA. He’s now in the most brilliant mainstream secondary with fab teachers and loads of support. That Yr1 teacher left at the end of the year and I hope to God has had a career change. Interestingly once she left a few other parents mentioned issues that they’d had with her.

I have 4 DC and have never had an issue like this. So many teachers go over and beyond. Like you, OP, my BFF is a teacher as are my Dad, mother in law (retired) and cousin. I would never teacher bash but OMG the one I’ve mentioned here was 100% in the wrong profession.

My own experience, for whatever it is worth, is I am grateful we were able to explain my DD’s ASD to her before she was aware that it might be an issue. we were able to explain what it means to have an autistic brain in a neutral way and talk about things that are easier / harder for her in a way that celebrates her strengths but also acknowledges that some things are harder for her. She recently told me she is proud to be autistic, which is a good thing because it is an intrinsic part of her.

Like your dd she is mostly fine at school, and in social situations was doing okay in y1/2, but in y3 I see the social divide starting. From speaking with other parents of ASD girls, end of ks2 is when lots of issues tend to emerge, sometimes in really profound ways. I find it helpful that we have laid the groundwork of explaining ASD and being neurodivergent so that when we do have issues we can discuss them with that context - affirming her way of looking at the world, while also acknowledging differences in others.

If the school more broadly is responsive and accommodating then have hope for next year. Some teachers don’t get ND in all its flavours, but when you get one who does it is magic.

one year we had a teacher who was lovely and tried very hard with dd, but just wasn’t sufficiently experienced or confident. Dd isn’t particularly difficult, but when she gets to a certain level of overwhelm she just shuts down. I remember looking at her workbooks at end of the year and so many ‘did not finish’ days. Next year we had a teacher who really understood send and it was a game changer - she was so good at noticing little things that made a massive difference, like where dd needed to sit or how to help dd get unstuck on a task before she entered the doom loop. She completed all her work, and better yet was much more happy and regulated in and out of school.

we are in a smaller class size so very lucky to get this level of attention , but even so I think some teachers are just more in tune with send than others. The fact that school more broadly has been receptive is positive, though - not all schools are!

I'm a teacher
• some teachers dislike children and /or parents
• you mentioned she's a character perhaps she's fine but not going overboard
• some children can annoy you or frustrate you (if this happens I have to work really hard to overcome it!

I found DS's primary school very dismissive of his autism. He's a "high functioning" masker and I sought the referral in y2 when he was seriously struggling with regulation the moment he stepped on to the playground and saw me. The 4 hour meltdown because I asked him if he'd changed his reading book is one my shins will not forget. The diagnosis came in y4 a few months before the Covid shutdown, and the school kept up lots of Coz Covid restrictions for 2 years. It was halfway through y6 before I was able to talk to a teacher in person.

Y6 was a shit show. Teacher 1, I only spoke to online where she railroaded through the 5 minute conversation. I managed to squeeze in that he looked like he was struggling during the recent video of a music lesson "Oh no, he loved it!" She trilled. Really??? Head on the desk hands clamped over his ears when he loathes tinny little instruments? That does not look like love to me!
DS mentioned somewhat later, after teacher 1 left that they were doing autism awareness and the teacher asked the class if they knew anyone autistic. When DS put his hand up and said that he was, she didn't believe him. The best bit is that she had been the SENCO two years earlier when his NHS headed diagnosis was made and we had exchanged correspondence on the matter!

Teacher 2 I actually did meet. I did not make a good first impression as I got my first word in there very promptly that I was shocked that halfway through y6 they were still making a dyslexic, dyspraxic child write in pencil in contravention of the OT report sent two years earlier in Feb '20, and that he needed to be comfortable and accustomed writing in pen before transitioning to secondary school. When I raised the issue of additional accommodations to support him with his SATs because autism, because dyslexia, because dyspraxia (stress, processing speed, writing speed, writing quality) I was shot down with "he doesn't need them, he's doing well enough". I decided at that point to let them hang themselves on their own attitude and not waste energy to fight it. He was going to a secondary with good SEN support that takes SATs with a pinch of salt, so when it was disclosed two days before he left that he did fail to meet his predicted targets and the teacher blamed "anxiety" (wow, funny how that's a legitimate reason for him to be eligible for the additional time they refused) the only negative consequence was on the teacher having to justify it to management. 🤷‍♀️

That was a dream class too. He was not lost amongst other children with more pressing, complex needs. I worked with them closely until Covid and they were well behaved and above average ability range. DS was very lucky with his class combination as he's easily stressed by excessive noise and people not following rules.

He's now doing brilliantly at secondary school, his needs are light-touch but taken seriously and he knows where he can get support and he has access to appropriate accommodations to help him reach his potential.

Funny how DS2 was allocated additional time for his dyslexia after I raised DS1's experience to that y6 teacher, but she was an excellent teacher who was on top of her game.
DS2 also happened to have teacher 2 the school year straight after DS1. It's not often that both DCs agree, but they did both agree that teacher 2 strongly favoured girls and was short on patience with boys. DS2 was relieved to not have her for the full school year when she moved on.

I've been a teacher, most are great or at least do what needs to be done. But teachers are human and some aren't so great. Some drop balls because they're stressed, demotivated or have other human flaws. Some still struggle to take additional needs seriously in quiet, masking children, and some schools don't have a helpful culture in meeting the needs of all their children.

It's incredibly frustrating when you have a child who just about copes and masks through and it's not being taken seriously. Even if the fallout isn't being shown in school, that comes out in other ways and can potentially be damaging. Support should be there to help children reach their potential, not just do "well enough".

(And I have had positive, constructive relationships with all the DCs' other teachers!)

I can only talk about my own experience with a teacher at secondary school. Head of year when I was 12/13 (don't know what that is but was 2nd year then) Absolutely hated me! I could do nothing right, accused me of hitting another kid...even when the kid said it wasn't me he still wanted to suspend me "for being there". In the corridor walking between classes with everyone else.

I know he asked every teacher about me. I was a teachers dream...worked hard, did home work etc. He pushed one of the younger teachers saying I really couldn't be like that and he didn't believe her (she told me this year's later) and wanted her to put me in detention for anything.

I found out about 10 years after leaving school and chatting to my uncle that had gone to the same school about 25 years before me that he, the uncle had been a little sod. That this teacher couldn't cope with him and his mates and that they had played some pretty dreadful tricks on him!!!

Clearly he thought I was the same....not in school my old son, not in school....outside 😈

Gah! No- you read my post properly but I meant that is what some people think! They think that there is a scourge of over diagnosis. You hear it all the time ‘in my day they would just be called naughty’ etc it was badly phrased! You would fall under genuine need - as would I and all the asd parents I know because no one would go through that for any nefarious reasons, I just wrote it weirdly.

they do diagnose under 4s regularly,
it is a bonus that they are recognised by the health visitor/nursery centre and referred.

i think it would have been better if you had spoken to the school about her reaction to assembly. rather than your suggestion.
she has no doubt labelled you also

Perhaps she's great with kids but finds small talk type social chat difficult.

You are assuming her to feel all these things and that she is looking down on you. Perhaps she's aware that everyone likes the bubbly teacher rather than her quiet and reserved nature and thinks you are looking down on her and clams up?

She has feelings beyond being a teacher too.

Ultimately your child might not be her favourite. We all find some personalities easier to click with than others.

It would have been more constructive to have had her at the meeting. Not a ADHT that doesn't know DC well. That's the point I was making.

So your comment about the teacher not attending a meeting was a bit disingenuous. They were carrying out their role as directed by their manager, not off on a jolly somewhere.

Have you got any tangible evidence that parents are spending thousands of pounds of their own money in order to ‘outsource responsibility’?

Because all I see is desperate parents who are just about sailing the ship, absorbing all of their DC’s distress and therefore getting help from nowhere. People scrimp and save for months just to afford an assessment to try and get their DC help. Join a forum of those who can’t afford to go private no matter how much they save and are therefore stuck on endless waiting to see what it’s really like.

If you didn’t realise, I really hate this dismissive attitude. And my child also has a ‘formal diagnosis’, including from the NHS. I’m still somewhat traumatised by the whole experience.

I'm a teacher and I nearly always defend the teacher but you seem really exceptionally reasonable and really kind. You already have some good advice and points here but I would just say don't worry too much about being that parent or asking too much from the school - your DD is entitled to support and removing her from assembly is such a easy thing to do, I would follow up and get something in writing for her. If your DD is happy and supported in school who cares if they think you are being demanding (and again, I really don't think you are - you could be asking for much more!)

I think you're wrong not to explain to DD that she has ASD especially now it is impacting her at school. There is never an easier age or easier time to explain. The older she is the harder it may actually be rather than easier as she might not want to hear it.

There is no point pretending she isn't different when she's already experiencing that she is. To me it's like people who don't tell they're kids that they're adopted or that their dad is actually their step dad. It's better to just always know. The only reason not to tell her is if you think it's a bad, shameful or negative thing that should be hidden and I think unfortunately your reluctance to acknowledge it when she was younger or want her 'labelled' as you call it does suggest this might be the case. If that is the case then please get some therapy for yourselves in helping you to deal with this diagnosis and how to tell your child in a positive way.

Her not knowing is not protecting her because she is still experiencing being autistic whether she knows the name for it or not.

You've referred to her behavior in the multidisciplinary meeting as a red flag - if she is an ECT or new teacher, has never attended a multidisciplinary before, has been sent unexpectedly as DHT cancelled last minute or felt ill then this explains her behavior. Possibly, she felt intimidated among a panel of experts.

She may be someone who is developing her people skills with families. She may be ace in the classroom. Do you think she is picking up that you are concerned and/or judging her? Does she sense that you prefer the 'superstar' other teacher? If so, she may be unconsciously putting distance between you.

Get the SENDCO to put adjustments into place re:assembly. There should be a nominated individual to help your child in those instances. Also ask about the training staff have had to support chn with ASD. Would a 'home school' communication book be beneficial?

Yes, she was. They were short staffed that day.