Please help me with this decision about school.

[postmanwatcher]

Background - son is youngest of 5. We moved when he was starting school so he is in a different primary to the others they are all in secondary now.

His 1st year at school he was bullied and it's becoming clear that was worse than we knew at the time. The teacher then played it down.

In his 2nd year at primary it became clear that he had not learnt anything the previous year and he spent this year struggling with literacy and numeracy and his writing was terrible.

In year 3 he had an amazing teacher and she worked so hard with him and got him extra help with reading and really boosted his confidence helping us to encourage him to socialise too.

No we are in year four and he is really struggling. The class has swollen to 35 and he is sinking. He is dependant on a number square to do simple sums like 9-4 or 10+7. His reading is better now but letter formation and handwriting is terrible. I have spoken to his teacher twice now and it's clear she doesn't like my interference. She refuses to admit he is behind and says 2 other kids in the class are at same level. (2 out of 35!!)

He is now very very anxious around school. Won't answer questions in case he is wrong. Gets very upset if he can't do something. He is beginning to become withdrawn refusing to go to scouts etc.

I need to add I work hard trying to consolidate all his work at home. We do homework together and we read together.

I don't know if I should move him to a different school or if I should get him a tutor. Or both? I really don't know what to do for the best. I do not feel his teacher is helping. She has a large class and doesn't seem to think there is an issue. His anxiety is so bad he is very constipated. And I'm very worried about him.

Thanks sorry for long post.

I’m really sorry to hear your son is having such a hard time at school. It sounds like there are two issues to address here: his academic learning and his emotional response to being at school.

Regarding his academic progress and the support in place for him, it sounds like things were a bit better last year. Do you have a sense of exactly what the previous teacher did that made a difference? Is your son able to articulate what was better about lessons for him last year? If you can, I’d think about making a note of the things that seem to have helped in the past and use that as a starting point for discussion with school. I’d approach it from a position of, ‘I realise that he’s struggling and I was hoping to have a conversation about what we can do to help him. I’ve had a think about things that seem to have worked before, I’m wondering whether we can try something similar.’ (It’s just more positive than, ‘These are some things you should be doing.’) If you’re having no luck with the class teacher, you could ask to have a meeting with the SENCo instead, or the SENCo and teacher together. Is he identified in school as having SEN? Should he be? That in itself could be a starting point for discussion.

Secondly, there’s the issue of how he feels about school. It could very well be linked to the learning issue, especially if he feels there’s a big difference from last year, but there may be some things you could try to help him shift his focus and notice the things that are going well. I wonder if it might help to ask him one or two specific, positively-framed questions after school each day. E.g, ‘Tell me about something that made you smile today’, ‘What did you do today that you were proud of?’ Just to draw his attention to something nice about his day. You could also ask the teacher / SENCo whether they have any intervention groups running to support children who are anxious/withdrawn. Could he benefit from accessing something like that in a small group?

Certainly none of this is ‘The answer’, but maybe some things to start you off.

Thank you for your reply. Last year the teacher was very enthusiastic and keen to help the slower kids in the class. She made sure he was given to opportunity to answer questions in class and if he clammed up she was patient and encouraged him by saying that he should just have a go it didn't matter if it was wrong. This year the teacher wants answers instantly and if she asks him to answer and he doesn't she clicks her fingers and says too slow and moves on to the next child.

I spoke to her today and asked that she send home a quick line scribbled in his homework book of things we can consolidate at home but again she was resistant saying she didn't always have time to do that.

She thinks he is anxious because I have unrealistic expectations of him and that is making him feel worse. I really don't think this is true though.