Dd 7 not doing well at school, what questions to ask at meeting?

[Askingschoolquestions]

On the odd occasion The school has spoken to me about this dc, I feel defensive because I feel dh and myself were under the cosh rather than (looking back to reception) other issues were discussed or what support they offered.

A friends friend has sen experience and offered to work with dd for a bit to see if she could see anything we need to act on, be concerned about..
Year 2, dd not achieving in spelling, maths or reading.
Friends friend said perhaps dyslexia, mixing up letters and or auditory processing. Friends F said she's not at all saying dd has these issues but at age 7 she's not getting things in the same way and it's best to rule these things out like sight and hearing test etc.

I've spent many years waiting for things to 'click' and not worrying.
Dd is not easy child to work with so what we can do at home has been v limited.

She's now making 'some' progress but what do we need to ask the school?

Weary.

Maybe I didn't write a clear post.
Myself and dh have been on the receiving end of quite aggressive meetings from the school.

Eg meeting with reception teacher where I went in good faith to discuss dd and ended up being grilled on what we do at home.
Again in good faith and very politely I explained how we try and support her, I reassured her that we do try and support her and that we managed to support older dc, High achiever very well.
I think it was obvious we are invested, supportive parents but the teacher kept on the same track.

For me, if I was the teacher, once it was obvious the dp were supportive and trying lots of tactics at home at that point I may have wondered if something else wasn't going on with the child. Eg learning difficulties.

That's why I felt defensive.
I didn't act defensive.
The other meeting, a quick chat ended up with myself and 3 others. I didn't feel that we were a team trying to help dd.

Now after having a comprehensive breakdown of where dd is mixing things up, etc I'm meeting the school and I'm scared.

I feel but will of course try not act defensively but I'm very worried because I've been read schools are not supportive in this area.

So what do I ask. What needs to happen.

You need to find out what she is finding difficult, what the school is going to do/doing about it and what you can do to help at home. If the response is that your dd has some learning needs, you can request a further meeting with the SENCo to discuss the matter further and formulate a plan together, if she needs more support than she is currently getting. Her needs may able to be met within the classroom, but if she is being identified as having Special Educational Needs, she should have targets and the provision to meet them should be made clear.

Drink, in worried because the school, or rather a teacher had me in, reception to ask about a specific thing.

Then another meeting I asked for, quick chat was un related to her learning. The school have not flagged anything up to me, actually raised the fact she's pretty much bottom of the class with me, she's doing the year below maths, she was maybe is still in 'intervention' groups and as parent I've found this out via scraps from dd occasionally and other parents.

I feel very removed and concerned that FF was able to identify things in an hour that no one has raised during nearly 4 years of schooling.

Drink sorry, from the FF it's perhaps memory, short term, getting was, saw mixed up as example, b and d etc repeatedly. Things like that.

Target the easy things first, eye tests, hearing tests. DS1 complained about reading the board... his eye test was good although the optician noticed that he picked up letters from other lines. With hindsight, that's his poor visual tracking at play. He has ended up with tinted glasses, overlays and workbooks to help.

Getting a paper trail and building up a big picture helps. DS had a speech delay which I first flagged up at 2 which then needed action from 3-5 when he caught up. This is highly likely to be connected with his literacy difficulties. Years later, that established background supports other types of concern.

What are her strengths and difficulties? Are there and odd idiosyncracies? For example DS struggles with rote times tables but is quick at more complex calculations because he always calculates compensating for struggling with memory associated with rote learning. Sometimes it's the gaps that tell you more than the extent of a skill itself.

What are her other skills like? Social skills, independence skills, co-ordination etc. What are her interests and attention span like?

Jot everything down on a piece of paper and link up your concerns and observations. This is useful if you end up with the GP or SENCO.

School budgets for SENs are dire even if staff are supportive and onboard. The word "dyslexia" was raised about DS1 from early in y1... it was 2.5 years later before we could get anywhere with dyslexia testing and even then we had to fund it ourselves. Fortunately the dyspraxia was also identified at the same time. We're still on lengthy waiting lists to address other areas of concern about his sensory and social needs.

Being on hold in the dark is tough. We found that you don't want to let them slip further behind, but you don't want to intervene and mask the nature of difficulties that could become problematic further down the line.

Shiny what concerns me is people pay a lot of money for private testing eg dyslexia and then, schools reject it.

Shiny what concerns me is people pay a lot of money for private testing eg dyslexia and then, schools reject it.

What do you mean any reject it?
It is unlikely that it would trigger any additional funding or an EHCP. It is likely to be along way down the list for EP time unless the school has few pupils with SEND.
The school will provide additional support but they are unlikely to have a specialist teacher. They will follow a commercial programme.

TBH as a parent of a now adult DS with SEN, I think the best favour you can do yourself is take a note book and visibly take notes. It is amazing how people become more polite and more helpful when there is a record of what they say. I just used to smile vaguely and say something like " this is obviously an important meeting, I just want to make sure I don't forget anything". If your DH can be there too so much the better.

Who asked for the meeting, you or the school?

In terms of questions to ask I'd suggest:

Do you think her educational achievement is delayed?
If so, in what respects?
What is her behaviour like in class?
How does this compare with other children her age?
Does this amount to a special educational need?
Do you recommend we seek an EHCP?
Why/why not?
Does she have friends?
What happens in the playground at break times?
How are you monitoring her?
What actions are you planning?
When should we meet again to assess progress?
Can we have a home/school book (where you and the teacher can write brief notes to each other eg she knows all those spellings now, can we have some new ones please or X seemed very tired in class today).
What can we usefully do at home to support her learning at school?

Note the key word is support. I have never yet been to a meeting at a school where they did not try to push everything onto me. I became expert at pushing it back to them. If they ask you what you are doing at home say that you feel you would like to hear first what the school's plan is and then once that is clear you can discuss how you can support at home the work being done at school.

Schools are under-resourced and teachers are very busy but do not let them get you on the back foot. If necessary keep repeating "thank you, but I would like to know what assessments and interventions the school is planning." There will be some funding for support groups within school e.g. SALT and social skills groups and your DD's teacher should give her differentiated work.

Be nice, smile a lot through gritted teeth and thank them, saying that you know they, like you, want the best for your DD and want to see her progress and you have found the discussion very helpful, even if you have not. Suggest another catch up at the end of term (or whatever interval seems best to you). Pleasant but implacable is what you are aiming for.

If they are being awkward with you, tell them you feel disappointed that the school, who are the experts and must see children with a wide range of needs and behaviours, do not seem to have a clear plan and go back into the questions above. They can't tell you how you feel and they should have a plan.

In reality though, I think you have to accept that once you have worked out what help your DD needs, a lot of it will have to come from you and you will need to get pushy.

My DS eventually moved to a special school as that was the best thing for him. Every single mum I met there (and it WAS always the mums) had pushed for an EHCP, had made sure they were on first name terms with the special needs team at the local authority, could recite their child's EHCP from memory and had spent hours and hours with their child working on whatever skills they needed. Pretty much all those children got GCSEs and some went on to university.

Your DD is still very young and please don't be disheartened. My DS as a young adult is a million miles away from where he was at primary school.

Totally agree with everything PP said, with knobs on.
Only thing I would add is to make sure that DC has near 100% attendance and is never late in the mornings. You're probably already on the case, but it can be used by teachers to push responsibility back onto the parents.

Everything Vonda says sounds very sensible.

re helping at home, my DD2 (now year 10) has always been reluctant to do much extra at home too. (She has various difficulties including slow processing in general and auditory processing - all uncovered in checks at secondary, despite me regularly flagging at primary).
Anyway these are things that have helped at home in case you want to try any of them.

• setting a timer for any extra work so DD can see it's not extending forever
• DD is more willing before school than after as she is more awake
• building into routine (this year we are doing 10 mins maths before school every day, at primary it was 10 minutes reading)
• start at home with stuff that is easy to build feelings of success
• sometimes say 'I know this is probably too hard, but I wanted to show you anyway' - gives permission to fail which frees the mind to try
• do stuff in the holidays, if you do say 15 mins maths per day for 4 weeks of the summer holidays that is 7hrs that your DD has done that her peers haven't
• sticker charts for doing the extra bits with rewards
• hiding stuff in other activities such as cooking, board games, thank you letters

Oh, forgot to say, have you chatted with your DD about how she feels about school? Is she in blissful ignorance or feeling negative because she is struggling?

@VondaVomin

Thank you so much for that brilliant post, that's the sort of thing I hoped someone would be kind enough to take the time to say, give me a good outline of what to ask. Thank you.

Teen plus, again thank you for those excellent tips. Indeed I set a timer to do house work, can't believe I never thought of it for dd.
Thanks to all posters who replied. I feel like I'm entering scary new waters where no one will want to help me and will actually be secretly working against me and my daughter.

I don't feel that school are secretly working against us, but there is a strong element of not seeing the full picture. Plus budgets being minimal. I spend two mornings running interventions that can no longer be supported by TA staffing, and DS is in a low priority class that has no TA support and no 1:1 needs where he can be strategically placed near a TA for an extra pair of eyes to keep him on track.

In our case the literacy and parts of the co-ordination aspects are clear, but DS masks some issues (such as releasing his emotional & sensory overload at home after being brilliantly behaved all day) and some can be minimised as being a bit quirky such as getting away with wearing shorts all year... fine with his current uniform policy, but all secondaries within 10 miles have strict, formal uniforms that will be a sensory nightmare. I foresee significant issues arising on secondary transition if the dyspraxia and sensory elements are underestimated and our alternative routes of investigation drag out too long or don't add any depth (currently on a long waiting list which will probably put us at a couple of years since the first GP visit).

Our problem is we have a bright "high functioning" child who falls apart in secret and shows quirks that are tolerable in school life at present. It suits school to only see the obvious literacy issues as otherwise he's an easy child to have in class. The school recommended the specialist we used and are on board with the recommendations even if measures such as his laptop have been funded by us (the teachers use creaking breeze blocks of laptops that are probably as old as the school!)

He was 7 when I joined up all the dots on various niggles that I'd pondered on over the years and drew up a clearer picture of difficulties than I expected. Just doing that mindmap was a gear changer for me and allowed me to change aspects of my approach at home, plus the GP took it seriously.

I was a teacher which is a little help but the SEN world has changed a lot (for the worse) in recent years and is still tough to navigate.